Literature on Film

Directed by Lewis Milestone.
130 minutes; released 1930.
A group of young World War I German recruits pass from idealism to disillusionment with war. Based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel.

Directed by David Blair.
240 minutes; released 2000.
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy, this mini-series depicts the fallout from a love affair between Count Vronsky and Anna Karenina, a married woman. Starring Helen McCrory, Kevin McKidd and Stephen Dillane.

Directed by Gerald Freedman.
91 minutes; released 1974.
Jean Anouilh's adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy about a defiant woman. In English.

Directed by Michael Anderson.
182 minutes; released 1956.
An English gentleman bets that it is possible to travel around the whole world in 80 days. Based on the novel by Jules Verne.

Directed by Gabriel Axel.
103 minutes; released 1987.
In nineteenth-century Denmark, the daughters of a devout clergyman struggle between piety and passion when their father dies and a French gourmet cook comes to town. Audio track in English, French, Danish, or Spanish. Based on the novel by Karen Blixen.

Directed by Peter Glenville.
150 minutes; released 1964.
The lifelong friendship of King Henry II and Thomas Becket is tested when Becket is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Based on the play by Jean Anouilh. Starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole.

Directed by Jean Renoir.
96 minutes; released 1938.
A journey into the tormented psyche of a workingman. French with optional English subtitles. Based on the Émile Zola novel.

Directed by Bruce Beresford.
101 minutes; released 1991.
A feature-length movie about a fictional 17th century Jesuit priest in the Canadian wilderness. Starring Lothaire Bluteau. Based on the novel by Brian Moore.

Directed by Josef von Sternberg.
200 minutes; released 2001.
A middle-aged professor is degraded by his obsession with a tawdry cafe entertainer. Presents two versions of the film: the original German (106 min.; 1930) and original English (94 min.; 1930). Based on the novel by Heinrich Mann. Starring Marlene Dietrich.

Directed by Michael Cacoyannis.
141 minutes; released 1999.
A woman returns to her decaying estate in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Based on the play by Anton Chekhov. Starring Charlotte Rampling and Alan Bates.

Directed by Michael Darlow.
225 minutes; released 1979.
A proud man who has committed a murder is forced to face his crime. Based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Starring John Hurt.

Directed by Carlos Carrera.
119 minutes; released 2002.
A young priest is assigned to a parish where he becomes involved in corrupt politics and an illicit relationship with a woman. Based on the novel by Eça de Queirós. Starring Gael García Bernal. In Spanish with optional dubbed English soundtrack or English, French or Spanish subtitles.

Directed by Darrell Roodt.
106 minutes; released 1995.
Set during the apartheid era in South Africa, this film tells the story of two fathers - one a man of peace, the other a man of power and privilege. In the wake of a tragic killing, the two men form an unlikely union. Based on the novel by Alan Paton. Starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris.

Directed by William Ball.
150 minutes; released 1974.
Edmond Rostand's play about a swashbuckling hero who uses his literary wit to win the heart of a woman. Starring Peter Donat, Marsha Mason, Marc Singer, and Kathryn Crosby. Part of the Broadway Theatre Archive. In English.

Directed by Luchino Visconti.
131 minutes; released 1971.
Dirk Bogarde plays a composer on holiday in Venice. When he glimpses someone who inspires a secret passion, it foreshadows his doom. Adaptation of the Thomas Man novel. English with English, French or Spanish subtitles.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
140 minutes; released 1975.
An eccentric Mongolian frontiersman saves the members of a Russian surveying expedition by teaching them how to survive in the wilderness. Based on the novel by Vladimir Klavdievich Arsen'ev.

Directed by Robert Bresson.
115 minutes; released 1951.
A movie adaptation of a novel by Georges Bernanos about a priest who is not fully appreciated by his parishioners. In French with English subtitles.

Directed by David Lean.
200 minutes; released 1965.
Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak, this film depicts Russia on the brink of revolution as seen through the eyes of a young doctor and poet. Starring Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin and Alec Guinness.

Directed by Peter Yates.
139 minutes; released 2000.
A minor landowner descends into fantasy and becomes convinced that he is a knight on a mission to save a damsel in distress. Based on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Starring John Lithgow, Bob Hoskins, Isabella Rossellini, and Vanessa Williams.

Directed by Orson Welles.
115 minutes; released 1995.
A unique vision of two men, Don Quixote and his companion Sancho Panza, who journey through provincial Spain and suddenly are pitted against enemies both real and imagined in the modern world. A rarely seen piece of film history. Based on the book by Miguel De Cervantes.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
130 minutes; released 1992.
Francis Ford Coppola's movie adaptation of the vampire novel by Bram Stoker. Starring Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves.

Directed by David Jones.
100 minutes; released 1987.
A New York writer with a passion for literature writes to a London bookstore in search of rare classics. A good-natured, reserved Englishman answers her request, beginning a relationship that spans two continents and two decades.

Directed by Anthony Minghella.
162 minutes; released 1996.
A Canadian nurse during the Second World War cares for a wounded stranger with a mysterious past. Based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas and Willem Dafoe.

Directed by James Whale.
71 minutes; released 1931.
An obsessed scientist creates a living being from parts of exhumed corpses. Based on the story by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Directed by Vittorio De Sica.
94 minutes; released 1970.
A wealthy Jewish family is faced with the rise of Fascism in pre-World War II Italy. Based on the novel by Giorgio Bassani. In Italian with English subtitles. Starring Dominique Sanda and Helmut Berger.

Directed by Vincente Minnelli.
116 minutes; released 1958.
A musical set in Paris in which a girl trained as a high society courtesan falls in love with a rich and handsome boulevardier. Based on the novel by Colette.

Directed by Volker Schlöndorff.
109 minutes; released 1990.
A woman fights against the tyranny of a totalitarian regime. Based on the novel by Margaret Atwood. In English, with optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

Directed by David Thacker et al.
967 minutes; released 2007.
Ten films on 6 discs based on the plays of Henrik Ibsen.

Directed by James Ivory.
130 minutes; released 1983.
A young woman visits India determined to unravel the mysterious scandal surrounding the seduction of her great-aunt Olivia in the 1920s by an Indian prince. Based on the novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Starring Greta Scacchi, Julie Christie and Shashi Kapoor.

Directed by Alan J.W. Bell.
190 minutes; released 1981.
An Earth man and his alien friend escape Earth's destruction and go on a strange adventure as space hitchhikers.

Directed by John Ford.
118 minutes; released 1941.
The story of young parents struggling to keep their family together as they endure severe hardship in a small Welsh mining town. Based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn. Starring Maureen O'Hara.

Directed by Michael Anderson.
95 minutes; released 1989.
A movie adaptation of a play by Pope John Paul II about love and family. Starring Burt Lancaster.

Directed by Philip Haas.
100 minutes; released 2002.
When a man discovers his nightmares come true, he is arrested and forced to get psychiatric treatment. Upon discovering his patient's dreams are real, however, the doctor attempts to manipulate them, with terrible results. Based on the novel by Ursula Le Guin. Starring James Caan and Lukas Haas.

Directed by Roger Vadim.
102 minutes; released 1959.
A hyper-cool French updating of the Laclos novel. Valmont and Juliette are two spouses who find sport in each other's extramarital conquests. But while staying at a ski resort, their games of passion come to a tragic end when Valmont falls in love.

Directed by William Dieterle.
116 minutes; released 1937.
Based on the book by Matthew Josephson, this film explores the career of Zola, who championed the cause of France's oppressed and waged a vigorous campaign to free the wrongly convicted Captain Alfred Dreyfus.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
153 minutes; released 1962.
A middle-aged novelist falls in love with a 14-year-old girl. Based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Starring James Mason.

Directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta.
106 minutes; released 1975.
In the period of several days, Katharina's privacy and her honor are destroyed, first by the police who terrorize her, and then by the yellow press, which creates in her name the image of a politicized Bonnie Parker. Based on the novel by Heinrich Böll.

Directed by Billie August.
134 minutes; released 1998.
A thief in Revolutionary France is transformed by an act of mercy. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo. Starring Liam Neeson, Claire Danes, Uma Thurman and Geoffrey Rush. In English or French, with optional English or French subtitles.

Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.
131 minutes; released 1986.
A series of deaths strikes a 14th century monastery. While some see these deaths tied to the Book of Revelation, Brother William of Baskerville resolves to solve the crimes using fact and reason. Based on the novel by Umberto Eco. Starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater.

Directed by F.W. Murnau.
81 minutes; released 1922.
The first film version of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Count Orlock (Nosferatu, the vampire) leaves his castle in the Carpathian mountains and travels by ship to Bremen, bringing coffins filled with dirt and plague rats.

Directed by James Ivory.
134 minutes; released 1993.
The housekeeper at a large English estate falls in love with the butler who is devoted to his job. Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins.

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
169 minutes; released 1972.
Tarkovsky's classic science fiction film based on the book by Stanislaw Lem. An astronaut is sent to investigate strange transmissions from a space station. In Russian with English subtitles.

Directed by Kirk Browning.
130 minutes; released 1978.
Molière's play about a scoundrel who manipulates his way into the confidence and affection of a man, and then attempts to seduce his wife and daughter. Starring Donald Moffat, Victor Garber, Tammy Grimes, and Patricia Elliott. Part of the Broadway Theatre Archive. In English.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
86 minutes; released 1935.
Adapted from John Buchan's novel, this early Hitchcock thriller follows the story of Richard Hannay, who stumbles on a conspiracy. Forced into a chase across the Scottish moors, Hannay becomes both the pursuer and pursued.

Directed by G. W. Pabst.
110 minutes; released 1931.
Social satire set in Victorian London in which both government and underworld are portrayed as amoral and polluted by economic and political chaos. The daughter of the king of the beggars opens a bank in the belief that legal thievery is more profitable than larceny. In German with English subtitles. Based on the play by Bertolt Brecht.

Directed by Danny Boyle.
94 minutes; released 1996.
An intimate look inside the subculture of heroin abuse in Scotland based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Starring Ewan McGregor.

Directed by Philip Kaufman.
172 minutes; released 1988.
While Prague grapples with the Soviets, a surgeon and avowed womanizer is focused on the happiness of pursuit. He's determined to live with a lightness of being unfettered by things like commitment and Communism. Based on the novel by Milan Kundera.

Directed by Milos Forman.
137 minutes; released 1989.
Based on the novel Les Liasons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos, this film depicts an embittered group of aristocrats in 18th century France as they try to ensnare one another with seduction and intrigue. Starring Colin Firth, Annette Bening and Meg Tilly.

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer.
73 minutes; released 1932.
A young man attempts to find and kill a vampire that has assumed the form of an old woman. In German with English subtitles. Based on the stories by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

Directed by Sergey Bondarchuk.
403 minutes; released 1966.
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy, this adaptation follows the interconnected lives of a group of Russian aristocrats from 1805 to 1812 as they cope with love, youth, financial trouble, military life, land management, high society, and Napoleon's invasion of Russia. In Russian with English subtitles.