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You've Seen the Movie...Now Read the Book!

Winners of Academy Awards®  for Best Picture which are based upon Novels, Plays and Short Stories

The number following the movie title is the total number of Academy Awards won by that motion picture, including "Best Picture." If the original title of the work is different than that of the movie, it is listed in italic print. Where there is no Dewey Decimal call number indicated, the book is shelved in the Adult Fiction under the author's last name. The year listed after the author's name is the original publication date of the book, play or story. For more information on movies based on previously published written works, see Enser's Filmed Books and Plays (1928-1991) and The New York Times "Film Reviews" (1913-1988), or you can look up movie credits on the World Wide Web on a variety of Web sites, including The Internet Movie Database or the All-Movie Guide. The "Oscars®" are awarded in the Spring for motion pictures released during the previous year. The official Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Web site is at www.oscars.org.

Other books made into movies, and novelizations or movies after the fact, can be searched in the Lincoln City Libraries catalog by title and title keyword and searching for the name of the movie. All books owned by Lincoln City Libraries are hotlinked to their entries in our library catalog, so that you may check on their current availability. If you see a title on this list that is not hotlinked to our collection, please consider ordering it through our Interlibrary Loan department.

Check for DVDClick the DVD icons in the list below to check on the availability of the motion picture versions of these "Best Picture" winners.


1930 Check for DVD All Quiet on the Western Front [2] Erich Maria Remarque1928  *
1931 Check for DVD Cimarron [3] Edna Ferber1929
1932 Check for DVD Grand Hotel [1] Vicki Baum1929  **
1934 Check for DVD It Happened One Night [5] Samuel Hopkins AdamsNight Bus (short story)
1935 Check for DVD Mutiny on the Bounty [1] Charles B. Nordhoff and James Norman Hall1932
1938 Check for DVD You Can't Take it With You [2] George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart [812.08 Kau](Three plays by Kaufman & Hart)
1939 Check for DVD Gone With the Wind [10] Margaret Mitchell1936
1940  Rebecca [2] Daphne Du Maurier1938
1941 Check for DVD How Green Was My Valley [5] Richard Llewellyn1940
1942 Check for DVD Mrs. Miniver [6] Joyce Maxtone Graham (as "Jan Struther")1940
1943 Check for DVD Casablanca [3] Murray BurnettEverybody Comes to Rick's (play)
1945 Check for DVD The Lost Weekend [4] Charles R. Jackson1944
1946 Check for DVD The Best Years of Our Lives [8] MacKinlay KantorGlory for Me (novel)
1947 Check for DVD Gentlemen's Agreement [3] Laura Z. Hobson1946
1948 Check for DVD Hamlet [4] William Shakespeare [822.33 ShaS7nf]ca. 1600  The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke
1949 Check for DVD All the King's Men [3] Robert Penn Warren1946
1950 Check for DVD All About Eve [6] Mary OrrThe Wisdom of Eve (short story)
1953 Check for DVD From Here to Eternity [8] James Jones1951
1956 Check for DVD Around the World in 80 Days [5] Jules Verne1872  ***
1957 Check for DVD The Bridge on the River Kwai [7] Pierre Boulle1954  The Bridge Over the River Kwai ****
1958 Check for DVD Gigi [9] Colette1944
1959 Check for DVD Ben-Hur [11] Lew Wallace1880
1961 Check for DVD West Side Story [10] Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim (based upon a concept of Jerome Robbins) [Music 782.14 Ber]1957  #
1963  Tom Jones [4] Henry Fielding1749  The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
1964 Check for DVD My Fair Lady [8] Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner1956  (based upon the play "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw 1912 [822 Sh2pyg])  ##
1966 Check for DVD A Man For All Seasons [6] Robert Bolt1960  A Man for All Seasons: A Play of Sir Thomas More [808.82 C33p Plays of Our Time]
1967 Check for DVD In the Heat of the Night [5] John Ball1965
1968 Check for DVD Oliver! [6] Charles Dickens1837  Oliver Twist, Or, The Parish Boy's Progress. By Boz  ###
This movie is available on videocassette from the library
1969 Check for DVD Midnight Cowboy [3] James Leo Herlihy1965
1972 Check for DVD The Godfather [3] Mario Puzo1969
1974 Check for DVD The Godfather Part II [6] Mario Puzo1969  The Godfather
1975 Check for DVD One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [5] Ken Kesey1962
1979 Check for DVD Kramer vs. Kramer [5] Avery Corman1977
1980 Check for DVD Ordinary People [4] Judith Guest1976
1983 Check for DVD Terms of Endearment [5] Larry McMurtry1975  †
1984 Check for DVD Amadeus [8] Peter Shaffer [822 Sha]1980
1989 Check for DVD Driving Miss Daisy [4] Alfred Uhry [812 Uhr]1987
1990 Check for DVD Dances With Wolves [7] Michael Blake1988
1991 Check for DVD The Silence of the Lambs [5] Thomas Harris1988
1993 Check for DVD Schindler's List [7] Thomas Keneally1982  (also known as "Schindler's Ark")
1994 Check for DVD Forrest Gump [6] Winston Groom1986
1996 Check for DVD The English Patient [9] Michael Ondaatje1992
2002 Check for DVD Chicago [6] (based on the 1975 musical by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb; based on a 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins)1926  (play)
1975  (musical)
2003 Check for DVD The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [11] J.R.R. Tolkien1955
2004 Check for DVD Million Dollar Baby: Stories From the Corner [4] F.X. Toole2000  (originally known as "Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner")
2007 Check for DVD No Country for Old Men [4] Cormac McCarthy2005
2008 Check for DVD Slumdog Millionaire [8] Vikas Swarup2005  (originally known as "Q&A")
2010 Check for DVD The King's Speech [4] Mark Logue2010

Schindler's List book cover    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest book cover    Amadeus book cover    Terms of Endearment book cover    Silence of the Lambs book cover    In the Heat of the Night book cover   


Also note: The 1998 Best Picture, Shakespeare in Love, was written by screenwriter Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard and is based on the life, times, and plays of William Shakespeare, particularly "Romeo and Juliet."

*original published in German, "Im Western Nichts Neues"
**originally published in German, "Menschen Im Hotel"
***originally published in French, "Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingt Jours"
**** originally published in French, "Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai"
#inspired by the play "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, written ca. 1594 and titled "The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet" in one of its earliest authoritative editions, which was itself based upon a poem, "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet" written by Arthur Brooke in 1562, which was based in turn upon a French translation of an Italian work "La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amanti" by Matteo Bandello (1485-1561), with the characters "Romeo e Giuletta". Elements of the story also appear in earlier Italian works, "Il Novellino" written by Masuccio Salemitano in 1474, and "Istoria novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti" by Luigi da Porto; similarly, "Hamlet" is based upon an English play from the 1580s, probably written by Thomas Kyd, and can be traced back to Norse/Icelandic folklore.
##translated into German from the English original for premiere in Germany; published in English in 1920
###first published in serial form under the full title in "Bentley's Miscellany", 1837-1839, and then as a book in 3 volumes; second edition shortened to Oliver Twist; "Boz" was Dickens' early pen name
†filmed partially in Lincoln, Nebraska

Original printed list March 1999 bwc
Last updated February 2011 sdc -- includes the Academy Awards through 2011

A related page on our library Web site of possible interest to fans of The Academy Awards® can be found at: Countdown to the Academy Awards 2004.

Looking for additional novels on this or other subjects? Try out the NoveList database!

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