Notable book-based film adaptations

Get a glimpse of upcoming movies based on books along with a look at some of the best and worst adaptations.

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Opens Oct. 26

David Mitchell exploded the notion of the straight narrative without appearing gimmicky, which may explain why his inventive 2004 novel, "Cloud Atlas," was a Booker Prize finalist and won the British Book Award for literary fiction. The Wachowski siblings, along with Tom Twyker of "Run Lola Run" fame, take on the challenge of bringing the intricately arranged book -- comprised of six stories -- to the big screen. The all-star cast includes Halle Berry and Keith David (pictured here), along with Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon.

Reiner Bajo / Warner Bros.

Opens Nov. 16

Leo Tolstoy's 1877 novel "Anna Karenina," initially a serialized tale, routinely lands on best-of-literature lists. The tragic story takes place in late 19th-century Russia and follows the title character as she forsakes her powerful husband for the well-to-do Count Vronsky. But love does not conquer all, especially when it comes to the wrath of her social circle. Keira Knightley stars as Anna and once again teams up with director Joe Wright ("Pride and Prejudice," "Atonement") for this adaptation penned by none other than genius playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard.

Laurie Sparham / Focus Features

Opens Nov. 21

Yann Martel's 2002 Booker Prize winner "The Life of Pi" is the fantastical adventure tale of an Indian teenager who finds himself adrift on an ocean alongside a tiger, a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan after a shipwreck. Oscar winner Ang Lee takes directing duties in this cinematic reimagining, which stars Suraj Sharma.

Rythm & Hues

Opens Dec. 14

Before the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, there was J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 novel "The Hobbit" about a wee humanoid who is urged by the wizard Gandalf to leave his beloved Shire and embark on a dangerous journey. Sounds familiar, right? The protagonist here is Bilbo Baggins and the task is retrieving the dwarves' treasure from the dragon Smaug. Those who loved Peter Jackson's colorful take on the "Rings" series will be pleased to hear that he's once again lording over Middle-earth. Those who didn't might be perturbed to find that "The Hobbit" novel will result in another trio of films.

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Opens Dec. 25

Victor Hugo's often-adapted 1862 novel "Les Miserables" follows protagonist Jean Valjean, who juggles running from his nemesis, Inspector Javert, and raising his adoptive daughter, Cosette. The film is technically an adaptation of the Tony-winning musical based on the novel, and it's the sing-songy aspect of the production that has created the most trepidation. Does Anne Hathaway really have the range to sing "I Dreamed a Dream" in the role of the Fantine? After the film's first preview was released, viewers were divided. But good news comes in the form of Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper ("The King’s Speech") along with Hugh Jackman, who seems like a good choice to play Valjean.

Laurie Sparham

2012

"The Hunger Games," based on the young adult novel by Suzanne Collins, has been the biggest box office moneymaker of book adaptations (comic books not included) this year. Critics were fairly positive about the first in the trilogy about a post-apocalyptic society, in which children are forced into gladiator-like death matches. Screenwriter-director Gary Ross followed the book quite closely, and selected an able cast including Elizabeth Banks, left, and Jennifer Lawrence.

Murray Close / Lions Gate

2011

Writer-director Alexander Payne has a good track record with adaptations, including "Sideways," "About Schmidt" and last year's best screenplay Oscar winner, "The Descendants," shown here. The novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings was transformed into the understated film about a man (George Clooney) grappling with his wife's coma while trying to hold it together for his daughters (including Shailene Woodley, pictured).

Merie Wallace / AP

2007

A number of filmmakers had attempted to turn Cormac McCarthy's books into movies with little success. That is, until brothers Ethan and Joel Coen brought "No Country For Old Men" to the big screen, complete with the world's most terrifying bowl cut. The thrilling cat-and-mouse game of a movie brought home four Oscars, including best picture.

/ Reuters

2009

Peter Jackson might have found success with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy adaptation, but his take on Alice Sebold's 2002 novel "The Lovely Bones" can be filed under failure. Saoirse Ronan starred as murdered teen Susie Salmon, who watches from heaven as her family's grief unfolds. What in the novel came across as heart-wrenching, ended up appearing overly sentimental on the big screen.

DreamWorks Studios

2006

Dan Brown's puzzler of a novel, "The Da Vinci Code," was no great work of fiction. It was, however, entertaining, not to mention wildly popular. Not so for Ron Howard's plodding adaptation, which found Tom Hanks (with a most interesting 'do) starring alongside Audrey Tautou.

Simon Mein

2001-2011

The Harry Potter books made author J.K. Rowling a very, very rich woman, and her stories spawned a decade of films. Various directors tried their hands at capturing quidditch matches and invisibility cloaks, but it didn't seem to matter who was in charge. The public's appetite for all things Potter was insatiable, and film-goers became attached to the stars who grew up before our eyes -- Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe (pictured here in the final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2").

Jaap Buitendijk

2003

After the magic of Pixar, it's difficult to sit through a kid's movie that doesn't throw in a few laughs for the older set. The movie version of Dr. Seuss' beloved book "The Cat in the Hat," starring a furry-faced Mike Myers, falls into the no-fun-for-grownups category. Most people didn't enjoy it on a plane, and they wouldn't enjoy it on a train.

Sue Gordon / AP

2000

You might call Christian Bale's role in "American Psycho" the anti-Batman. Patrick Bateman kills homeless men and young women, when he isn't working on Wall Street. Bret Easton Ellis' novel made it to movie theaters by way of writer-director Mary Harron, and while the critical reception for the darkly comedic satire was generally good (if a bit creeped out), it was nothing compared to the movie's rabid cult following.

Kerry Hayes

1999

The first rule of "Fight Club" appears to be that everyone talks about how much they love "Fight Club." The novel by Chuck Palahniuk landed on the big screen under the direction of David Fincher. The story follows a protagonist (Edward Norton), who meets the mysterious, eccentric Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and the men found a secret society in which members find catharsis by punching each other in the face.

Merrick Morton / 20th Century Fox

1996

People loved it. People hated it. But no one should have been surprised. Baz Luhrmann isn't the type of director to bring an understated film to the big screen, and he made no exception when adapting Shakespeare's "Romeo + Juliet." There was chain mail and Hawaiian shirts, fireworks and gunfire. There was also a cast that made teenage girls squeal with delight, including Leonardo DiCaprio -- 1996's version of Justin Bieber -- and Claire Danes, best known then for her role on "My So-Called Life."

Merrick Morton / Twentieth Century Fox

1995

The movie version of "The Scarlet Letter" took just about every liberty with its source material, Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel about an adulterous woman. Roland Joffe's movie did indeed feature a bright red A. It also promised Demi Moore with a terrible accent, candle-lit baths, slow-mo sex scenes and unintentional laughter from the audience.

Corbis Sygma

1994

Is your remote control programmed to automatically flip to "The Shawshank Redemption" every time it's on television? It's a strange compulsion that can only be explained by writer-director Frank Darabont's masterful adaptation of Stephen King's short story "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption." Tim Robbins stars as a man wrongly imprisoned for killing his wife, while Morgan Freeman was nominated for an Academy Award for the role of a fellow-inmate and the story's insightful narrator.

Castlerock Entertainment

1991

Hannibal (the cannibal) Lecter didn't become a household name until Thomas Harris' second Lecter-featuring book, "The Silence of the Lambs," was turned into a movie with director Jonathan Demme at the helm. The movie was a huge success, and earned a number of Oscars, including best picture, best actor for Anthony Hopkins (as the aforementioned serial killer) and best actress for Jodie Foster as his verbal sparring mate, Clarice Starling.

/ Photofest

1980

Stephen King was apparently none too happy with Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of his novel "The Shining," but that hasn't stopped the continued popularity of the thriller. Jack Nicholson starred as the crazy caretaker of a remote hotel who decides all work and no play makes him a total psychopath.

/ Warner Bros.

1979

Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" may be a big leap from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," but both works attain masterpiece status. Martin Sheen, pictured, stars as a Vietnam-era captain sent into Cambodia to dispatch with a colonel-turned-provincial-demigod (played by a terrifying Marlon Brando), who decorates his front yard with disembodied heads.

American Zoetrope-Miramax Films / AP

1975

"Jaws" may have incited a number of bloody and horrific sequels, but the original is so much more than either its source -- a novel by Peter Benchley -- or its successors. Steven Spielberg directed the dramatic, moody suspense about three men hunting down a great white shark. Not surprisingly, the film took home the Oscar for best music for the score of discordant strings that many people involuntarily hear the second they set foot into the ocean.

Richard Forman / Paramount Pictures

1973

Books can leave indelible marks on readers, but sometimes the mental images can't compare to the visual ones. For example: the sight of little Regan MacNeil speaking in tongues and spinning her head around like a top. Director Max Von Sydow's "The Exorcist" is one of those movies that's difficult to forget. William Peter Blatty the novelist, who wrote the book in 1971, became William Peter Blatty the screenwriter, who took home an Oscar for the adaptation.

/ AP

1972

Mario Puzo's 1969 novel served as source material for the endlessly-quotable and enduringly laudable crime drama about an Italian mob family led by Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and, later, his son Michael (Al Pacino). The movie garnered three Oscars, including best picture and screenplay, and led to two sequels.

/ Paramount Home Entertainment

1962

It takes a special film to live up to the exceptional book "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. But director Robert Mulligan and screenwriter Horton Foote made a little bit of movie magic with their Oscar-winning adaptation starring Gregory Peck as Southern lawyer Atticus Finch, who defends an innocent black man against rape charges.

Universal Pictures / ABC

1946

If only every first-time author could be as lucky as Raymond Chandler. When his 1939 novel "The Big Sleep" was turned into a film, William Faulkner co-wrote the screenplay and Humphrey Bogart led the cast as private investigator Philip Marlowe. Director Howard Hakes' quintessential and convoluted film noir co-starred Lauren Bacall.

/ Turner Entertainment Co.

1939

Turning a Pulitzer Prize-winning book into a movie seems like a daunting task. But Victor Fleming (who also directed "The Wizard of Oz") was just the director to transform Margaret Mitchell's novel "Gone With the Wind" into a cinematic classic. The film took home multiple Oscars, including best adapted screenplay for Sidney Howard, and Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh carried the cast, embodying Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: Johnathon Carrington, valedictorian at Dunbar High School, laughs with family and friends after his school's graduation ceremony at Howard University on Friday, June 14, 2013, in Washington, DC. Carrington, who grew up in Tyler House public-housing apartments and is graduating from one of DC's low-performing high schoolsy, where academic expectations are high. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

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LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 16: Reenactors dressed as knights stage a medieval jousting competition at Eltham Palace on June 16, 2013 in Eltham, England. The 'Grand Medieval Joust' event at Eltham Palace, an English Heritage property which was the childhood home of King Henry VIII, aims to give a great insight into life at the palace during the medieval period. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

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In this June 8, 2013 photo, youth compete in the Sao Carlos slum local soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The pitch is just dirt and the incandescent lights aren't so bright. But when the boys' feet strike the football in the Sao Carlos slum as night falls every Saturday, big league dreams glow, inflated by the hope of escaping the shantytown with sporting skills. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 16: John F. Tatum Sr. hugs his grandson John F. Tatum III during his annual Father's Day block party on Sunday, June 16, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

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LAS VEGAS, NV - JUNE 16: Miss Connecticut USA Erin Brady reacts after being crowned Miss USA during the 2013 Miss USA pageant at PH Live at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on June 16, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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Notable book-based film adaptations

Get a glimpse of upcoming movies based on books along with a look at some of the best and worst adaptations.

FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES