The Best Movies based on Books Movies to Watch on Hoopla
The director of one of the few esteemed horror sequels (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) adapting H. P. Lovecraft? Yes please. Joe Lynch reimagines “The Thing on the Doorstep” with the tropes of 90s erotic films and a tribute to classic possession horror cinema, meriting all our admiration for his effort. Suitable Flesh (even the […]
The real life situation behind this harrowing drama is quite extraordinary, so adapting Daniel Rye’s captivity straightforwardly would already intrigue viewers into watching it. However, Held for Ransom does more than depict his torture. Alternating between his captivity and the fundraising efforts back home, the film examines the way they have all responded to the […]
Asako is in love with Baku—deeply and almost delusionally, in a way that can only manifest in young love. But when the freewheeling Baku ghosts Asako for good, she moves from Osaka all the way to Tokyo to start a new life. Years later, she’s startled to meet Baku’s doppelganger in Ryohei, an office man […]
At first, Little Forest seemed to just be a gentle film extolling the beauty of the countryside. Many a story has been based on that idea, and sure enough, the film does have aesthetic, gorgeous shots of the orchard, the lake, and the garden Hye-won ran back to, albeit with much more delicious food making […]
For better or worse, there is a lot that has been decided about your life even before you were born– the circumstances of your childhood are a direct reflection of the choices your parents made, as well as their parents, and their parents before them. This idea made for an intriguing Portuguese novel, which was […]
To Hollywood’s shame, it wasn’t until 1998 that a major feature made by Native American filmmakers was released. It was this charming indie gem that belatedly broke that new ground: based on author Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Smoke Signals retains the irreverent humor hinted at in its source material’s […]
Not to be confused with the American cop thriller with the same name, Shōhei Imamura’s Black Rain is about the atomic bomb, but it’s not really concerned about nuclear warfare. Sure, the film opens with gruesome shots of the day the bomb dropped, not sparing the viewers from the gore and the titular nuclear fallout, […]
With many iterations of Faust, Jan Švankmajer’s own take on the deal with the devil isn’t absolutely terrifying, and can feel bizarre, sometimes even goofy, to those unfamiliar with the animation director. However, Lekce Faust is quite creepy, as he brings the legend to modern day Prague with a mysterious map and visually disturbing puppets […]
What would you do if your parents were Nazis? Based on the second novella of Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, Lore tells the story of a Nazi officer’s children travelling together after the Allied victory. It’s a harrowing journey, of course, given the end of the war. But writer-director Cate Shortland takes that journey even […]
The Children’s Hour was one of the few sympathetic depictions of a lesbian character at a time when same-sex relationships were illegal. That being said, the film doesn’t really focus on forming a couple. It’s also about how destructive the rumor mill can be, but really, the film is mostly an indictment of how terrible […]
Surreal, strange, yet wondrous, Penguin Highway never takes a straightforward approach to its story. Penguins pop up out of nowhere, leading the nerdy and precocious Aoyama to study them via empirical observation and logical deduction. These studies don’t end up with a feasible explanation– in fact, by the final act, the film abandons all laws […]
It’s not fair to say if you’ve read the book, you’ve seen the movie, but it’s also not wholly untrue. Greg Sinise’s version of the classic tale by John Steinback adds little new details to the story, so the actors have some heavy lifting to do in bringing it to life. Thankfully, they do a […]
Human Capital is a rich and absorbing tale of two families tied together by love, money and a hit-and-run accident. One family is wealthy, the other struggling to get by in the days after the 2008 economic meltdown. Human Capital dexterously contrasts the social calculations the characters make about who can afford to step outside […]
Vague statement alert: Burning is not a movie that you “get”; it’s a movie you experience. Based on a short story by Murakami, it’s dark and bleak in a way that comes out more in the atmosphere of the movie rather than what happens in the story. Working in the capital Seoul, a young guy […]
Many people would rather see happy, positive depictions of people like them, but sometimes, it’s important to see the sides that we don’t really like to see, but should have some awareness of, in order to address them. It’s because of this director Lee Tamahori initially thought that adapting the Maori novel Once Were Warriors […]
There are plenty of great Hollywood movie musicals from the 1950s that are still held in high regard today. Guys and Dolls is one such musical, though perhaps it hasn’t gotten the iconic status that other MGM musicals garnered due to its uneven casting. Nevertheless, the film version of the popular stage musical adapts it […]
Generally, a mentorship is a great way to find guidance and direction, but rarely do we discuss the importance of finding the right mentor– or the right mentors– and that it sometimes takes a while to find a great fit. Searching for Bobby Fischer is about real-life child chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, but rather than […]
Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is compassionate and diminutive, but her social awkwardness hinders her as she attempts to navigate young adulthood. After recently being hospitalized for self-harm, Lee is determined to prove she is capable of autonomously taking care of herself. She begins working as a secretary for E. Edward Grey (James Spader), a meticulous […]
When German forces occupy Paris in 1942, a close-knit Jewish family tearfully sends their two youngest sons, Jo and Maurice, to escape the city on foot, with promises that they will all eventually be reunited in the Free Zone in the South. Told from the perspective of Jo – and based on the 1973 memoir […]
The fate of one’s financial, interpersonal, and physical desires are intertwined through marriage, and because of these sometimes conflicting needs, most people are willing to go past what they would like to acknowledge to win the affections of the person they believe would fulfill them. Henry James’ 1902 novel The Wings of the Dove is […]
Based on the book by John Le Carre, this slow-burning thriller tells the story of a half-Chechen, half-Russian immigrant suspected of terrorism, who is suddenly spotted in a big German city trying to get his hands on money that was left to him. Gunter (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the head of an international counter-terrorism unit […]
The film that catapulted Kevin Costner to fame, No Way Out, is based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing, “The Big Clock”, and is also preceded by a film adaptation of it, around 40 years prior. Director Roger Donaldson found himself in charge of a film, haunted by the Cold War and spy thriller tropes, but […]
With his long and extensive career, it can feel that Steven Spielberg can direct everything. The question is, can he direct a movie that depicted one of the most important freedom suits America has ever faced? Amistad, titled after the ship in the case, is his attempt, and while it does employ some tired tropes […]
From Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond), Defiance is the unheard and untold true story of Polish Jewish brothers who defied all odds during World War II and built a community in the woods of Belarus to escape Hitler’s persecution and save around a thousand civilians from certain death. Interestingly, the film tries to avoid the dramatization of characters and […]
From one of the most compelling books of this generation, comes the good movie that aims to tell the tale of a friendship that spans lifetimes. Amir and Hassan share a brotherhood bond backed by days of kite flying and nights of storytelling. Long after the well-off Amir moves to California, Hassan holds out hope […]
Director Zhang Yimou, who already has remarkable wuxia films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers under his belt, delivers another exceptional epic. Set during China’s Three Kingdoms era (220–280 AD), Shadow revolves around a great king and his people, who are expelled from their homeland but will aspire to reclaim it. The story requires […]
The Reader is a German-American drama from 2008, based on the best-selling novel by author Bernhard Schlink. The storyline begins with adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) reminiscing about his adolescence in post-World War II Berlin and his fateful relationship with an older woman named Hannah (Kate Winslet). 15-year old Michael is beset by Scarlet Fever and […]
Though it paints in overly broad strokes and takes a while to get going, this tale of broken people finding each other eventually reaches an irresistibly feel-good conclusion. Like many good sports movies, Seabiscuit isn’t really dependent on the final outcome of a matchup between underdog and high-profile contender. What becomes important, then, is the […]
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a corporate axman, he comes in a fires people when the managers are too afraid to do it themselves. The nature of his work requires a lot of flying, short lived meetings in transit zones and he absolutely loves it, and he has a certain goal in mind. When the […]
