By Ashly Moore Sheldon • March 17, 2024
There are a lot of exciting book adaptations coming to the screen right now. We're excited to watch, but first we want to read (or even reread), because, as we all know, the book is (almost) always better. Here are fifteen of the latest, greatest book-to-screen adaptations. Order your copy of the source material so you can read before you watch.
If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father? This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings. This gripping novel by the bestselling author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers contemplates the complexities of marriage and sibling relationships. The series features Annette Bening, Sam Neill, and Alison Brie.
While racing 435 miles through the jungles and mountains of South America, Lindnord, the captain of a Swedish adventure racing team, shared his dinner with a stray dog. After that, the scruffy but dignified pooch wouldn't leave Lindnord's side. As they ran, kayaked, cycled, and climbed toward the finish line, the two formed an amazing bond. The movie stars Mark Wahlberg and Simu Liu.
In her rollicking, hilarious memoir, political journalist Chozick chronicles her front-row seat to the 2016 election on "The Hillary Beat," as her own life was also taking big turns. This provided the groundwork for this TV series, which follows the stories of four women journalists who become unlikely allies despite representing diverse and competing interests on the campaign trail.
After shooting President Abraham Lincoln in a crowded Washington D.C. theater, actor John Wilkes Booth inexplicably got away, leading Union cavalry troops on a wild, twelve-day chase across the swamps of Maryland and into the forests of Virginia. This gripping hour-by-hour account, told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, inspired the miniseries, starring Tobias Menzies.
Written by his daughter, this is the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, who, at age 29, canceled a ski trip and instead spent nine months engineering a risky plan to rescue 669 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and find them homes in the U.K. Over 6,000 people are alive today because of his efforts. The film stars Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter, and Johnny Flynn.
Orphan Jakub Procházka has risen from small-time scientist to the Czech Republic's first astronaut. Six months into a solo mission, struggling with isolation, missing his wife, and confronting unsettling thoughts, he discovers a giant alien spider who becomes his unlikely (and possibly imaginary) companion. The adapted film stars Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan.
1969—When Palm Springs socialite Maxine learns her husband is leaving her for his twenty-two-year-old secretary, she has a public meltdown and finds herself not only divorced, but banished. But the former beauty queen refuses to accept exile and hatches a plan to make her way back to the top. The star-studded TV series includes Kristen Wiig, Laura Dern, Allison Janney, and Ricky Martin.
From China's most beloved sci-fi author, this Hugo Award-winner is set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution. After a secret military project establishes contact with an alien civilization on the brink of destruction, they respond with plans to invade. Divisions form about whether to welcome the aliens or fight. The expansive adapted series comes from the creators of Game of Thrones.
Since 1926, the sweet stories of Christopher Robin and the animals of Hundred Acre Wood have charmed readers of all ages. That may be why the new series of slasher films featuring the once-cute characters has resulted in some startled viewers. In this sequel, Pooh and his pals embark on a bloody rampage seeking revenge on Christopher Robin. Not for children!!
Based on a true story, this propulsive novel has been adapted into a series starring Joey King and Logan Lerman. The Kurcs are a Jewish family living in Poland as World War II descends. As the horrors of the Holocaust become inescapable, they find themselves separated and flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to survive and hoping against hope that they will be reunited.
This is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-'90s Harlem. It is a ground's eye view of life on the streets: the shootouts, the bad cops, the hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre circumstances, and one medic's struggle to maintain his desire to help despite his growing callousness. The film stars Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced by a Bolshevik tribunal to spend the rest of his days on house arrest at the grand Metropol Hotel. As some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold beyond the hotel's doors, Rostov finds his reduced circumstances surprisingly revelatory. The series stars Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Leah Harvey
Chris O'Dowd stars in the series based on this book about a small Louisiana town upended by the arrival of a mysterious machine that promises, for two dollars, to reveal the user's life potential. Suddenly the residents of Deerfield, who may have thought themselves perfectly happy before, are abruptly changing course to pursue their new destinies as musicians, cowboys, athletes, and more.
Andi is shaken when her parents tell her that she was adopted as an embryo. But then she learns about the biological sister she never knew she had and it completely rocks her world. Dawson loved London and now she's dead. When London's mother tells him about the embryo they gave up for adoption, Dawson goes in search of the sister London never knew she had.
Tom Ripley is a young grifter determined to leave his past behind, when he's hired by a wealthy industrialist to curb his son Dickie's indulgent ways. Ripley's obsession with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns into a deadly rage. The dark, stylish series stars Andrew Scott as Ripley and Dakota Fanning as Marge, the charming American who gets caught up in Ripley's machinations.
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