22 Recent and Upcoming Book-To-Screen Adaptations to Carry You Through the Rest of the Year
Just as temperatures are dropping and the allure of staying in to read or watch tv or a film is on the rise, Hollywood is hitting us with a slew of book-to-screen adaptations. From classics like Gabriel Garcia Márquez's 100 Years of Solitude to older fare seeking new audiences like Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal published in 1971 to recent award winners like Charles Yu's 2020 Interior Chinatown, there's something for every kind of reader and viewer.
Recent Releases
Conclave (in theaters)
Cast includes: Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Sergio Castellitto, Carlos Diehz
Based on Conclave by Robert Harris
The pope is dead. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, 118 cardinals from all over the globe will gather to cast their votes in the world's most secretive election. They are holy men. But they are not immune to the human temptations of power and glory. And they are not above the tribalism and factionalism that consumes humanity. When all is said and done, one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on Earth.
White Bird (in theaters)
Cast includes: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren
Based on White Bird the graphic novel by R.J. Palacio
Tells the story of Julian's Grandmâere's childhood as she, a Jewish girl, was hidden by a family in a Nazi-occupied French village during World War II and how the boy she once shunned became her savior and best friend.
The Marlow Murder Club series (PBS)
Cast includes: Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan, Natalie Dew
Based on The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
After witnessing a murder while out for a swim in the Thames river, 77-year-old Judith Potts, when the police don’t believe her story, investigates for herself with the help of a salt-of-the-earth dog walker and the prim and proper wife of the local vicar, forming the Marlow Murder Club.
Pedro Páramo series (Netflix)
Cast includes: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Tenoch Huerta, Dolores Heredia, Ilse Salas, Héctor Kotsifakis, Mayra Batalla
Based on Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
Pedro Páramo is the otherworldly tale of one man’s quest for his lost father. That man swears to his dying mother that he will find the father he has never met—Pedro Páramo—but when he reaches the town of Comala, he finds it haunted by memories and hallucinations. There emerges the tragic tale of Páramo himself, and the town whose every corner holds the taint of his rotten soul.
Like Water for Chocolate series (Max)
Cast includes: Lumi Cavazos, Marco Leonardi, Regina Torné, Mario Iván Martínez, Yareli Arizmendi
Based on Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments With Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel; translated by Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen
Despite the fact that she has fallen in love with a young man, Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to a tyrannical rancher, must obey tradition and remain single and at home to care for her mother.
Rivals series (Hulu)
Cast includes: David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Bella Maclean, Nafessa Williams, Katherine Parkinson
Based on Rivals by Jilly Cooper
Into the cut-throat world of Corinium television comes Declan O'Hara, a mega-star of great glamour and integrity with a radiant feckless wife, a handsome son and two ravishing teenage daughters. Living rather too closely across the valley is Rupert Campbell-Black, divorced and as dissolute as ever, and now the Tory Minister for Sport. Declan needs only a few days at Corinium to realize that the Managing Director, Lord Baddingham, is a crook who has recruited him merely to help retain the franchise for Corinium. Baddingham has also enticed Cameron Cook, a gorgeous but domineering woman executive, to produce Declan's programme. Declan and Cameron detest each other, provoking a storm of controversy into which Rupert plunges with his usual abandon. As a rival group emerges to pitch for the franchise, reputations ripen and decline, true love blossoms and burns, marriages are made and shattered, and sex raises its (delicious) head at almost every throw as, in bed and boardroom, the race is on to capture the Cotswold Crown.
November Releases
Small Things Like These (November 8, in theaters)
Cast includes: Cillian Murphy, Michelle Fairley, Helen Behan, Eileen Walsh, Clare Dunn, Emily Watson
Based on Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
In a small Irish town in 1985, coal merchant and family man, Bill Furlong, while delivering an order to the local convent, makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
The Piano Lesson (November 8, in theaters and November 22, on Netflix)
Cast includes: John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Deadwyler
Based on The Piano Lesson, a play by August Wilson
When Boy Willie wants to sell the family's prized upright piano to purchase some land, the family must re-evaluate the piano's true worth.
Say Nothing series (November 14, Hulu)
Cast includes: Lola Petticrew, ,Hazel Doupe Anthony Boyle, ,Josh Finan Maxine Peake
Based on Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the notorious abduction and murder of I.R.A. Troubles victim Jean McConville as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with.
The Day of the Jackal series (November 14, Peacock)
Cast includes: Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Úrsula Corberó
Based on The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
A killer at the top of his profession, unknown to any secret service in the world, has a contract to kill French president Charles DeGaulle, one of the world's most heavily guarded men.
Cross series (November 14, Prime Video)
Cast includes: Aldis Hodge, Isaiah Mustafa, Juanita Jennings, Sharon Taylor
Based on the Alex Cross series by James Patterson
Alex Cross is a homicide detective with a Ph.D. in psychology. He works and lives in the ghettos of D. C. and looks like Muhammad Ali in his prime. He's a tough guy from a tough part of town who wears Harris Tweed jackets and likes to relax by banging out Gershwin tunes on his baby grand piano. But he also has two adorable kids of his own, and they are his own special vulnerabilities.
Here (November 15, in theaters)
Cast includes: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly
Based on Here by Richard McGuire
A graphic novel presents the story of a corner of a room and the events that have occurred in that space over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, from births and deaths to deer and dinosaurs.
The Widow Clicquot (November 16, Netflix)
Cast includes: Haley Bennett, Tom Sturrbridge, Sam Riley, Anson Boon
Based on The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by Tilar J. Mazzeo
Traces the life of a visionary young widow who built the Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin champagne empire, describing how events during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars inspired her achievements at the helm of a fledgling wine business and eventually rendered her one of the richest women of her time.
Dune Prophecy series (November 16, Max)
Cast includes: Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Jodhi May, Mark Strong, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina
Based on Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Decades after the Battle of Corrin destroys the thinking machines and establishes Faykan Butler as the first Imperium Emperor, war hero Vorian Atreides turns his back on politics while the Butlerian movement sweeps through the known universe.
Interior Chinatown series (November 19, Hulu)
Cast includes: Jimmy O. Yang, Ronnie Chieng, Chloe Bennett, Lisa Gilroy, Sullivan Jones
Based on Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
A stereotyped character actor stumbles into the spotlight before uncovering surprising links between his family and the secret history of Chinatown.
Cruel Intentions series (November 21, Prime Video)
Cast includes: Sarah Catherine Hook, Zac Burgess, Savannah Lee Smith, Sara Silva, John Harlan Kim
Inspired by Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos; translated by Helen Constantine
Published just years before the French Revolution, Laclos's great novel of moral and emotional depravity is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. Aristocrats and ex-lovers Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded lives. While Merteuil challenges Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, he is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. Eventually their human pawns respond, and the consequences prove to be more serious—and deadly—than the players could have ever predicted.
Wicked (November 22, in theaters)
Cast includes: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, Bowen Yang
Based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
Set in an Oz where a morose Wizard battles suicidal thoughts, the story of the green-skinned Elphaba, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the West, profiles her as an animal rights activist striving to avenge her dear sister's death.
December Releases
Earth Abides (December 1, MGM+ and Prime Video)
Cast includes: Alexander Ludwig, Jessica Frances Dukes, Todd Komarnicki, Elyse Levesque, Aaron Tveit
Based on Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. Only a few survive, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, to venture forward to experience a world without humanity
Nightbitch (December 6, in theaters)
Cast includes: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Patrick Snowden, Emmett James Snowden, Zoë Chao
Based on Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
An artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced that she is turning into a dog and, as her symptoms intensify, struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity a secret, until she meets a group of mothers who may also be more than what they seem.
The Return (December 6, in theaters)
Cast includes: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Tom Rhys Harries, Marwan Kenzari
Based on "The Odyssey" by Homer
The poem follows the path of Odysseus as he makes his way back from Troy and the trials his wife and son face protecting their home from ruin.
100 Years of Solitude series (December 11, Netflix)
Cast includes: Claudio Cataño, Susana Morales, Marco González, Leonardo Soto
Based on 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez; translated by Gregory Rabassa
A celebration of the endless variety of life in the mythical village of Macondo chronicles the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of the small South American town.
The Nickel Boys (December 13, in theaters)
Cast includes: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor
Based on The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys follows the experiences of two African American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.