10 Books We Wish Would Be Made Into Movies
Do you cast the film while you're reading the book? Then you probably have a list of books you wish would be made into movies, asap. Our editors have a few of those too, and we're dreaming about the days when the stories we love reading finally hit the big screen. With books by Fannie Flagg, Katie Kitamura, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Jasmine Guillory, this list argues that with the right vision, any book could be a movie. In any case, there are more than a few stories that deserve the silver-screen treatment, so read on for a few of our dream book-to-film adaptations, and then let us know what's currently on your list of books that should be made into movies.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith's 2005 novel is loosely based on E.M. Forster's novel Howards End. A story about the complications that arise between and among families, it's just waiting for the right ensemble to bring it to life on screen.
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Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg
Fannie Flagg's debut novel deserves the movie treatment, don't you think? This book follows young Daisy Fay, who's growing up with a cast of characterful neighbors on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the 1950s.
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The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett's Philadelphia-set novel earned lots of fans when it was published in 2019. A story about siblings tangled up in their family history, it has dramatic potential as well as the opportunity for exciting production design. (Wouldn't you love to see the eponymous Dutch house?)
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Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
Katie Kitamura's new novel is a complex and thrilling story about an interpreter at The Hague dealing with heartbreak and incendiary global politics. Laced with compelling language and plenty of drama, it would make a fantastic jump to the big screen.
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4 of 10
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Andrew Sean Greer's bighearted novel about an author traveling the globe to avoid the wedding of his former partner—and finding so many hiccups along the way—would make for an uproarious film, but it would tug at the heartstrings too.
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Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A young woman makes an important choice in this hard-to-put-down novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It leads to two Sliding Doors-style paths, two alternate realities of her life, which play out amid questions of fate, love, and free will.
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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
There are whispers of a multi-episode adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's epic One Hundred Years of Solitude. Fingers are crossed that this sweeping story, first published in 1967, will make it to our screens sooner rather than later.
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7 of 10
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
From the author of Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow comes this sweeping road novel that's about self-discovery and starting over—and is peopled with an exciting cast of characters.
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Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
Any of Jasmine Guillory's novels would make great movies—The Wedding Date, The Proposal, Royal Holiday—but Hollywood should start with this one, a story about a woman who joins her daughter on a work trip and finds more than she'd bargained for while she's abroad.
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28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand
There are also whispers of a 28 Summers movie in the works, which is good news, because this decades-spanning romance set along the coast in Nantucket is ripe for a Hollywood adaptation.
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