Movies Based on Books

The surprising observation that several books I read recently had been made into movies sent me searching for a comprehensive web site listing novels and stories that have made it to the screen. I'm still searching, but so far one amateur site with about six hundred titles is as close as I've been able to come.

Browsing their database, and my records, inspired me to put together a few lists:

10 Movies to Add to My Rental List:

This is a list of books I've read (or started) that were made into movies in the past 10 years. I probably had a good reason for missing most of these, but curiosity keeps them on my rental list.

The 13th Warrior (1999)  (from Eaters of the Dead)
Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
Children of Dune (2003)   (from the TV miniseries)
The Door in the Floor (2004)
The Human Stain (2003)

A Map of the World (1999)
The Mighty (1998)   (from Freak the Mighty)
The Postman (1997)
Timeline (2003)   (I'm a third of the way through the book.)
The Virgin Suicides (1999)

My expectations are low, especially after the recent disappointment of Wonder Boys, A Thousand Acres, and The Shipping News. (Going back much farther than ten years, I hope one day to see The Collector, Last Summer, and Nickel Mountain, among other old favorites.)

10 Books to Add to My Library List:

A Beautiful Mind, Sylvia Nasar
Blood Work, Michael Connelly
The Bone Collector, Jeffery Deaver
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje

Mystic River, Dennis Lehane
A River Runs Through It, Norman MacLean
Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam   (released as October Sky)
Searching for Bobby Fischer, Fred Waitzkin
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

20 Books-to-Movies You May Have Missed:
And maybe you should have, but as I went back into the vaults, I rediscovered this crop of stories that I've both read and watched (usually in that order).

A Boy and His Dog, Harlan Ellison
After Dark, My Sweet, Jim Thompson   (overshadowed by The Grifters, that same year, this was the better adaptation)
Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins
First Blood, David Morrell   (the birth of Rambo)

The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg
Heaven's Prisoners, James Lee Burke
The Man Who Fell to Earth, Walter Tevis
The Milagro Beanfield War, John Nichols

The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Natural, Bernard Malamud
Red Dragon, Thomas Harris   (the debut of Dr. Hannibal Lecter; so good they made it into a movie twice...first as Manhunter)
The Road to Wellville, T. C. Boyle

Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Høeg
The Strawberry Statement, James S. Kunen
The Tin Drum, Günter Grass
Tough Guys Don't Dance, Norman Mailer
The Witches of Eastwick, John Updike

Note:   They're reading the same books in L.A. that I am, obviously. That television preview I kept ignoring all week—the scary-looking one starring Kirstie Alley—turned out to be based on the Sue Miller novel, "While I Was Gone," that I read and forgot about from two summers ago. Maybe it was a blessing that I missed it.