And the Academy Award Goes To... Book-to-Movie Adaptations

Sara M Schaller
Feb 23, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Feb 20, 2020

As the Oscars approach tomorrow night, almost everyone will be watching their TV screens to see the winner of Best Picture. I will be among them as I love watching the Oscars, and have seen three out of the total eight movies that are nominated (although I want to watch some of the others too). However, while all the films nominated are critically acclaimed, hardly any of them are book-to-movie adaptations (I believe Green Book and BlacKkKlansman are the only two).

It's disheartening to see that not many book-to-movie adaptations made the cut because there is such great storytelling contained within books. I know there is much controversy around adaptations, as most readers will proclaim that the book is always better than the movie. I myself agree that the book can be better than the movie. Yet, I was still hopeful this year because some of the recent book-to-movie adaptations have been better than in the past.

The Hate U Give

For instance, The Hate U Give. I just recently watched this movie last weekend, and it was a fantastic film. The message was powerful, the storytelling was perfect, and the acting was incredible. There were several times where I found myself crying because I was so moved by it. In my opinion, The Hate U Give should have been nominated for Best Picture. I will admit that I have not read the book that the movie is based on (but I have every intention to), so I might not know if a vital part of the book was left out. But that doesn't really seem to matter because the movie was able to stand on its own without prior knowledge of the book.

Why is this? Well, the fact that the author, Angie Thomas, was consulted during the production of the movie probably helped. She even made a cameo appearance. Now, this doesn't always happen with adaptations, but I believe if authors could be consulted more, then adaptations may have more success. The Hate U Give movie certainly makes me hopeful that more books will be considered for film options in the future. In fact, this movie makes me hopeful that books will be considered more in general, whether for movie or TV.

Here are some other book-to-movie adaptations that were successful in 2018.