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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 while completely reimagining the story in their transition to the big screen.

Last Exit to BrooklynLast Exit to Brooklyn
Crime1989104 minsDirector: Uli Edel
Jennifer Jason Leigh stars in the controversial drama about the underbelly of 1950s Brooklyn, from the pen of Hubert Selby Jr (Requiem for a Dream).

Starve AcreStarve Acre
Horror202398 minsDirector: Dan Kokotajlo
Dark and sinister forces invade a couple’s home in this wildly eerie British folk horror, with unflinching performances from Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark.

Black OrpheusBlack Orpheus
Romance1959107 minsDirector: Marcel Camus
Academy Award and Palme d'Or-winning adaption of the Orpheus myth, incorporating the music, costume and dance of Brazil’s Rio Festival.

The HandmaidenThe Handmaiden
Period drama2016146 minsDirector: Park Chan-wook
Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker) channels Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, to create a sumptuous twisty psychological thriller full of erotic intrigue.

OssessioneOssessione
Crime1943140 minsDirector: Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice is an electrifying tale of the destructive power of human sexuality.

AkenfieldAkenfield
Drama197598 minsDirector: Peter Hall
Peter Hall’s extraordinary, long-unseen work of sublime poetic realism traces three generations of one Suffolk family and their lives in the farming industry.

MetropolisMetropolis
Science Fiction1927150 minsSilentDirector: Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang’s expressionist, dystopian vision is one of the first science fiction feature films, and is arguably the most influential.

The Secret in Their EyesThe Secret in Their Eyes
Thriller2009129 minsDirector: Juan José Campanella
A retired legal investigator revisits an unresolved case that still haunts him, in Juan José Campanella’s taut, Academy Award winning, thriller.

FirebirdFirebird
Drama2021107 minsDirector: Peeter Rebane
At the height of the Cold War, a love triangle between a junior officer, his best friend and a handsome fighter pilot enters dangerous territory.

The Kreutzer SonataThe Kreutzer Sonata
Drama201096 minsDirector: Bernard Rose
Bernard Rose updates Tolstoy's tale about the corrupting power of sex and jealousy, with Danny Huston as the wealthy husband of a beautiful, famous pianist (Elisabeth Röhm).

Lady MacbethLady Macbeth
Period drama201789 minsDirector: William Oldroyd
Florence Pugh shines in this exceptional British debut of a young wife's need for freedom, whatever the cost.

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

KwaidanKwaidan
Horror1964183 minsDirector: Masaki Kobayashi
This stunningly beautiful anthology of Japanese ghost stories is one of the most meticulously crafted supernatural films ever made.

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.

OldboyOldboy
Thriller2003120 minsDirector: Park Chan-wook
Park’s wilfully grotesque fable about an abductee trying to fathom the mysteries of his past.

The Angelic ConversationThe Angelic Conversation
Animation & Artists Moving Image198581 minsDirector: Derek Jarman
The Angelic Conversation sees Derek Jarman conjure an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems.

Ghost WorldGhost World
Comedy2001107 minsDirector: Terry Zwigoff
Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch star as a pair of social outcasts struggling to make sense of the world around them, in this sublime love story based on the work of underground artist Daniel Clowes.

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.

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.

La Belle et la BêteLa Belle et la Bête
Fantasy194695 minsDirector: Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic. “Five stars. [This] magical exploration of the fairytale is a compelling and bizarre masterpiece” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

CrashCrash
Drama1996100 minsDirector: David Cronenberg
Technology and sexuality meet in head-on collision in David Cronenberg’s controversial adaptation of writer J.G. Ballard’s transgressive 1973 novel.

IkiruIkiru
Drama1952143 minsDirector: Akira Kurosawa
A bureaucrat’s life finds new meaning in Kurosawa’s classic original, the source for Bill Nighy’s brilliant drama, Living.

MauriceMaurice
Drama1987140 minsDirector: James Ivory
Merchant Ivory’s landmark adaptation of E M Forster’s classic LGBTQ+ novel and a precursor to the James Ivory-scripted Call Me By Your Name.

The Last DetailThe Last Detail
Comedy1973104 minsDirector: Hal Ashby
Jack Nicholson is at his very best in this highly-acclaimed dramatic comedy from Hal Ashby about three sailors on the loose.

In Cold BloodIn Cold Blood
Crime1967135 minsDirector: Richard Brooks
Powerful adaptation of Truman Capote’s true-crime novel about the massacre of a family in Kansas, and the manhunt for the killers.

Christiane F.Christiane F.
Drama1981131 minsDirector: Uli Edel
David Bowie’s image and music gives brooding energy to this tale of a junkie sex-worker in 70s Berlin.

AniaraAniara
Science Fiction2018106 minsDirector: Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja
The passengers on an interstellar space-liner are thrown into turmoil when their mission goes off course, in this compassionate and thought-provoking sci-fi drama.

The New GirlfriendThe New Girlfriend
Melodrama2014108 minsDirector: François Ozon
Ruth Rendell provides the source novel for this delicious tale of deception and identity, from the master of mischievous melodrama, François Ozon.

The Eight MountainsThe Eight Mountains
Drama2022147 minsDirector: Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch
An epic journey of friendship and self-discovery set against a magnificent and breath-taking Italian landscape, winner of the 2022 Cannes Jury Prize.

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