The best films based on books: from historical ones to the most recent, cinematographic transpositions of literary works to see, directed by great directors or who have left their mark.
Films are not always worse than the novels they are based on, as we often hear. There are cases – and this is confirmed by the ranking of best films taken from books that you can read below – in which the director’s creative flair and his authorship manage to give new life to a text that has been abused too often in the cinema (think to the classics of Jane Austen, or Lev Tolsotj) leaving a mark so deep in the collective imagination that it obscures the novel from which they originate.
When the director accepts the arduous challenge of translating some literary best-seller to the big screen. Committed to finding the right balance between adherence to the source text and personal interpretation, he positions his own camera consciously that will hardly be able to match the version of the story created mentally by the reader. Between disillusioned spectator expectations and creative divergences, here comes the much feared judgment: “yes, the film is nice, but in the end the book was better”. But there are exceptions that almost everyone agrees: here are the best films taken from books, with a small clarification: the films are listed by year of release, from the oldest to the most recent.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Repressed love, which tears apart, destroys and then explodes in all its violent passion is the one narrated with poignant transport by Annie Proulx in her 1997 story People of Wyoming and brought to the screen in 2005 by And Leeeback with The Secrets of Brok Mountain..
Oscar nominations for Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger and a statuette for best director for Ang Lee, the film about the passion between the two cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist against the backdrop of 1960s Wyoming is one of the love stories among most moving ever brought to the screen. Undressed in the mask of manly John Wayne cowboys, Ennis and Jack become symbols of a fight against prejudice in the name of that true love too often hidden from the eyes of a society dominated by anachronistic and unjust ideals.
Children of Men (2006)
So big and so distressing, Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian film starring Clive Owen and Michael Caine actually rests its solid narrative foundation on PD James’s novel of the same name. Making good use of the utopian and futuristic references of the novel from which it is based, in The Children of Men Cuarón draws from the pages of James above all the gray, oppressive, colorless world, devoid of colored dreams and the full screams of life of children to give life to a ghostly, almost post-atomic universe, a cinematic memento of an increasingly possible future and which in 2006 (and even earlier in 1993) seemed unlikely and far away, while now too close.
Atonement (2007)
Difficult for those who decide to transpose the novels of Ian McEwan to the big screen. Since 1975 (the date of his literary debut with First love, last rites ) the author has created a micro-universe made up of temporal planes that are intertwined in a tangle that is difficult to unravel. With Atonement Joe Wright is, to date, the only one who has been able to recreate the atmospheres and complex psychologies of the characters who live among the pages of the English author.
Work on the strength of the imagination and the creative, but also destructive, power of words, Atonement is perhaps McEwan’s most complex novel, brilliantly translated by Joe Wright, thanks to a lively and engaging screenplay by Christopher Hampton and an Oscar-winning soundtrack. by the Pisan Dario Marianelli.
The Oil Tanker (2007)
Did you know that one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s most acclaimed films, The Oilman, is actually inspired by the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair? Published between 1926-27, the book is a social satire on the years just following the Teapot Dome scandal. Anderson takes the first 150 pages of this book and draws an essay on blinding human greed. His film is a gallery of bodies joined to the earth and ready to get dirty with that black gold that they look for obsessively and for which they are willing to do anything, even to break and corrode. Blinded by the desire for wealth, or God-fearing, Anderson’s characters bring to the stage one of the best films of the past decade, backed by a masterful performance byDaniel Day-Lewis.
Don’t Leave Me (2010)
Inspired by the novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro, Alex Garland’s screenplay for the film directed by Mark Romanek faithfully follows what is narrated by his literary source. The likelihood and the distance from the narrated reality compared to the one we know deceive the reader that what is told is a possible future; a future in which the fate of its protagonists is already marked by the mutilation of their surnames. For surname Kathy, Ruth and Tommy have only one letter, that’s enough for boys whose birth enslaves the physical depravity of organs destined for those who have a surname. The three (masterfully played by Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield ) are clones, mere bargaining chips.
Appropriating the intrinsic meaning of Ishiguro’s novel, with Don’t Leave Me Garland and Romanek show how much man, in order to defeat death, comes to lose his humanity by showing himself in its unspeakable monstrosity. And this is how the clone becomes more human than the human itself.
We Are Infinite (2012)
There is a bit of John Hughes in the story of Charlie Kelmeckis, a taciturn 14-year-old with a sad look, eyes full of pain and a smile that hides a desire to open up to the world that is not always achievable. With We Are Infinite Stephen Chbosky translates his 1999 cult novel into a sincere love letter to being a teenager, between repressed memories, never feeling up to par and a soundtrack shot into the speakers to free himself from anxieties and fears. With subdued delicacy, Chbosky describes Charlie’s crises while keeping the gaps of a traumatized memory intact. Fragile and courageous, the protagonists are brought to the screen by three of the most charismatic actors of their generation ( Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller) adept at embodying their characters’ idiosyncrasies, weaknesses and strengths making them even more real.
Liar Love – Gone Girl (2014)
Among the great directors capable of carefully manipulating a precious jewel like a literary work without distorting it but rather infusing it with their own authorial vision, there is certainly David Fincher. After the cult Fight Club and the remake of Millenium: Men who hate women, in 2014 the director transforms an excellent thriller like Liar love – Gone Girlin one of his most iconic and successful films, thanks to the performance of an icy Rosamund Pike as Amy and an excellent Ben Affleck as Nick. The game of appearances, suspicions and family conventions that strangle us, kill us and then resurrect us, caged in ink marks by Flynn, find in Fincher their new, perfect, storyteller.
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
We conclude our ranking of the best films based on books and novels with Call me by your name by Luca Guadagnino: a game of glances. Even before leading to a passionate relationship, the bond between Elio ( Timothée Chalamet ) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) is made up of eyes that scrutinize and admire an idealized beauty, beauty that can be found everywhere, from the countryside to the village square. Italian, to the remains of ancient statues or an American guest sleeping in your house.