149. The Last Picture Show
How did New York’s Peter Bogdanovich make a masterpiece set in small town Texas when he had never set foot in the state?
Tag Archives: Literary adaptation
116. Fight Club
When it was released, Fight Club was rubbished by critics and rejected by audiences. Now it’s regarded as a masterpiece. So what changed people’s minds?
115. Doctor Zhivago
David Lean’s film of Boris Pasternack’s Nobel Prize Winning Novel whittled the sprawling epic down to a simple love story. Was it successful?
113. The Crying Game
Neil Jordan won an Oscar for his script, but only after every studio had turned him down saying his story was uncommercial, offensive and the characters unsympathetic.
108. The Usual Suspects
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist. Is this the greatest heist movie ever made?
107. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wes Anderson may share his surname with other directors, but there’s no mistaking his films for anybody elses.
103. The Talented Mr. Ripley
The 1960 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel was already so revered, was Anthony Minghella wise to try a new version?
97. The English Patient
Lyrical language and elliptical plotting can work in a novel, but not necessarily in cinema. Does The English Patient succeed?
81. Atonement
Ian McEwan’s novel was always going to be a tough nut to crack, but Joe Wright and Christopher Hampton delivered a modern classic of a tragic tale.
77. Barry Lyndon
Stanley Kubrick’s most awarded film is the one that Martin Scorsese says was his best. Ridley Scott worships it. So why is it so seldom seen?
61. The Night of the Hunter
Released in 1955, The Night of the Hunter was greeted with scorn by critics and ignored by audiences. How wrong they were.
58. Jane Austen in Film
Jane Austen’s readers zealously protect her novels from filmmakers. Does their pride prejudice or benefit the films?
