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Based on the Book…

Literature has inspired some of the greatest films ever made.

Literary adaptations often get a bad press, with the books’ fans lamenting the necessary excision of events in the book or the loss of tone and character. Yet the best film adaptations capture the mood of the original or completely reimagine the stories in their transition to the big screen. Works by Emile Bronte, Joseph Conrad, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Thomas Hardy and more inspired these great films, with Francis Ford Coppola transporting Heart of Darkness to Vietnam in Apocalypse Now and Michael Winterbottom reimagining Tess of the d’Urbervilles in 21st century India in Trishna. Shelley and Stoker certainly couldn’t have predicted the influence their books would have in the future, with Frankenstein and Dracula having been adapted countless times for the big screen.

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GomorrahGomorrah

Crime2008132 minsDirector: Matteo Garrone

Matteo Garrone's unnervingly authentic Naples crime drama won the Grand Prix at Cannes before inspiring a hit TV series.

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Effi BriestEffi Briest

Drama1974140 minsDirector: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Fassbinder's exquisitely subtle rendition of Fontane’s great novel, starring the great Hanna Schygulla as the titular 17-year-old who is forced into a socially advantageous marriage with a much older man.

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Dead RingersDead Ringers

Horror1988116 minsDirector: David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg's multi award-winning psychological thriller exploring the bizarre lives of identical twins Elliot and Beverly, both played by Jeremy Irons.

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Prick Up Your EarsPrick Up Your Ears

Biopic1987110 minsDirector: Stephen Frears

A celebration of outrageous British playwright Joe Orton’s irreverent and charismatic talent, starring Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina.

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A Farewell to ArmsA Farewell to Arms

Romance193289 minsDirector: Frank Borzage

Based on the best-selling 1929 novel by Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper stars in Frank Borzage's Oscar-winning adaptation of the tragic Great War romance.

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Les Enfants TerriblesLes Enfants Terribles

Drama1949106 minsDirector: Jean-Pierre Melville

Jean-Pierre Melville’s film of Jean Cocteau's controversial novel about a teenage brother and sister and their intense, closeted relationship.

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Oliver TwistOliver Twist

Period drama1948116 minsDirector: David Lean

Arguably the essential Dickens adaptation, David Lean’s evocative portrayal of Victorian London in sooty black and white features Alec Guinness as a memorably sinister Fagin.

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Great Expectations Great Expectations

Period drama1947118 minsDirector: David Lean

The first of David Lean’s two Dickens adaptations is one of the finest British literary interpretations and one of the most acclaimed of all British films.

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The Fall of the House of UsherThe Fall of the House of Usher

Animation & Artists Moving Image198216 minsDirector: Jan Svankmajer

The first of Švankmajer's 'tactile experiments', chosen partly because the title was on an official list of 'approved' texts. In this version there are no humans, just a glimpse of a live raven as the camera roams around an eerie derelict house.

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Fantastic PlanetFantastic Planet

Animation & Artists Moving Image197372 minsDirector: René Laloux

René Laloux and Roland Topor’s surreal, psychedelic sci-fi animation imagines a world in which humanoid creatures are kept as pets by a race of giants.

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Things to ComeThings to Come

Science Fiction193697 minsDirector: William Cameron Menzies

H.G. Wells' chilling vision of the future, which imagines the 20th Century as a near-endless war and struggle against tyranny, remains a key milestone in British science fiction.

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MillenniumMillennium

Science Fiction1989101 minsDirector: Michael Anderson

Flight crash investigator Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson) discovers that time travellers from the future are visiting the present day and stealing passengers from doomed aircraft to repopulate a future, infertile human race.

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The Phantom of the Opera (1925)The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Period drama192591 minsSilentDirector: Rupert Julian

'Man of a thousand faces' Lon Chaney stars in the first version of Gaston Leroux's oft-filmed novel.

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NosferatuNosferatu

Horror192289 minsSilentDirector: F.W. Murnau

This influential Dracula adaptation contains some of the most famous images of expressionist film, and remains shocking and stylish after 100 years.

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Nosferatu the VampyreNosferatu the Vampyre

Horror1979107 minsDirector: Werner Herzog

English language version of Herzog’s stimulating take on the Dracula story starring Klaus Kinski, with echoes of Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu.

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Brick LaneBrick Lane

Drama200797 minsDirector: Sarah Gavron

Sarah Gavron’s subtle and intelligent adaptation of Monica Ali’s acclaimed novel charts the experiences of a Bangladeshi woman in London.

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Odd Man OutOdd Man Out

Crime1947116 minsDirector: Carol Reed

Wounded during a robbery, a gunman attempts to escape police in Carol Reed's moody Irish thriller, starring James Mason.

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Mogul MowgliMogul Mowgli

Drama202089 minsDirector: Bassam Tariq

Bassam Tariq’s visceral directorial debut, co-written with Riz Ahmed, finds a British-Pakistani rapper’s life spiralling out of control when, on the cusp of success, he succumbs to a debilitating illness.

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The American FriendThe American Friend

Film noir1978121 minsDirector: Wim Wenders

Acclaimed director Wim Wenders, with the help of Dennis Hopper, transforms Patricia Highsmith's novel 'Ripley's Game' into a gripping European noir.

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The Scarlet LetterThe Scarlet Letter

Period drama197290 minsDirector: Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders adapts the acclaimed novel in which a Puritan village chastises a young mother for giving birth out of wedlock.

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Wrong MoveWrong Move

Road movie197599 minsDirector: Wim Wenders

A young man journeys across Germany to find his voice as a writer in Wim Wenders' celebrated road movie.

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The Ipcress FileThe Ipcress File

Crime1965108 minsDirector: Sidney J. Furie

The coolest spy of all – Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer – makes his brilliant big screen debut in this landmark British spy thriller.

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The Lodger: A Story of the London FogThe Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Crime192691 minsSilentDirector: Alfred Hitchcock

Ivor Novello plays a strange lodger who may be behind a number of Jack the Ripper-style killings in Alfred Hitchcock’s silent thriller.

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The 39 StepsThe 39 Steps

Thriller193583 minsDirector: Alfred Hitchcock

Sublime and suspenseful version of the popular John Buchan spy thriller from the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

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SabotageSabotage

Thriller193677 minsDirector: Alfred Hitchcock

A cinema owner works with a ring of terrorists, with drastic effects on his wife and her brother, in Hitchcock’s London-set thriller.

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Young and InnocentYoung and Innocent

Thriller193783 minsDirector: Alfred Hitchcock

In Hitchcock's early thriller, the witness to a murder is accused of the crime, evading arrest to track the real killer.

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The Lady VanishesThe Lady Vanishes

Thriller193896 minsDirector: Alfred Hitchcock

An old woman disappears mysteriously on a busy train in Hitchcock’s delightful classic.

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Innocence of MemoriesInnocence of Memories

Documentary201697 minsDirector: Grant Gee

A multi-layered melding of fiction and fact, about Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk and his Istanbul Museum of Innocence.


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Cobra VerdeCobra Verde

Drama1987110 minsDirector: Werner Herzog

Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog’s final collaboration is a typically wild and adventurous story of a bandit who trains an army of women to topple a slave-trading king

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The Castle of OtrantoThe Castle of Otranto

Animation & Artists Moving Image197718 minsDirector: Jan Svankmajer

Czech animator Jan Švankmajer's adaptation of Horace Walpole's Gothic novel.

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Uncle SilasUncle Silas

Drama194798 minsDirector: Charles Frank

Gothic chiller based on the novel by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Jean Simmons stars as an heiress pursued by her unbalanced uncle and his perverted son.

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The Spy in BlackThe Spy in Black

War193979 minsDirector: Michael Powell

A masterful thriller with true flair, The Spy In Black has a much larger importance: it threw Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger together for the first time.

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A Night to RememberA Night to Remember

Disaster1958123 minsDirector: Roy Ward Baker

Widely regarded as the finest film account of the sinking of the Titanic, this moving seafaring disaster tale will grip you from start to finish.

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The Lower DepthsThe Lower Depths

Drama1957125 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s novel, in which inhabitants of a slum revel in illusions to avoid bitter reality.

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In the FogIn the Fog

War2012123 minsDirector: Sergei Loznitsa

A suspected Nazi collaborator and his Partisan abductors join forces to escape pursuing German forces, in this vibrantly shot war drama.

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High and LowHigh and Low

Crime1963143 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa’s procedural crime masterpiece, from Ed McBain’s gritty novel, follows an industrialist who faces an agonising choice as a result of a botched kidnapping by ruthless criminals.

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The Devil Rides OutThe Devil Rides Out

Horror196895 minsDirector: Terence Fisher

Dennis Wheatley's occult tale is given the Hammer treatment.

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Death and The CompassDeath and The Compass

199686 minsDirector: Alex Cox

Alex Cox’s visually stunning, deliciously dark adaptation of the short story by acclaimed Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

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Mademoiselle ChambonMademoiselle Chambon

Drama2009100 minsDirector: Stéphane Brizé

When a happily married man decides to volunteer at his son’s school, he begins to form a romantic bond with a teacher in this intimate French drama.

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It Always Rains on SundayIt Always Rains on Sunday

Drama194788 minsDirector: Robert Hamer

Austerity noir: Ealing's downbeat but compelling East End thriller.

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Hell Is a CityHell Is a City

Police drama196096 minsDirector: Val Guest

Punchy crime thriller with a realist streak as Stanley Baker pursues a fugitive through the streets of Manchester.

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Whisky Galore!Whisky Galore!

Comedy194983 minsDirector: Alexander Mackendrick

Ealing's thirstiest comedy: "the longest unsponsored advertisement ever to reach cinema screens"?

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