Books – particularly Booker Prize selected novels – have long been a fruitful creative well for filmmakers, with literary adaptations such as The English Patient and Schindler’s List stacking up awards and etching themselves into the altar of cinema greats.    

As a film critic who is also an avid bibliophile, book adaptations offer a precious chance to better understand how different creative practices lend themselves to tackling thorny, thought-provoking subjects.   

From Anthony Hopkins breaking hearts in a period romance to a queer Korean psychological thriller, these 10 films inspired by Booker-nominated (or winning!) novels are all testament to the brilliance that can happen when the right creative team tackles an acclaimed novel for the screen. It’s no wonder they also happen to be some of my favourite films of all-time. 

The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan-wook, adapted from Fingersmith by Sarah Waters  

My very favourite of all adaptations on this list, Park Chan-wook’s erotic psychological thriller is also the one to take the most liberties with its source material. While the original Booker Prize 2002 shortlisted novel takes place in Victorian Britain, the film is set in 1930s Korea during Japanese occupation. There, a young handmaiden is hired to serve a Japanese heiress who lives in a lavish countryside estate owned by her abusive uncle. The two women are quickly swept into a superbly crafted game of turning tables.  

Although South Korea failed to submit the film as their entry to the Best International Film Oscar that year, The Handmaiden felt momentous for the wider appreciation of Korean cinema. Just two years later, in 2020, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite would make history as the first non-English language film to win Best Picture.   

One can see why The Handmaiden felt like such a watershed moment, as Park Chan-wook’s masterwork superbly seesaws between tension and release – both narratively and thematically. It’s a film I can rewatch endlessly and, even though I’m already privy to its secrets, I still find new things to love about it each time.

Notes on a Scandal, directed by Richard Eyre, adapted from Zoë Heller’s novel  

There are few issues as difficult to tackle onscreen as the sexual abuse of a minor. Yet, Eyre’s adaptation of Heller’s Booker Prize 2003 shortlisted page-turner acutely understands that Notes on a Scandal is not simply about the illicit relationship between a teacher and her student. It is, most of all, an examination of loneliness, yearning, ageing and womanhood. 

Dame Judi Dench plays bitter veteran teacher Barbara (the narrator both in the book and the film), whose dull routine is broken by the arrival of a newcomer, ceramics teacher Sheba Hart (played by Cate Blanchett). An unlikely friendship blossoms between the two, their relationship suddenly morphing into much more complicated territory when Barbara finds out Sheba is having a criminal affair with her 15-year-old student.   

Terrifically performed by two legendary actresses, Notes on a Scandal is my go-to whenever I want to be reminded of how films can keep a viewer on the edge of their seat. The film offers a refined marriage between a beyond-competent cast and a script that expertly tackles complex issues such as morality, the British class system, and sexuality.   

True History of the Kelly Gang, directed by Justin Kurzel, adapted from Peter Carey’s novel  

Anchored by a chilling performance by the great George MacKay, this gritty Australian offering always comes to mind when a friend asks me for a recommendation for an under-the-radar thriller. From the opening title card, it is clear there are different perspectives on this ‘true history’ in Carey’s 2001 Booker-winning original and Kurzel’s adaptation – the latter a murkier, much more slippery portrayal of the iconic outlaw Ned Kelly.   

The film begins with Ned writing a letter to his unborn child, a scene defying the long-standing myth that the criminal was illiterate. ‘Every man should be the author of his own history,’ says Ned’s mentor, a terrifying Russell Crowe.  

Readers will find much to appreciate in the film’s investigation into who gets to write history and, most importantly, who gets to rewrite it. A playful take on one of Australia’s most notorious figures, the story is primarily concerned with how toxic masculinity and an Oedipal complex have shaped the man behind the legend. That the film does so with a permanent undercurrent of punk rebellion that leads to a hallucinatory fever dream of a climax is a much-welcome bonus.   

The Remains of the Day, directed by James Ivory, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel  

Whenever I’m in the mood for a good old tearjerker, it takes only the memory of Anthony Hopkins’s big blue eyes swimming in a pool of quiet tears in this affecting historical drama to instigate tears of my own. 

In the screen adaptation of the 1989 Booker Prize winner, the veteran British actor plays the butler of the imposing Darlington Hall. It is postwar Britain, and the estate is home to several unofficial meetings that come to define the trajectory of the country’s future. Most importantly, below stairs, an impossible love is developing between the butler and a recently arrived maid played by Emma Thompson.  

Director James Ivory’s romance takes a searing look at how British life is shaped by class, while never losing its grip on the agonising futility of falling in love for a man whose life revolves solely around duty. In this, the film masterfully mirrors the quiet desperation of the novel, made even more affecting thanks to two career-best performances from Hopkins and Thompson.  

Die, My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay, adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s novel  

Scottish auteur Lynne Ramsay finally returned to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival this year, almost a decade after You Were Never Really Here took the event by storm. The director came back with a treacherous, steaming psychological thriller that keenly grasps the mania of Ariana Harwicz’s International Booker Prize 2018 longlisted novel, starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence as Mother and Robert Pattinson as Father.   

We first meet the couple as they bask in the intoxicating fumes of a new love, their hands never too far away from one another. Ramsay has moved the action from the French countryside to rural Montana, where Mother and Father work to make a dilapidated house in the woods a home. With the arrival of their first child, the clunky building feels like home at last. 

But this new-family bliss doesn’t last long, with Ramsay gnawing at preconceptions around motherhood and womanhood with great help from the always stellar Lawrence. The film is very much a sensorial experience, with sharp sound design and a palette of greys, greens and blues helping the Scottish director usher the viewer into Mother’s state of mind.   

As a longtime Ramsay fan who also adored Harwicz’s knotty novel, this stunner of a thriller felt well worth the wait. Hopefully the adaptation – released in UK cinemas on 14 November 2025 – will help bring both the book and its Argentinian author to a wider audience.

Never Let Me Go, directed by Mark Romanek, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel 

Released in 2010, Romanek’s adaptation brought together several actors who have since become some of our most popular movie stars, including leads Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. The drama first finds the trio as children in a rigid boarding school somewhere in a dystopian near future as they find out the horrifying secret of their existence: they’ve been bred and raised to eventually have their vital organs surgically removed for the benefit of an unspecified ruling class.  

A poignant, deeply moving low-fi sci-fi, Never Let Me Go beautifully captures the melancholia of Ishiguro’s Booker Prize 2005 shortlisted novel. It tortuously allows us to experience a glimmer of hope for these characters doomed from their very first breath, while effectively examining the moral complications of human cloning and the possible existence (and importance) of the human soul. This adaptation sits high on my list of most rewatched films. It’s a nifty companion for those times of deep dispiritedness that also never loses sight of the rewarding nature of togetherness.   

It’s no coincidence that Kazuo Ishiguro appears twice in my top 10 film adaptations of Booker books. The novelist’s signature worldbuilding and his tendency to show rather than tell perfectly lend themselves to the big screen. Luckily for fans like myself, two more films are about to join this select rank: Kei Ishikawa’s adaptation of A Pale View of the Hills and Taika Waititi’s of Klara and the Sun (which was longlisted for the Booker in 2021).  

Cloud Atlas, directed by The Wachowskis, adapted from David Mitchell’s novel  

The Wachowskis’s wildly ambitious epic inspired one of my all-time favourite reviews, by legendary film critic Roger Ebert. In his writing, Ebert understood that the best way to tackle an elusive film is by examining the very nature of its indefinability. David Mitchell’s novel is just as elusive as the film it inspired: shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004, the genre-defying beast spans six interconnected tales, all written in unique styles and told from different perspectives.   

Such a singular book begged for an equally singular adaptation, and only a creative duo as visionary as The Matrix’s The Wachowskis could have produced a film like Cloud Atlas. Starring a heavyweight A-lister cast that includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon, the film jumps from its science fiction premise to weave an ode to empathy. I’m always moved by the sheer ambition of the film, which has proved a handy litmus test for new friendships: those friends willing to surrender to its mysteries are definitely worth treasuring.   

Small Things Like These, directed by Tim Mielants, adapted from Claire Keegan’s novel  

Keegan’s Booker Prize 2022 shortlisted novel is a harrowing read about a coal merchant who discovers evidence of abuse against teenage girls at a convent on the edge of his small Irish town. The film adaptation proves just as gut-wrenching, despite the quietness of its delivery. 

Starring Oscar-winning Irish actor Cillian Murphy as merchant Bill, Mielants’s drama may seem muted, but it holds great tension in how it establishes the moral dilemma of its main character: should he follow his conscience and help the desperate girls, but risk social exile, or should he look the other way and continue to enjoy the privileges of his community?   

A deeply emotional yet vital watch, Small Things Like These is an urgent reminder of the still-present ripples of the past, looking back at Ireland’s recent history to ensure the stories of many still-nameless women do not go untold. For those who, like me, may not have known much about the sombre history of the Magdalene laundries, the film is even more urgent, although I recommend great care going in for those who may be emotionally distressed by its themes.

Eileen, directed by William Oldroyd, adapted from Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel  

Ottessa Moshfegh has rapidly solidified her position as one of the leading literary voices of her generation, and it didn’t take long for the film industry to zoom in on her work. Although three of her bestselling books are currently being adapted by renowned directors — Yorgos Lanthimos and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, David Lowery and Death in Her Hands, and Andrew Haigh and McGlue — the only film that’s reached the big screen so far is Oldroyd’s unsung Eileen, adapted from Moshfegh’s 2016 Booker Prize shortlisted debut novel.  

Starring Thomasin McKenzie as the titular secretary who becomes infatuated with Anne Hathaway’s prison counsellor to a dangerous extent, this polished affair channels classic tropes from 90s erotic thrillers to amplify the unreliable gaze of our narrator. While the book leans into ugliness to communicate the barrenness of Eileen’s surroundings, Oldroyd opts to frame his adaptation in the sleeker lights of the neo-noir. In this, he plays with the glaring power imbalance between the two women to craft a film unwilling to neatly tie up its mysteries. I, for one, am easily sold by any film that features Hathaway languidly puffing cigarettes in a gorgeous blonde wig.

The Comfort of Strangers, directed by Paul Schrader, adapted from Ian McEwan’s novel  

Many films come to mind when one thinks about Venice as a setting, from Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice to Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. I have lost count of how many times I’ve caught myself fiercely defending Paul Schrader’s The Comfort of Strangers as an often-overlooked Venice-set gem. 

Adapted from Ian McEwan’s Booker Prize 1981 shortlisted novel, the film features Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson as a young couple whose life is torn apart by an encounter with Christopher Walken’s peculiar bar owner and his glamorous wife, played by Helen Mirren.  

This erotic thriller understands the claustrophobia of Venice like few others. It also understands the intoxicating nature of the city’s beauty, here juxtaposed with that of its protagonists. In this, Schrader’s adaptation becomes an intriguing observation of the ugliness that can come out of a perpetual thirst for the beautiful, made even more credible thanks to a renowned cast in top form. For those of you who, like me, are great fans of late 80s/90s thrillers, this film is a surefire bet.