Booker Prize books that have been adapted for film and television

Life of Pi (2012) - Yann Martel’s 2002 modern classic about a boy who finds himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a tiger named Richard Parker. In an adaptation directed and produced by Ang Lee, the film stars Irrfan Khan as the adult Pi, Rafe Spall as The Writer, Tabu as Pi’s mother, and Adul Hussain as Pi’s father. It was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture - Drama and Best Director, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. It was also nominated for 11 awards at the Oscars in 2013, and won four, including Best Director for Lee.  Trailer >>

Midnight’s Children (2012) - Salman Rushdie, the author of the 1981 book, actually narrated the film adaptation. The Times of India said the film was a love letter to India, and wrote that it ‘moves you with its heart and words, especially when Rushdie murmurs, ‘Without passport or permit, in a basket of invisibility, I returned - to my India.’ The film was directed by Deepa Mehta, who also wrote the screenplay with Rushdie, and stars Rajat Kapoor, Shriya Saran, Satya Bhabha and Anita Majumdar.  Trailer >>

Oscar and Lucinda (1997) - A young English clergyman who has broken with his past and developed a disturbing talent for gambling and a country girl of singular ambition who moves to Sydney, driven by dreams of self-reliance and the building of an industrial Utopia. The film adaptation of the 1988 Peter Carey novel stars Cate Blanchett, Ralph Fiennes, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson, and was nominated at the 70th Academy Awards for the Best Costume Design. It won five AACTA Awards in Australia.  Trailer >>

Possession (2002) - Two modern-day academics uncover a secret affair between famous fictional poets. Based on 1990’s gloriously exhilarating novel of wit and romance by A.S. Byatt. The screenplay, with its considerable deviations from the book, was written and directed by Neil LaBute and stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart.  Trailer >>

The Remains of the Day (1993) - Adapted from the 1989 Kazuo Ishiguro novel, the film was directed by James Ivory with a screenplay written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, herself a Booker winner. Anthony Hopkins takes on the role of the ageing butler, with Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeve and Hugh Grant also starring. Hopkins won Best Actor at the 1993 BAFTA awards for his performance, and the film won three London Film Critics Circle awards.  Trailer >>

The Sea (2013) - The story of a man who returns to the seaside where he spent his childhood summers, in search of peace following the death of his wife. It was adapted for the screen by John Banville, the author of the 2005 book of the same name. Directed by Stephen Brown, the film features an impressive cast of acting talent, including Ciarán Hinds, Sinéad Cusack, Rufus Sewell, Natascha McElhone and Charlotte Rampling.  Trailer >>

The Sense of an Ending (2017) - A middle-aged man is forced to reconsider his life when confronted with his imperfectly remembered past. Based on the 2011 book by Julian Barnes, the film adaptation was directed by Ritesh Batra and written by Nick Payne. It stars Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter, Billy Howle, Emily Mortimer and Michelle Dockery.  Trailer >>

The White Tiger (2021) - Written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, The White Tiger tells the story of Balram, who comes from a poor Indian village and uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty. An adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 novel of the same name, the film stars Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Rajkummar Rao.  Trailer >>

Alias Grace, A Month in the Country, An Artist of the Floating World, Arthur & George, Atonement, A Whole Life, Breakfast on Pluto, Brick Lane, Cloud Atlas, Elena Knows (Elena Sabe)  Eileen, Empire of the Sun, Figures in a Landscape, Fingersmith (as Fingersmith and also re-named as The Handmaiden), Hurricane Season, Morality Play (re-named The Reckoning), Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Never Let Me Go, Notes on a Scandal, On Chesil Beach, Pascali’s Island, Restoration, Room, Small Things Like These, Staying On, St Urbain’s Horsemen, The Bookshop, The Butcher Boy, The Comfort of Strangers, The Dressmaker, The Driver’s Seat, The Garden of Evening Mists, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Little Stranger, The Luminaries, The Night Watch, The Old Devils, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Van and Waterland

Alias Grace (2017) – This six-episode miniseries, directed by Mary Harron and written by Sarah Polley, is based on Margaret Atwood’s 1996 captivating historical fiction novel about the notorious 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. It stars Sarah Gadon, Edward Holcroft, Rebecca Liddiard, Zachary Levi, Kerr Logan, David Cronenberg, Paul Gross, and Anna Paquin.  Trailer >>

A Whole Life (2023) - Based on Robert Seethaler’s 2014 novel, this film was adapted for the screen by Ulrich Limmer. Seethaler’s book has been translated into 40 languages, with the English translation by Charlotte Collins shortlisted for the 2016 International Booker Prize. This life story of Andreas Egger is told over eight decades of the last century - a story about finding dignity and beauty in solitude that looks at the moments, big and small, that make us who we are. Shot in the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, the film was directed by Hans Steinbichler and stars Austrian actor Stefan Gorski.  Trailer >>

Breakfast on Pluto (2005) – This Golden Globe-nominated comedy drama was written and directed by Neil Jordan, based on the 1998 novel by Patrick McCabe, with the two writers working together to make big story changes in the screen adaptation. The film stars Cillian Murphy as the transgender foundling searching for love and her long-lost mother in small-town Ireland and London in the 1970s. It also stars Stephen Rea, Brendan Gleeson and Liam Neeson, with a cameo by the book’s author in the film as the lead character’s creative writing teacher.  Trailer >>

Brick Lane (2007) - Directed by Sarah Gavron, who received a BAFTA nomination for this directorial debut, and starring Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik and Christopher Simpson. The film is based on the 2003 novel by Monica Ali, with a screenplay written by Laura Jones and Abi Morgan.  Trailer >>

Cloud Atlas (2012) - This epic science fiction film was written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. Based on the 2004 novel by David Mitchell, it has multiple plots occurring across six eras in time. The cast members, including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant, perform anywhere between three and six roles each.  Trailer >>

Fingersmith (2005) - This three-part BAFTA-nominated BBC mini-series is an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel of the same name. Set in an evocative Victorian underworld, it follows the linked fortunes of two very different young women, in an intriguing blend of mystery and suspense, secrets and betrayal. Directed by Aisling Walsh, with a screenplay written by Peter Ransley, it stars Sally Hawkins, Imelda Staunton, Elaine Cassidy, Rupert Evans and Charles Dance.  Trailer>>

The Handmaiden (2016) - This psychological thriller is directed by Park Chan-wook and stars Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo and Cho Jin-woong. The film is inspired by the 2002 book Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, with the setting changed from Victorian-era Britain to Korea under Japanese colonial rule. With a screenplay written by Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong, it won a BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language.  Trailer>>

Hurricane Season (2023) - When a group of teens finds a corpse floating in a canal, the brutal reality behind the perverse crime unravels a town’s hidden secrets. The screenplay, written by Daniela Gómez, is an adaptation of Fernanda Melchor’s acclaimed novel. This English language Mexican film was directed for Netflix by Elisa Miller and stars Edgar Treviño, Ernesto Meléndez, Andrés Córdova, Paloma Alvamar, and Kat Rigoni.  Trailer>>

The Reckoning (2003) - This British-Spanish murder mystery drama film was directed by Paul McGuigan and stars Paul Bettany, Willem Dafoe, Tom Hardy, Gina McKee, Brian Cox and Vincent Cassel. The screenplay was written by Mark Mills and based on the 1995 novel Morality Play by Barry Unsworth. The late Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert rated it 3/4 stars and wrote that though there is too much emphasis on the mystery, the film works because of the characters.  Trailer>>

Pascali’s Island (1988) - An historical fiction drama based on the 1980 novel by Barry Unsworth. The film is set in the summer of 1908 on a Greek island, where a Levantine informer in the pay of the Ottoman authorities, Pascali, has for 20 years been sending in his reports to Constantinople. Now, he fears that the Greeks on the island have discovered what he is, and that his days are numbered. The film was written and directed by James Dearden, and stars Ben Kingsley, Charles Dance, Helen Mirren and Kevork Malikyan.  Trailer>>

Restoration (1995) - An American historical drama directed by Michael Hoffman, based on the 1989 book by Rose Tremain. This extremely entertaining film adaptation boasts a star-studded cast lead by Robert Downey Jr. as a 17th-century medical student exploited by King Charles II. Also starring Sam Neill, Meg Ryan, Ian McKellen and Hugh Grant, the film won two Oscars - for art direction and also for costume design.  Trailer>>

Room (2015) - The screenplay for this harrowing story had actually been written by Emma Donoghue before she wrote the book, which was published in 2010. Directed by Lenny Abrahamson, it stars Brie Larson as a young woman held captive in a suburban garden shed for seven years with her five-year-old son, who was born in captivity. Room has received multiple awards and nominations, including the Best Actress award from the Golden Globes, BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy Awards. The film received three other Oscar nominations - for Donoghue’s screenplay (also BAFTA nominated), Abrahamson’s directing and for Best Motion Picture of the Year.  Trailer>>

Small Things Like These (2024) - Cillian Murphy is both star and producer of this film adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novel, shortlisted for the Booker in 2022. Set in an Irish town in the mid-eighties, a busy coal and timber merchant encounters the complicit silences of a small community controlled by the Church. It also stars Emily Watson and Ciaran Hinds and the film was financed by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s production company. Directed by Tim Mielants, the screenplay was written by Enda Walsh. It had the honour of being the first Irish film to open the prestigious Berlinale in February 2024 as part of Zeitgeist Irland 24, a year-long celebration of Irish culture in Germany.  Trailer>>

The Comfort of Strangers (1990) - Directed by Paul Schrader, and starring Christopher Walken, Rupert Everett, Natasha Richardson and Helen Mirren. This chilling psychological thriller about love, violence and obsession centres around an English couple on holiday and their encounter with an unsettling stranger. The screenplay by Harold Pinter was adapted from the 1981 book by Ian McEwan.

The Dressmaker (1988) - A British drama directed by Jim O’Brien and starring Joan Plowright, Billie Whitelaw and Pete Postlethwaite. This adaptation of the 1973 novel by Beryl Bainbridge, set in wartime Liverpool, is a darkly comic tale about the shockingly unexpected consequences of a young girl’s heartbreak.

Identikit (1974) - (aka The Driver’s Seat)  - An Italian film directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Raffaele La Capria. Based on the 1970 book The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark, it’s a psychological drama starring Elizabeth Taylor and Ian Bannen, and featuring an uncredited Andy Warhol as an unlikely English lord.

The Garden of Evening Mists (2019) - This Malaysian English-language historical drama was directed by Tom Lin Shu-yu, and stars Lee Sin-je, Sylvia Chang and Hiroshi Abe. Adapted from Tan Twan Eng’s 2012 book, the story follows a woman, still haunted by her experiences in a Japanese internment camp as a child, who travels to Cameron Highlands during the Malayan Emergency and becomes the apprentice of a mysterious Japanese gardener.

The Luminaries (2020) - Eleanor Catton’s epic novel was adapted for television as a six-part series, directed by Claire McCarthy, with a screenplay written by the book’s author. Starring Eva Green, Himesh Patel and Eve Hewson, the series follows a young adventurer who has travelled from the UK to start a new life for herself in New Zealand during the 1860s West Coast Gold Rush.

The Night Watch (2011) - Based on Sarah Waters’ 2006 book about four Londoners whose lives and secrets during and after the Second World War connect in often startling ways. A made-for-television film, it was adapted by Paula Milne and directed by Richard Laxton, and first broadcast on BBC Two. The cast includes Anna Maxwell Martin, Claire Foy and Jodie Whittaker.

The Old Devils (1992) – The novel by Kingsley Amis, published in 1986, was adapted for BBC TV by Andrew Davies. It stars John Stride, Bernard Hepton, James Grout and Ray Smith in a dark comedy about four Welsh couples, old university friends, now at the retirement phase of life and seemingly bent on growing old disgracefully.

A Brief History of Seven Killings (release date tbc) - Potentially in development for Netflix and based on Marlon James’ 2015 Booker Prize winning novel, the story spans several decades and explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1976 and its aftermath, through the NYC crack wars in the 1980s and a changed Jamaica in the 1990s.

2019’s Booker Prize winning novel Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo may go into production as an onscreen adaptation, after the UK’s Potboiler Television (The Constant Gardener, The Last King of Scotland) secured the rights to make it in 2020. Telling the stories of 12 different people all living in modern Britain, the multi award winning book became one of the best-selling literary fiction hardbacks of 2019 and spent nine consecutive weeks on the Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller List. 

Klara and the Sun (release date tbc) - Kazuo Ishiguro is executive producing the screen adaptation of his 2021 Booker Prize longlisted novel. This Taika Waititi film has a screenplay written by Dahvi Waller and tells Ishiguru’s story of a physical AI ‘friend’ named Klara, following her enlightening journey of being chosen from a department store to go and live with a girl in her family home. Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) and Amy Adams lead a cast that also includes Mia Tharia and Aran Murphy - actor Cillian Murphy’s son - in his debut movie role.

Love in the Big City (TV mini series due in 2024) - Originally written by Sang-young Park, this is the story of a writer who is HIV positive and depicts Seoul’s young carefree generation in their glittering night-time world, and the bleary-eyed morning after. The book, divided into four novelettes (and translated into English by Anton Hur) was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Park has been involved in the production of the screenplay and four different directors are producing two episodes each, with one of these producers, Hong Ji-yeong, also acting as executive creator.

Shuggie Bain (release date tbc) - Author Douglas Stuart, who won the 2020 Booker Prize with this novel, will be adapting the story himself for this TV series, commissioned by BBC and due to be filmed in Scotland. The book is based in Glasgow, and tells the heartbreaking story of an alcoholic mother who dreams of the glamorous life she was supposed to have had, as her son juggles taking care of her and struggling to be a ‘normal’ boy.

The Memory Police (release date tbc) 2024 Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Lily Gladstone is due to star in The Memory Police. The story takes place on an island where the residents are subject to collective amnesia, unable to recall people or daily tasks with the amnesia enforced by an organization called the Memory Police and follows a novelist trying to keep her editor, who can still remember, hidden away from them. It’s adapted by Charlie Kaufman from the original novel, released back in 1994. The English translation of the book, published in 2019, was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize. Reed Morano will be directing and Martin Scorsese will executive produce along with Yoko Ogawa, the original book’s author.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (release date tbc) - A five-part series is in production with Sony Pictures Television, to be directed by Justin Kursel and starring Jacob Elordi (Saltburn, Euphoria). It is based on the 2014 Booker Prize winning novel by Richard Flanagan about an Australian doctor haunted by memories of a love affair with his uncle’s wife and of his subsequent experiences as a Far East prisoner of war.

The Overstory (Expected in 2024) - Currently being developed for Netflix by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, best known as the creators of Game of Thrones, the story is about nine strangers that are each summoned in different ways by the natural world to save it from catastrophe. It will be executive produced by Hugh Jackman, a huge fan of the 2018 novel by Richard Powers.

Trust (Expected in 2024) - Emmy-winning actor Kate Winslet is both producing and starring in this HBO limited series. The original book was written by Hernan Diaz who is also an executive producer of the television series. This 2022 Booker Prize longlisted novel begins in the roaring twenties and follows the Rasks, a Wall Street tycoon and wealthy aristocrat heiress. Together, they have risen to the very top - but at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? A literary puzzle about money, power, and intimacy, Trust challenges the myths shrouding wealth, and the fictions that often pass for history.

An adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black is in production as a nine-part series (Release date tbc). The story follows the young George Washington ‘Wash’ Black, chronicling his escape from slavery in Barbados and his subsequent adventures with the eclectic array of characters he meets along the way. The novel was shortlisted for the 2018 Booker Prize. Most of the filming has been taking place in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and the impressive cast list of familiar faces features both Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Eddie Katanga in the lead role, along with Tom Ellis, Sterling K. Brown (also exec producing), Julian Rhind-Tutt, Iola Evans, Billy Boyd, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Edward Bluemel, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Rupert Graves, Shaunette Renée Wilson and the great Charles Dance. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is exec producing and adapting the novel and will be showrunner for the series alongside series writer Jennifer Johnson. The directors are Wanuri Kahiu and Mo Marable.