Nobel Adaptations
by pbn | created - 09 Oct 2022 | updated - 10 Oct 2022 | PublicThis is just a small selection of films based on works by Nobel Prize winning authors. Which of these is your favorite adaptation?
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1. Happening (2021)
R | 100 min | Drama
An adaptation of Annie Ernaux's novel of the same name, looking back on her experience with abortion when it was still illegal in France in the 1960s.
Director: Audrey Diwan | Stars: Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luàna Bajrami, Louise Orry-Diquéro
Votes: 11,518
by Annie Ernaux
2. Red Sorghum (1988)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama, History, Romance
When a leprous winery owner in 1930s China dies a few days after his arranged marriage, his young widow is forced to run the winery to make a living while contending with bandits, her drunkard lover, and the invading Japanese army.
Director: Yimou Zhang | Stars: Gong Li, Wen Jiang, Rujun Teng, Ji Liu
Votes: 9,859
by Yan Mo
3. The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama
Accused barn burner and conman Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town and quickly ingratiates himself with its richest family, the Varners.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Orson Welles
Votes: 12,400
by William Faulkner
4. Spoor (2017)
Not Rated | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Janina Duszejko, an elderly woman, lives alone in the Klodzko Valley where a series of mysterious crimes are committed. Duszejko is convinced that she knows who or what is the murderer, but nobody believes her.
Directors: Agnieszka Holland, Kasia Adamik | Stars: Agnieszka Mandat, Wiktor Zborowski, Jakub Gierszal, Patricia Volny
Votes: 6,033
by Olga Tokarczuk
5. Aniara (2018)
R | 106 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
A spaceship carrying settlers to Mars is knocked off course, causing the consumption-obsessed passengers to consider their place in the universe.
Directors: Pella Kagerman, Hugo Lilja | Stars: Emelie Garbers, Bianca Cruzeiro, Arvin Kananian, Anneli Martini
Votes: 11,862 | Gross: $0.04M
by Harry Martinson
6. Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962)
Not Rated | 174 min | Drama
At the end of a long and hot summer day, members of one family gather in a large house. Everyone has something painful and offensive to say, and their silence is even worse.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Dean Stockwell
Votes: 5,917
by Eugene O'Neill
7. Charulata (1964)
Not Rated | 117 min | Drama, Romance
The lonely wife of a newspaper editor falls in love with her visiting cousin-in-law, who shares her love for literature.
Director: Satyajit Ray | Stars: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhavi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee, Shyamal Ghoshal
Votes: 7,194 | Gross: $0.08M
by Rabindranath Tagore
8. Far from Men (2014)
PG-13 | 101 min | Drama, War
Algeria, 1954. Two very different men thrown together by a world in turmoil are forced to flee across the Atlas mountains. Daru, the reclusive teacher, has to escort Mohamed, a villager accused of murder.
Director: David Oelhoffen | Stars: Viggo Mortensen, Reda Kateb, Djemel Barek, Vincent Martin
Votes: 8,801
by Albert Camus
9. Disgrace (2008)
R | 119 min | Drama
After having an affair with a student, a Cape Town professor moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
Director: Steve Jacobs | Stars: John Malkovich, Natalie Becker, Jessica Haines, Eriq Ebouaney
Votes: 5,823 | Gross: $0.07M
by J.M. Coetzee
10. Fateless (2005)
R | 140 min | Drama, Romance, War
14-year-old György's life is torn apart in WWII Hungary, as he is deported first to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald, where he is forced to become a man in the midst of hatred, and what it really means to be Jewish.
Director: Lajos Koltai | Stars: Marcell Nagy, Béla Dóra, Bálint Péntek, Áron Dimény
Votes: 7,148 | Gross: $0.20M
by Imre Kertész
11. 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: 9,574 | Gross: $22.85M
by Toni Morrison
12. Yentl (1983)
PG | 133 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A Jewish girl disguises herself as a boy to enter religious training.
Director: Barbra Streisand | Stars: Barbra Streisand, Amy Irving, Mandy Patinkin, Nehemiah Persoff
Votes: 15,817 | Gross: $40.22M
by Isaac Bashevis Singer
13. The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
On New Year's Eve, the driver of a ghostly carriage forces a drunken man to reflect on his selfish, wasted life.
Director: Victor Sjöström | Stars: Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg, Astrid Holm
Votes: 14,070
by Selma Lagerlöf
14. Barabbas (1961)
Approved | 137 min | Biography, Drama, History
Governor Pontius Pilate gave the populace a choice to spare either Barabbas, a criminal, or Jesus, condemned as a heretic, from crucifixion. The masses chose Barrabas, and he is haunted by the image of Jesus for the rest of his life.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Anthony Quinn, Silvana Mangano, Arthur Kennedy, Katy Jurado
Votes: 7,015 | Gross: $6.32M
by Pär Lagerkvist
15. A Fortunate Man (2018)
TV-14 | 162 min | Drama, Romance
A gifted engineer flees his austere roots to pursue wealth and success among Copenhagen's elite, but the pride propelling him threatens to be his ruin.
Director: Bille August | Stars: Esben Smed, Katrine Greis-Rosenthal, Benjamin Kitter, Julie Christiansen
Votes: 7,360
by Henrik Pontoppidan
16. 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: 5,406
by Pearl S. Buck
17. Elmer Gantry (1960)
Approved | 146 min | Drama
A fast-talking traveling salesman with a charming, loquacious manner convinces a sincere evangelist that he can be an effective preacher for her cause.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger
Votes: 12,805 | Gross: $11.34M
by Sinclair Lewis
18. Quo Vadis (1951)
Not Rated | 171 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
Directors: Mervyn LeRoy, Anthony Mann | Stars: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov
Votes: 16,722 | Gross: $24.29M
by Henryk Sienkiewicz
19. Lord of the Flies (1963)
Not Rated | 92 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Schoolboys marooned on a Pacific island create their own savage civilization.
Director: Peter Brook | Stars: James Aubrey, Tom Chapin, Hugh Edwards, Roger Elwin
Votes: 20,404
by William Golding
20. The Tin Drum (1979)
R | 142 min | Drama, War
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Director: Volker Schlöndorff | Stars: David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Katharina Thalbach
Votes: 25,730
by Günter Grass
21. Death in Venice (1971)
GP | 130 min | Drama, Romance
While recovering in Venice, sickly composer Gustav von Aschenbach becomes dangerously fixated with teenager Tadzio.
Director: Luchino Visconti | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli, Mark Burns, Nora Ricci
Votes: 23,020 | Gross: $0.15M
by Thomas Mann
22. Away from Her (2006)
PG-13 | 110 min | Drama
A man coping with the institutionalization of his wife because of Alzheimer's disease faces an epiphany when she transfers her affections to another man, Aubrey, a wheelchair-bound mute who also is a patient at the nursing home.
Director: Sarah Polley | Stars: Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Gordon Pinsent, Stacey LaBerge
Votes: 23,065 | Gross: $4.57M
by Alice Munro
23. Love in the Time of Cholera (2007)
R | 139 min | Drama, Romance
Florentino, rejected by the beautiful Fermina at a young age, devotes much of his adult life to carnal affairs as a desperate attempt to heal his broken heart.
Director: Mike Newell | Stars: Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Benjamin Bratt, Gina Bernard Forbes
Votes: 24,125 | Gross: $4.61M
by Gabriel García Márquez
24. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran
Votes: 37,969
by Ernest Hemingway
25. Adoration (2013)
R | 112 min | Drama, Romance
A pair of childhood friends and neighbors fall for each other's sons.
Director: Anne Fontaine | Stars: Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville
Votes: 36,644 | Gross: $0.32M
by Doris Lessing
26. The Piano Teacher (2001)
R | 131 min | Drama, Music
A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.
Director: Michael Haneke | Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot, Benoît Magimel, Susanne Lothar
Votes: 71,658 | Gross: $1.90M
by Elfriede Jelinek
27. The Remains of the Day (1993)
PG | 134 min | Drama, Romance
A butler who sacrificed body and soul to service in the years leading up to World War II realizes too late how misguided his loyalty was to his lordly employer.
Director: James Ivory | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, John Haycraft, Christopher Reeve
Votes: 84,324 | Gross: $22.95M
by Kazuo Ishiguro
28. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
PG-13 | 197 min | Drama, Romance, War
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger
Votes: 82,007 | Gross: $111.72M
by Boris Pasternak
29. 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: 99,868 | Gross: $0.06M
by John Steinbeck
30. My Fair Lady (1964)
G | 170 min | Drama, Family, Musical
In 1910s London, snobbish phonetics professor Henry Higgins agrees to a wager that he can make crude flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, presentable in high society.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Votes: 101,747 | Gross: $72.00M
by George Bernard Shaw
31. Enemy (2013)
R | 91 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A man seeks out his exact look-alike after spotting him in a movie.
Director: Denis Villeneuve | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini
Votes: 214,841 | Gross: $1.01M
by José Saramago
32. The Jungle Book (1967)
G | 78 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Bagheera the Panther and Baloo the Bear have a difficult time trying to convince a boy to leave the jungle for human civilization.
Director: Wolfgang Reitherman | Stars: Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, Bruce Reitherman
Votes: 198,438 | Gross: $141.84M
by Rudyard Kipling
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