There is no guarantee that a great book will also become a great film, as it’s actually seldom that they are equivalent in quality. There has certainly been no shortage of amazing classics of literature, the likes of which everyone had to read in high school, that were absolutely ruined when they were adapted to the screen. This year’s Wuthering Heights is only the most recent example, as Emerald Fennell only adapted half of the novel and seemed to entirely miss the point of what Emily Bronte was trying to say. At the same time, there are also cases in which a mediocre novel is transformed into a great film; Jaws, The Godfather, and Fight Club aren’t necessarily literary classics, but they inspired films that are among the best and most influential of their respective decades.
The Pulitzer Prize is the highest award that can be given to someone in the literary arts, and it has occasionally intercepted those who are also involved with filmmaking. Roger Ebert is among the few film critics to be awarded the prestigious prize, and it was also given to Bob Dylan, who has written many songs for films, including the Academy Award ‘Best Original Song’ winner “Things Have Changed” from the underrated Curtis Hanson dramedy Wonder Boys. It has been more often that Pulitzer Prize winning fiction is adapted to the small screen, as was the case with Park Chan-wook‘s version of the Vietnam War spy thriller The Sympathizer, which was made into a 7-part HBO series co-starring Robert Downey Jr. When done right, a great literary adaptation can help to introduce an entire generation to a classic novel by expanding into a new medium.
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‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939)
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Image via Loew's Incorporated</figure>
Gone With The Wind is one of the most influential films ever made and still the standard of which contemporary epics look like. Victor Fleming created some of the most imaginative and colorful visual setpieces of his time, and its due to the practicality of the film’s production that it still holds up as well today; most films that flirt with a running time of four hours end up feeling excessive and unnecessary, but Gone With The Wind is so immaculately transporting that these concerns aren’t an issue.
Gone With The Wind was a phenomenon unlike anything else because of the decades it spent in continuous release due to the demand of seeing it on the big screen, which earned it a long run as the highest-grossing film of all-time; today, it is still the biggest film ever when adjusted for inflation, as Avatar and Titanic haven’t quite been able to usurp it. While it came as the third in Clark Gable‘s run of appearing in three different films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Gone With The Wind is best remembered as being the breakout role for Vivien Leigh, whose performance as Scarlet O’Hara marked one of the first and most important instances of an empowered female character in a Hollywood film.
5
‘All The King’s Men’ (1949)
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Image via Columbia Pictures</figure>
All The King’s Men is an exhilarating and timely story about the abuse of power within the electoral system that warns about the influence of an outsider populist. Although the story is told through the perspective of the journalist Jack Burden (Jack Ireland), it is brought to life thanks to the brilliant performance by Broderick Crawford as the candidate Willie Stark, which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film itself is a Best Picture winner, and one of the more underrated ones at that; while the discussion of the greatest Best Picture winner of the ’40s seems to start and end with Cabalanca and The Best Years Of Our Lives, All the King’s Men has insightful commentary about the manipulation of the press.
All The King’s Men is a time capsule of its era that feels remarkably present because of how little the political process has changed, despite the development of new technology. It’s not a work of fiction that is easy to adapt, as evidenced by the terrible 2006 remake starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet.
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‘The Caine Mutiny’ (1954)
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Image via Hodder & Stoughton</figure>
The Caine Mutiny is a brilliant work of World War II era military fiction that examines a legal battle that follows the mutiny of soldiers who come to believe that their superior officer has lost his ability to command and needs to be deposed. Although there have been several solid adaptations of the play, including a recent film for Paramount Plus that was the last project of the late great William Friedkin, the best version thus far is a 1954 masterpiece starring Humphrey Bogart.
Bogart is perfectly cast in The Caine Mutiny because he was playing against type as a grouchy, uncontrollable force of chaos; it was shocking to see one of cinema’s most beloved leading men taking on such an unlikable role. Bogart earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and it’s a very impressive performance because he does show some sympathy to a character who is clearly dealing with a debilitating mental illness.
- The first film not in the English language to win Best Picture, in the Academy’s
92-year history to that point. - It took four Oscars in one night: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International
Feature. - It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2019 by a unanimous jury vote, the first Korean film
to do so. - The Park family’s modernist house was not a location. It was built from scratch on an
outdoor lot.
- Seven Oscars, including three acting wins for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee
Curtis. - Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress.
- The visual effects were handled by a team of fewer than ten people, most of them
self-taught. - Ke Huy Quan had all but left acting for two decades before this role brought him back.
- Seven Oscars, including Nolan’s first wins for directing and for Best Picture.
- Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. both took their first Academy Awards for it.
- Kodak engineered a black-and-white 65mm stock that did not previously exist so Nolan could
shoot those sequences on IMAX. - A three-hour, R-rated drama about theoretical physics that passed 950 million dollars
worldwide.
- Four Oscars, among them Best Picture and Best Director for Iñárritu.
- Emmanuel Lubezki’s win here was the middle of three consecutive cinematography Oscars,
after Gravity and before The Revenant. - Antonio Sánchez’s improvised drum score was ruled ineligible for the score category,
which caused a minor uproar. - The long-take illusion was built from a handful of extended shots joined by hidden cuts.
- Four Oscars: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem.
- Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel, with much of his dialogue carried over
intact. - Carter Burwell’s score runs about sixteen minutes and is nearly inaudible by design.
- Roger Deakins was nominated twice that year, for this and The Assassination of Jesse James,
and won for neither.
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‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ (1962)
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Image via Universal Studios</figure>
To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the best films of the ’60s and a perfect adaptation of the novel that replicates many of the passages word-for-word. Although there is a lot to recommend about the film, it is best remembered for the performance by Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, which both won the Academy Award for Best Actor and was ranked by the American Film Institute as the best movie hero of all-time (beating out Indiana Jones and James Bond).
To Kill A Mockingbird is a powerful coming-of-age story that dovetails into a riveting courtroom drama, with Finch’s final testimony serving as one of the greatest pieces of acting within cinematic history. It says a lot about the film’s lasting power that there hasn’t really been another attempt to readapt To Kill A Mockingbird for the big screen ever since, as perfection can’t be topped.
2
‘The Color Purple’ (1985)
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Image via Amblin Entertainment</figure>
The Color Purple was a bold film that marked a change of pace for Steven Spielberg, who was trying to be taken seriously after being dinged as a “populist” filmmaker by many of his critics. Although modern critics might dispute the idea of a white filmmaker taking on such an important African-American story, the reality of the situation was that Spielberg was the only filmmaker powerful enough to bring the novel to life in a respectful way, and used the assistance of both Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones to ensure that it was authentic as possible. That it was Jones who composed the score, and not John Williams, signified just how much Spielberg was willing to alter his style for the sake of doing the material justice.
The Color Purple features one of the best performances of the ’80s from Whoopi Goldberg, who became a star overnight. It is a film that has aged well, as most of Spielberg’s work does, because of the singularity of the craftsmanship and the strength of the entire ensemble, including Danny Glover in one of his most underrated performances. Although at the time the film made (negative) headlines for getting eleven Academy Award nominations and losing them all, in hindsight it has aged far better than the year’s actual Best Picture winner, Out of Africa. It’s a film that continues to age well, particularly when compared to the disappointing 2026 musical remake that failed to capture the same complex emotionality and certainly did not become a popular culture juggernaut in the same way that Spielberg’s classic had.
1
‘The Age of Innocence’ (1993)
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Image via Columbia Pictures</figure>
The Age of Innocence is a film that no one expected Martin Scorsese to make because it was released right after both Goodfellas (his most celebrated film) and Cape Fear (which was his biggest hit up until that point). Taking a swerve to make a period costume drama wasn’t in the cards, but Scorsese’s love of New York City extended beyond simply making gangster dramas. The Age of Innocence is a thrilling exploration of how wealth can become a cultural prison in which love is denied, and it was critical in being the first of Scorsese’s collaborations with the great Daniel Day-Lewis before they reunited for another New York drama with Gangs of New York. It also featured a standout performance by Winona Ryder, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, which proved that she had graduated into more mature roles after being a popular child star.
The Age of Innocence is also interesting in that it is one of the only one of Scorsese’s films that he personally penned the screenplay for, which has only happened occasionally. Scorsese clearly took the responsibilities seriously, and the result is one of his most underrated films ever, and one that should be used as an example whenever someone makes the ridiculous complaint that he “only makes gangster films.
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