Shane Life

Jason Kottke posted a link to a Guardian Story about the 50 (or is it 51?) greatest film adaptations from books of all time and then was inspired by another blogger, Michael Hanscom, to create a list of what he had seen and what he had read…Below is the list of the movies/books listed by the Guardian as the 50 greatest film adaptations of all-time. In the brackets next to the ones I’ve seen or read is a B or an M. Those letters indicate whether I’ve read the book [B] or seen the movie [M]:

1. 1984
2. [BM] Alice in Wonderland
3. American Psycho
4. [M] Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Brighton Rock
6. [BM] Catch 22
7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. A Clockwork Orange
9. [M] Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. The Day of the Triffids
11. Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. [BM] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. Doctor Zhivago
15. [M] Empire of the Sun
16. [BM] The English Patient
17. [M] Fight Club
18. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
19. [M] Get Shorty
20. The Godfather (I know…I know…I haven’t seen the Godfather)
21. [M] Goldfinger
22. [M] Goodfellas
23. Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. [M] Jaws
26. [M] The Jungle Book
27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. LA Confidential
29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. Lolita
31. [BM] Lord of the Flies
32. The Maltese Falcon
33. Oliver Twist
34. [BM] One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Thanks, Rich and Sarah!)
35. Orlando
36. [M] The Outsiders
37. [M] Pride and Prejudice
38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. The Railway Children
40. Rebecca
41. The Remains of the Day
42. [M] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
43. [M] Sin City
44. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. The Talented Mr Ripley
46. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
47. Through a Glass Darkly
48. [BM] To Kill a Mockingbird
49. [M] Trainspotting
50. [M] The Vanishing
51. Watership Down

Some good stuff left off the list that I’ve seen or read:

• The Lords of Discipline [BM]
• Being There [BM]
• The Princess Bride [BM]
• Silence of the Lambs [M]
• About a Boy [BM]
• High Fidelity [BM]
• Lord of the Rings [M]
• The Chronicles of Narnia [BM]
• Great Expectations [M]
• Fletch [BM] (it’s a travesty that this didn’t make the list)
• Jurassic Park [BM]
• ALL the Bond books/movies
• Robin Hood [M]
• Romeo & Juliet [BM]

That’s all I can think of right now…can you think of any others that I’m forgetting?