Pulitzer Winner to Movie (Fiction)
by brijeshmarand | created - 28 Feb 2021 | updated - 09 Mar 2021 | PublicNovels are possibly the biggest influence on cinema. Their movie adaptations are often considered guaranteed winners for prestigious awards.
Here is the list of movies (having a minimum of 2,000 votes) adapted from Pulitzer Prize winning fiction.
Which of these movies do you think lived up to the expectations the most?
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1. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Romance
The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.
Directors: Orson Welles, Fred Fleck, Robert Wise | Stars: Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
Votes: 26,763
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1919
2. The Age of Innocence (1993)
PG | 139 min | Drama, Romance
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.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Linda Faye Farkas
Votes: 67,822 | Gross: $32.20M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1921
3. Alice Adams (1935)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A working-class girl is thwarted and embarrassed in her attempts to move up socially by her gauche family and unstable father.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Evelyn Venable
Votes: 4,566
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1922
4. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)
PG | 120 min | Drama, History, Romance
In 1714 Peru, a friar is tried by the Inquisition for questioning God's intentions when five die in the collapse of an Andean rope bridge.
Director: Mary McGuckian | Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Kathy Bates
Votes: 3,684 | Gross: $0.04M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1928
5. The Good Earth (1937)
Passed | 138 min | Drama, Romance
Although married Chinese farmers Wang and O-Lan initially experience success, their lives are complicated by declining fortunes and lean times, as well as the arrival of the beautiful young Lotus.
Directors: Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming, Gustav Machatý, Sam Wood | Stars: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch
Votes: 5,413
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1932
6. Gone with the Wind (1939)
Passed | 238 min | Drama, Romance, War
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.
Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 334,375 | Gross: $198.68M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1937
7. The Yearling (1946)
Approved | 128 min | Drama, Family, Western
A boy persuades his parents to allow him to adopt a young deer, but what will happen if the deer misbehaves?
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr., Chill Wills
Votes: 6,468 | Gross: $5.20M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1939
8. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Passed | 129 min | Drama
An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Votes: 99,980 | Gross: $0.06M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1940
9. In This Our Life (1942)
Approved | 97 min | Drama
The day before her wedding, a pampered young woman absconds with her sister's husband. Her sister begins seeing the woman's former fiancé.
Directors: John Huston, Raoul Walsh | Stars: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan
Votes: 5,261
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1942
10. All the King's Men (1949)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.
Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek
Votes: 16,593
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1947
11. South Pacific (1958)
Approved | 157 min | Musical, Romance, War
On a South Pacific island during World War II, love blooms between a young nurse and a secretive Frenchman who's being courted for a dangerous military mission.
Director: Joshua Logan | Stars: Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, John Kerr, Ray Walston
Votes: 9,810
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1948 (The Tales of the South Pacific)
12. The Way West (1967)
Approved | 122 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
In 1843, a former U.S. Senator leads a wagon train of settlers to Oregon, but his megalomania leads to growing dissatisfaction with his leadership.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Lola Albright
Votes: 3,572
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1950
13. The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Not Rated | 124 min | Drama, War
When a U.S. Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardises the ship, the first officer is urged to consider relieving him of command.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray
Votes: 29,901 | Gross: $21.75M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1952
14. The Old Man and the Sea (1958)
Not Rated | 86 min | Adventure, Drama
An old Cuban fisherman's dry spell is broken when he hooks a gigantic fish that drags him out to sea.
Directors: John Sturges, Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Felipe Pazos, Harry Bellaver, Richard Alameda
Votes: 8,643
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1953
15. Advise & Consent (1962)
Not Rated | 139 min | Drama, Thriller
The polarizing search for a new Secretary of State has far-reaching consequences.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon
Votes: 7,512
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1960
16. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Approved | 129 min | Crime, Drama
Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy
Votes: 332,957
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1961
17. The Reivers (1969)
PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama
In turn-of-the-century Mississippi, an 11-year-old boy comes of age as two mischievous adult friends talk him into sneaking the family car out for a trip to Memphis and a series of adventures.
Director: Mark Rydell | Stars: Steve McQueen, Sharon Farrell, Ruth White, Michael Constantine
Votes: 3,297 | Gross: $18.70M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1963
18. Gettysburg (1993)
PG | 271 min | Drama, History, War
In 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War.
Director: Ron Maxwell | Stars: Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen, Stephen Lang, Richard Jordan
Votes: 31,311 | Gross: $10.77M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1975 (The Killer Angels)
19. The Color Purple (1985)
PG-13 | 154 min | Drama
A tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery
Votes: 97,383 | Gross: $98.47M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1983
20. Ironweed (1987)
R | 143 min | Drama
An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his hometown of Albany, New York after returning there for the first time in decades.
Director: Hector Babenco | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Carroll Baker, Michael O'Keefe
Votes: 9,923 | Gross: $7.39M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1984
21. Beloved (1998)
R | 172 min | Drama, History, Horror
A slave is visited by the spirit of a mysterious young woman.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Yada Beener, Emil Pinnock
Votes: 9,584 | Gross: $22.85M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1988
22. The Mambo Kings (1992)
R | 104 min | Drama, Music
Two Cuban brothers bring a new music to the 1950s USA. They are as different as the problems that await them.
Director: Arne Glimcher | Stars: Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, Pablo Calogero, Scott Cohen
Votes: 5,959 | Gross: $6.74M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1990 (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love)
23. A Thousand Acres (1997)
R | 105 min | Drama
A family is torn apart after a father gives his valuable farm land to his daughters.
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse | Stars: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Robards
Votes: 5,816 | Gross: $7.94M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1992
24. The Shipping News (2001)
R | 111 min | Drama
An emotionally beaten man with his young daughter moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to reclaim his life.
Director: Lasse Hallström | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett
Votes: 33,924 | Gross: $11.43M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1994
25. American Pastoral (2016)
R | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An All-American college star and his beauty queen wife watch their seemingly perfect life fall apart as their daughter joins the turmoil of '60s America.
Director: Ewan McGregor | Stars: Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Peter Riegert
Votes: 18,055 | Gross: $0.54M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1998
26. The Hours (2002)
PG-13 | 110 min | Drama, Romance
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.
Director: Stephen Daldry | Stars: Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane
Votes: 138,534 | Gross: $41.68M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 1999
27. The Road (I) (2009)
R | 111 min | Drama, Thriller
In a dangerous post-apocalyptic world, an ailing father defends his son as they slowly travel to the sea.
Director: John Hillcoat | Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall
Votes: 254,289 | Gross: $0.06M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 2006
28. The Goldfinch (2019)
R | 149 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals 'The Goldfinch', a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.
Director: John Crowley | Stars: Oakes Fegley, Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright
Votes: 27,021 | Gross: $5.33M
Pulitzer Prize Winner - 2014
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