Classic Film Novel Adaptations
by pmracke | created - 06 Apr 2013 | updated - 06 Apr 2013 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Above Suspicion (1943)
Passed | 90 min | Drama, Thriller, War
Oxford Professor Richard Myles and his new bride Frances are off on a European honeymoon. It isn't the typical honeymoon: they are on a spying mission for British Intelligence on the eve of World War II.
Director: Richard Thorpe | Stars: Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray, Conrad Veidt, Basil Rathbone
Votes: 2,447
2. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,410 | Gross: $5.72M
3. The Mortal Storm (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Drama
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. When the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan
Votes: 6,035
4. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Approved | 134 min | Drama, Romance, War
A British family struggles to survive the first months of World War II.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, May Whitty
Votes: 19,461 | Gross: $13.50M
5. Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945)
Passed | 105 min | Drama, Family
A Norwegian farmer lovingly raises his daughter in rural World War II-era Benson Junction, Wisconsin.
Director: Roy Rowland | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Margaret O'Brien, James Craig, Frances Gifford
Votes: 2,345
6. Topper (1937)
Passed | 97 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A fun-loving couple, finding that they died and are now ghosts, decide to shake up the stuffy lifestyle of a friend of theirs.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Cary Grant, Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Billie Burke
Votes: 8,319
7. Topper Takes a Trip (1938)
Approved | 80 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
To gain entry to Heaven, a ghost attempts to reunite a divorcing couple as a good deed.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Constance Bennett, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray
Votes: 1,470
8. Topper Returns (1941)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Mystery
A fun-loving young woman is murdered after trading bedrooms with her wealthy friend. Her ghost seeks aid from Topper to find the murderer.
Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis, Billie Burke
Votes: 3,418
9. Nancy Drew... Reporter (1939)
Approved | 68 min | Comedy, Crime, Family
Nancy Drew, contest-reporter for the local newspaper, clears a young woman of murder charges.
Director: William Clemens | Stars: Bonita Granville, John Litel, Frankie Thomas, Dickie Jones
Votes: 1,461
10. Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939)
Approved | 60 min | Comedy, Crime, Family
Nancy helps two aging spinsters fulfill the byzantine provisions of their father's will, but the murder of their chauffeur complicates matters.
Director: William Clemens | Stars: Bonita Granville, Frankie Thomas, John Litel, Frank Orth
Votes: 974
11. Nancy Drew: Detective (1938)
Approved | 66 min | Comedy, Crime, Family
After a wealthy dowager who has made a substantial donation to her alma mater suddenly disappears, Nancy Drew sets out to solve the mystery.
Director: William Clemens | Stars: Bonita Granville, John Litel, James Stephenson, Frankie Thomas
Votes: 1,198
12. Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939)
Approved | 68 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
When a close friend of the Drew family is accused of murder in a rural community, Nancy, aided by boyfriend Ted, helps her lawyer father expose the real killers.
Director: William Clemens | Stars: Bonita Granville, Frankie Thomas, John Litel, Aldrich Bowker
Votes: 842
13. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,675 | Gross: $4.36M
14. Jubilee Trail (1954)
Approved | 103 min | Western
A wild west trader and his New York City wife head out for California by wagon train. The trader is killed en route, and his wife finds herself pregnant. She continues on, hoping to find a man and a home.
Director: Joseph Kane | Stars: Vera Ralston, Joan Leslie, Forrest Tucker, John Russell
Votes: 252 | Gross: $1.30M
15. I Love You Again (1940)
Passed | 99 min | Comedy, Romance
Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Frank McHugh, Edmund Lowe
Votes: 3,802
16. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Approved | 129 min | Crime, Drama
Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy
Votes: 332,780
17. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Passed | 129 min | Drama
An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Votes: 99,924 | Gross: $0.06M
18. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Passed | 170 min | Adventure, Drama, History
During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova
Votes: 10,226 | Gross: $17.80M
19. Of Mice and Men (1939)
Passed | 106 min | Adventure, Drama
A mentally disabled giant and his level headed guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy's ranch in depression era America.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Charles Bickford
Votes: 6,849
20. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama
The jury in a New York City murder trial is frustrated by a single member whose skeptical caution forces them to more carefully consider the evidence before jumping to a hasty verdict.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler
Votes: 864,632 | Gross: $4.36M
21. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Not Rated | 161 min | Drama, Mystery
An upstate Michigan lawyer defends a soldier who claims he killed an innkeeper due to temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell
Votes: 71,303 | Gross: $11.90M
22. Nick Carter, Master Detective (1939)
Passed | 59 min | Mystery
Detective Nick Carter is brought in to foil spies at the Radex Airplane Factory, where a new fighter plane is under manufacture.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Walter Pidgeon, Rita Johnson, Henry Hull, Stanley Ridges
Votes: 516
23. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
PG | 129 min | Drama, Family, Romance
Encouraged by her idealistic if luckless father, a bright and imaginative young woman comes of age in a Brooklyn tenement during the early 1900s.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan
Votes: 8,407
24. The Thin Man (1934)
TV-PG | 91 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Former detective Nick Charles and his wealthy wife Nora investigate a murder case, mostly for the fun of it.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton
Votes: 32,528
25. After the Thin Man (1936)
Passed | 112 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Private detective Nick Charles and his wealthy wife Nora are back home at last and hoping for a quiet New Year when there is a murder. The obvious suspect is his wife, Nora's cousin, Selma.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, James Stewart, Elissa Landi
Votes: 12,116 | Gross: $4.34M
26. Another Thin Man (1939)
Passed | 103 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
An explosives manufacturer suspects a young man is out to kill him. He calls in new parents Nick and Nora to sort things out.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Virginia Grey, Otto Kruger
Votes: 8,159 | Gross: $3.32M
27. Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
Passed | 97 min | Drama, Mystery
A jockey has been shot dead at the race track. Famous detective Nick Charles and his wife Nora happen to be on the scene and Lt. Abrahams asks for Nick's expert help.
Director: W.S. Van Dyke | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Barry Nelson, Donna Reed
Votes: 6,887
28. The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)
Approved | 100 min | Film-Noir, Mystery
Nick and Nora head to Nick's hometown of Sycamore Springs to spend some time with his parents. His father, a prominent local physician, was always a bit disappointed with Nick's choice of ... See full summary »
Director: Richard Thorpe | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Lucile Watson, Gloria DeHaven
Votes: 6,271 | Gross: $3.86M
29. Song of the Thin Man (1947)
Not Rated | 86 min | Comedy, Crime, Musical
Nick and Nora Charles are on a gambling boat when someone is murdered. The two main suspects are at large and come to Nick for help. Nick turns them in to the police but then sets out to figure out the mystery.
Director: Edward Buzzell | Stars: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Keenan Wynn, Dean Stockwell
Votes: 5,733 | Gross: $3.06M
30. Blossoms in the Dust (1941)
Approved | 99 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
After losing her young son, Edna Gladney opposes the unfair laws discriminating against children whose parents are unknown, and opens an orphanage for those children.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Felix Bressart, Marsha Hunt
Votes: 2,294
31. The Canterville Ghost (1944)
Passed | 95 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
The descendent of a ghost imprisoned for cowardice hopes to free the spirit by displaying courage when under duress.
Directors: Jules Dassin, Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Charles Laughton, Robert Young, Margaret O'Brien, William Gargan
Votes: 3,346
32. Captains Courageous (1937)
G | 117 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
A spoiled brat who falls overboard from a steamship in the 1920s gets picked up by a New England fishing boat, where he's made to earn his keep by joining the crew in their work.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore, Melvyn Douglas
Votes: 10,921
33. Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
Passed | 102 min | Drama, Family
An American boy turns out to be the long-lost heir of a British fortune. He is sent to live with the cold and unsentimental lord who oversees the trust.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Freddie Bartholomew, Dolores Costello, C. Aubrey Smith, Guy Kibbee
Votes: 2,519
34. Great Expectations (1946)
Approved | 118 min | Adventure, Drama, Mystery
A humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Director: David Lean | Stars: John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Tony Wager, Jean Simmons
Votes: 26,401
35. A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Not Rated | 128 min | Drama, History, Romance
A pair of lookalikes, one a former French aristocrat and the other an alcoholic English lawyer, fall in love with the same woman amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution.
Directors: Jack Conway, Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan, Edna May Oliver, Reginald Owen
Votes: 6,297
36. The Prince and the Pauper (1937)
Approved | 118 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
A poor boy named Tom Canty and the Prince of Wales exchange identities but events force the pair to experience each other's lives as well.
Directors: William Keighley, William Dieterle | Stars: Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Henry Stephenson, Barton MacLane
Votes: 2,877
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