50 Best Film Adaptations Meme

I’m generally not one to partake in memes on the blog (especially not two in a row), but I figure that since I’ve been writing about movies pretty much non-stop for the past month, it might make a good palate cleanser before I get obsessed with another topic.

Anyway, a few days ago, the Guardian listed the 50 best movie adaptations of books. Aside from the rather odd snubbing of the Lord of the Rings movies, a few people have started marking the list with what they’ve seen and read. Michael Hanscom and Jason Kottke have done so, and so will I (each line is tagged with a B if I’ve read the book, and an M if I’ve seen the move):

1. [BM] 1984

2. [B] Alice in Wonderland

3. [M] American Psycho

4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s

5. Brighton Rock

6. Catch 22

7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

8. [M] A Clockwork Orange

9. Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)

10. The Day of the Triffids

11. [M] Devil in a Blue Dress

12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)

13. [M] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)

14. [M] Doctor Zhivago

15. Empire of the Sun

16. The English Patient

17. [BM] Fight Club

18. The French Lieutenant’s Woman

19. [M] Get Shorty

20. [M] The Godfather

21. [M] Goldfinger

22. [M] Goodfellas

23. [M] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)

24. [BM] The Hound of the Baskervilles

25. [M] Jaws

26. [M] The Jungle Book

27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)

28. [M] LA Confidential

29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses

30. [M] Lolita

31. Lord of the Flies

32. [M] The Maltese Falcon

33. Oliver Twist

34. [M] One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

35. Orlando

36. The Outsiders

37. Pride and Prejudice

38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

39. The Railway Children

40. [M] Rebecca

41. The Remains of the Day

42. [M] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)

43. [M] Sin City

44. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

45. [M] The Talented Mr Ripley

46. Tess of the D’Urbervilles

47. Through a Glass Darkly

48. [BM] To Kill a Mockingbird

49. [M] Trainspotting

50. [M] The Vanishing

51. Watership Down

Not so bad, but nowhere near as impressive as Sameer Vasta, who has both read and seen 34 items on the list (with only 5 that he hasn’t read or seen). Like everyone else who has done this, I have no idea why the top 50 adaptations actually contains 51 items…

3 thoughts on “50 Best Film Adaptations Meme”

  1. 50 Best Book-to-Film Adaptations

    Remember that article in The Guardian that I linked to earlier this week that outlined the top 50 book adaptations into film? Well, turns out that article has spawned a new meme, which at the time of typing this, already has Michael, Jason, Mark, and C…

  2. That’s interesting.

    The ones that I’ve both seen and read:

    2. Alice in Wonderland

    7. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

    8. A Clockwork Orange

    13. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)

    17. Fight Club

    21. Goldfinger

    23. Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)

    37. Pride and Prejudice

    38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

    43. Sin City

    48. To Kill a Mockingbird

    Others I’ve seen and read:

    Thinner, Slaughterhouse 5, War of the Worlds, Memento (Memento Mori), The Haunting, And Then There Were None, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Invisible Man, All of the other Bond movies that were books, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and too many others to name.

  3. The 50 Best Books to Movies and Me

    Since I’m drawing all my inspiration from Mark at Kaedrin, here is my take on the Guardian’s best 50 book to movie adaptations: 1. [BM] 1984 2. [BM] Alice in Wonderland 3. American Psycho 4. [M] Breakfast at Tiffany’s…

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