The Academy Awards are Hollywood’s night of nights – the creme de la creme of the film industry gather to dole out trophies and honour best performances, direction, costumes, and all the rest. For us bookish types, though, we’re usually curled up on our couch at home, wondering how on earth a movie won when the original book version was so much better. Here are twenty books adapted into Oscar-winning movies.
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Movie: Gone With The Wind (1939)
Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Editing
“A sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.”
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Movie: To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
Oscars: Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction
“A widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama defends a black man against a false rape charge while teaching his young children about the sad reality of prejudice.”
Read my full review of To Kill A Mockingbird here.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Movie: Rebecca (1940)
Oscars: Outstanding Production, Best Cinematography – Black and White
“A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat’s wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife’s spectral presence.”
Read my full review of Rebecca here.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Movie: Little Women (2019)
Oscars: Best Costume Design
“19th century Massachusetts. While the March sisters – Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth – enter the threshold of womanhood, they go through many ups and downs in life and endeavor to make important decisions that can affect their future.”
Read my full review of Little Women here.
Room by Emma Donoghue
Movie: Room (2015)
Oscars: Best Actress
“A little boy is held captive in a room with his mother since his birth, so he has never known the world outside.”
Read my full review of Room here.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Movie: Still Alice (2014)
Oscars: Best Actress
“A linguistics professor and her family find their bonds tested when she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Read my full review of Still Alice here.
The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Movie: The Old Man And The Sea (1958)
Oscars: Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
“An old Cuban fisherman’s dry spell is broken when he hooks a gigantic fish that drags him out to sea.”
Read my full review of The Old Man And The Sea here.
Misery by Stephen King
Movie: Misery (1990)
Oscars: Best Actress
“After a famous author is rescued from a car crash by a fan of his novels, he comes to realize that the care he is receiving is only the beginning of a nightmare of captivity and abuse.”
Read my full review of Misery here.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Movie: The Hours (2002)
Oscars: Best Actress
“The story of how the novel Mrs. Dalloway affects three generations of women, all of whom, in one way or another, have had to deal with suicide in their lives.”
Read my full review of The Hours here.
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
Movie: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay
“It’s the summer of 1983, and 17-year-old Elio is spending the days with his family at their villa in Lombardy, Italy. He soon meets Oliver, who’s working as an intern for Elio’s father. They discover the heady beauty of awakening desire.”
Read my full review of Call Me By Your Name here.
The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Movie: The Age Of Innocence (1993)
Oscars: Best Costume Design
“A tale of nineteenth-century New York high society in which a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman’s cousin.”
Read my full review of The Age Of Innocence here.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Movie: Atonement (2007)
Oscars: Best Original Score
“Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister’s lover of a crime he did not commit.”
Read my full review of Atonement here.
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
Movie: Girl, Interrupted (1999)
Oscars: Best Supporting Actress
“Directionless teenager Susanna is rushed to Claymoore, a mental institution, after a supposed suicide attempt. There she befriends a group of troubled women who deeply influence her life.”
The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Movie: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
Oscars: Best Actress
“Eccentric and well-meaning teacher Jean Brodie’s extravagantly romantic ideas about life and love overly impress her young pupils in 1930s Edinburgh, bringing her into direct conflict with her school’s conservative headmistress.”
Read my full review of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie here.
All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Movie: All The King’s Men (1949)
Oscars: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Picture
“The rise and fall of a grass-roots rural politician who eventually becomes mired in the sort of political corruption he vehemently railed against on his way to the governor’s mansion.”
Read my full review of All The King’s Men here.
Sense And Sensibility by Jane Austen
Movie: Sense And Sensibility (1995)
Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay
“Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her three daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. The older two daughters are the title opposites.”
Read my full review of Sense And Sensibility here.
Emma by Jane Austen
Movie: Emma (1996)
Oscars: Best Original Music or Comedy Score
“While matchmaking for friends and neighbours, a young 19th Century Englishwoman nearly misses her own chance at love.”
Read my full review of Emma here.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Movie: Oliver! (1968)
Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Score of a Musical Picture, Best Sound, Honorary Award
“After being sold to the mortician Sowerberry, young orphan Oliver Twist runs away and meets a group of boys trained to be pickpockets by their elderly mentor Fagin in 1830s London in this musical based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.”
Read my full review of Oliver Twist here.
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Movie: Alice In Wonderland (2010)
Oscars: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
“Nineteen-year-old Alice returns to the magical world from her childhood adventure, where she reunites with her old friends and learns of her true destiny: to end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.”
Read my full review of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland here.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Movie: The Great Gatsby (2013)
Oscars: Best Costume Design, Best Production Design
“A writer and wall street trader, Nick Carraway, finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his mysterious millionaire neighbor, Jay Gatsby, amid the riotous parties of the Jazz Age.”
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