The excitement one feels when their favorite book is immortalized on screen cannot be understated. Just the whiff of a rumor inspires so many questions – who will play the main character? How will that scene be portrayed? Will the director take liberties with the story, or will this be a straight adaptation?
Sometimes we’re disappointed, sometimes delighted. Whether or not you’ve read the book first, take a chance on our favorite book-to-movie adaptations currently on Netflix.
The Lost Daughter (2021)
Olivia Colman plays Leda — a college professor on vacation in Greece — who meets and befriends Nina (Dakota Johnson), a young mother. Through watching Nina with her daughter, Leda relives her own experience with motherhood, and the unbearable pain of the choices she made with her children, some years before.
The stunning scenery and devastating soundtrack provide the backdrop for this adaptation of elusive author Elaina Ferrante’s thought-provoking novel and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Based on the 1993 novel — Tony and Susan — by Austin Wright, Nocturnal Animals is an emotionally provocative, visually stunning journey. From the opening credits alone, you’ll know you’re in for a wild ride. I recommend this video, which helps to explain some of the visual clues in the story.
Gallery owner Susan (Amy Adams) is reading ex-husband Tony’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) novel, while coming to grips with the emptiness of the life she’s made without him.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, Gerald’s Game takes us to the absolute brink of sanity as Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) is left handcuffed to a bed in a secluded cabin after her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) dies of a heart attack during a role-playing session. As hours turn into days, Jessie begins to hallucinate a frightening figure coming to visit in the night, as dead Gerald serves as her conscience and taunts her with the reality of her situation and her (seemingly repressed) dark memories.
Fans of Stephen King will invariably draw comparisons to another Stephen King novel – The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case (2023)
Based on the 2012 true crime novel People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo — and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up, Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case tells us the story of 21-year-old Lucie Blackman – who went missing in Tokyo in the year 2000. She had decided to take a year off of college and join a friend in Japan to experience the culture and have a truly immersive experience by actually living there. Lucie disappeared after only having been there less than a month, and it would be months before investigators had any answers for her friends and family. This documentary follows the gruesome details of the case and a conviction for her killer, who had another young victim in addition to Lucie.
Tell Me Who I Am (2019)
Marcus Lewis had a unique opportunity to re-write history for his beloved twin brother, Alex, after a motorcycle accident left him with amnesia at 18 years old. Having no memory of his life before the accident, Alex only recognized Marcus, and Marcus became his lifeline. He began to paint a picture for Alex of an idyllic family and upbringing, which would be destroyed when he learned the truth after the death of their mother. This truth was more horrific than anything he could have imagined, and shattered his image of his mother and of his childhood.
The book that Alex and Marcus wrote about their experience started them on a road to healing and the making of the documentary proved therapeutic as well, not just cathartic for their own mental health, but to rebuild their bond as identical twins.
Girl in the Picture (2022)
A young woman — 22-year-old Tonya Hughes — is found alive on the side of a highway in Oklahoma City in 1990, but later dies of her injuries. Thus begins a mystery that unfolds to expose the multiple crimes perpetrated by Franklin Delano Floyd, a drifter with a criminal past from North Carolina.
Tonya turned out to be Suzanne Marie Sevakis, who was kidnapped by Floyd as a child in 1975 and raised as his daughter, and forced to marry him later. In between were years of a nomadic lifestyle, only to be murdered by Floyd — who, it was learned later, had struck her with his car when she tried to escape him.
They had a child together, Michael Anthony Hughes, who was removed from the home after Tonya’s death and placed in foster care at the age of two, where he remained for four years. Floyd pursued custody of his son but was unsuccessful, so in 1994 he kidnapped the boy at gunpoint from Indian Meridian Elementary School in Choctaw, Oklahoma. To this day, Michael has never been found, and Floyd died on death row on Jan. 23, 2023, at the age of 79.
This heart wrenching documentary is based on the true crime account, A Beautiful Child: A True Story of Hope, Horror, and an Enduring Human Spirit by Matt Birkbeck.
A Life Too Short: The Isabella Nardoni Case (2023)
In March 2008, a 5-year-old little girl named Isabella Nardoni fell from a window of her father and stepmother’s apartment in São Paulo. The parents claimed that an unknown assailant broke into the apartment and threw the child out of the window. But as police began to investigate, it was discovered first that the safety net outside Isabella’s window had been cut. Then the investigation was further clouded by inconsistencies in the accounts of the incident by the parents, and indeed, a pair of scissors was found in the apartment and was positively identified through fiber analysis to be the tool used to cut the safety net. There was also blood found in the apartment. As soon as it was determined that this was a homicide, these facts caused a media frenzy as public opinion swayed against them.
Alexandre Nardoni and Anna Carolina Jatobá were convicted based purely on circumstantial evidence, and are serving out their time in Brazilian prisons. Murdered Brazilian Children: Isabella Nardoni Case, Murder of João Hélio Fernandes Vieites, by Albertina Berkenbrock, inspired the doc.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Set in the year 1983 and based on the 2007 novel of the same name by André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name tells the story of Oliver, who agrees to spend the summer at his archeological professor, Mr. Perlman’s Northern Italy home to assist with administrative work. Also living in the house are Mr. Perlman’s wife, Anella Perlman, and their son, Elio.
Elio and Oliver begin a tentative but passionate relationship, but not until nearly the end of Oliver’s stay. Due to the climate of unacceptance of people’s lifestyle choices of the time, the two must keep their romance secret and go their separate ways at the end of the summer.
Later, we see Elio returning home for Christmas, and Oliver calls to tell them that he is engaged. Obviously some time has passed, but Elio has not forgotten his first love. He talks to Oliver on the phone who says, “I remember everything.” They then call each other by each other’s names, and end the call. What follows is an emotional scene of Elio staring into the fire of the fireplace, the performance cementing Timothée Chalamet’s place in the upper echelons of Hollywood.
The Wife (2017)
Starring Glen Close as the titular Wife — Joan Archer — The Wife, based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer, tells the story of a woman whose career and talent have been overshadowed by her husband, successful author Joseph Castleman. A narcissist of the highest order, we learn that Joseph is about to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. But Joseph has been taking the credit for Joan’s work, who has been producing bestsellers one after the other in his name. As Joan’s uneasiness grows into disdain for her husband, our sympathy for Joan only increases.
The story culminates in Joan telling Joseph she wants a divorce, which causes him to have a heart attack and die. His death seems to be the catalyst for Joan to finally bring the truth to light, a turning point for a woman manipulated and gaslit for decades.
The Land of Steady Habits (2018)
A slice-of-life comedy/drama starring Ben Mendelsohn, The Land of Steady Habits, based on the novel of the same name by Ted Thompson, explores the life of Anders Harris, a divorcé recently retired from his career in finance. Anders seems to have difficulty coming to grips with the fact that he is no longer a part of his ex-wife’s life and is hilariously resistant to the idea that she has moved on with someone new. Their adult son, Preston, similarly is having a failure to launch situation, still living at home and reliant on his mom to help him find work. Anders finds temporary solace in befriending his ex-neighbor’s son — Charlie — a ne’er-do-well with a drug habit.
The three main antagonists in the story all seem to be flying through the air without a net, looking to one another for guidance, but there’s none to be found. The sudden death of Charlie has a jarring effect on the characters, and each is forced to move into the next phase of their lives.
