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Top Films from Various Novelists and Playwrights

The lists below include films from a number of novelists and playwrights. In most cases, the films are adaptations of their novels or plays. In some cases, the authors wrote the screenplays for the films.

James M. Cain

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Double Indemnity 1944 Billy Wilder 41
2 Out of the Past 1947 Jacques Tourneur 242
3 Mildred Pierce 1945 Michael Curtiz 388
4 The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946 Tay Garnett 779
5 Ossessione 1943 Luchino Visconti 1248
6 The Postman Always Rings Twice 1981 Bob Rafelson 1951

Raymond Chandler

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Double Indemnity 1944 Billy Wilder 41
2 The Big Sleep 1946 Howard Hawks 163
3 Strangers on a Train 1951 Alfred Hitchcock 235
4 The Long Goodbye 1973 Robert Altman 721
5 Murder, My Sweet 1944 Edward Dmytryk 1241

Charles Dickens

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Great Expectations 1946 David Lean 257
2 Oliver! 1968 Carol Reed 471
3 Oliver Twist 1948 David Lean 939
4 Scrooge 1951 Brian Desmond Hurst 962
5 David Copperfield 1935 George Cukor 1062

William Faulkner

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The Big Sleep 1946 Howard Hawks 163
2 To Have and Have Not 1944 Howard Hawks 383
3 Mildred Pierce 1945 Michael Curtiz 388
4 Gunga Din 1939 George Stevens 623
5 The Southerner 1945 Jean Renoir 2049

Ian Fleming

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Goldfinger 1964 Guy Hamilton 186
2 Dr. No 1962 Terence Young 524
3 From Russia with Love 1963 Terence Young 720
4 Casino Royale 2006 Martin Campbell 917
5 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 1968 Ken Hughes 1112
6 GoldenEye 1995 Martin Campbell 1788
7 The Spy Who Loved Me 1977 Lewis Gilbert 1902
8 On Her Majesty's Secret Service 1969 Peter R. Hunt 2041

Graham Greene

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The Third Man 1949 Carol Reed 27
2 Brighton Rock 1947 John Boulting 925
3 The Quiet American 2002 Phillip Noyce 1429
4 Went the Day Well? 1942 Alberto Cavalcanti 1520
5 The Fallen Idol 1948 Carol Reed 1785

Oscar Hammerstein II

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The King and I 1956 Walter Lang 519
2 Oklahoma! 1955 Fred Zinnemann 801
3 Carousel 1956 Henry King 1162
4 Show Boat 1936 James Whale 1205
5 Carmen Jones 1954 Otto Preminger 1305
6 South Pacific 1958 Joshua Logan 1391
7 Annie Get Your Gun 1950 George Sidney 1993

James Hilton

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Camille 1936 George Cukor 681
2 Goodbye Mr. Chips 1939 Sam Wood 685
3 Mrs. Miniver 1942 William Wyler 949
4 Foreign Correspondent 1940 Alfred Hitchcock 1054
5 Lost Horizon 1937 Frank Capra 1128
6 Random Harvest 1942 Mervyn LeRoy 2097

Stephen King

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The Shawshank Redemption 1994 Frank Darabont 46
2 The Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick 87
3 Carrie 1976 Brian De Palma 269
4 Stand by Me 1986 Rob Reiner 315
5 The Green Mile 1999 Frank Darabont 560
6 Misery 1990 Rob Reiner 1202
7 The Dead Zone 1983 David Cronenberg 1714

Richard Matheson

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The Incredible Shrinking Man 1957 Jack Arnold 892
2 Duel 1971 Steven Spielberg 918
3 The Omega Man 1971 Boris Sagal 1685
4 What Dreams May Come 1998 Vincent Ward 2154
5 Pit and the Pendulum 1961 Roger Corman 2281

Mario Puzo

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 The Godfather 1972 Francis Ford Coppola 1
2 The Godfather: Part II 1974 Francis Ford Coppola 14
3 Superman 1978 Richard Donner 272
4 The Godfather: Part III 1990 Francis Ford Coppola 432
5 Superman II 1980 Richard Lester 1387

Bram Stoker

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau 105
2 Dracula 1931 Tod Browning 399
3 Horror of Dracula 1958 Terence Fisher 718
4 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948 Charles Barton 857
5 Nosferatu the Vampyre 1979 Werner Herzog 1047
6 Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992 Francis Ford Coppola 1320

H.G. Wells

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Voyage to the Moon 1902 Georges Méliès 517
2 Dead of Night 1945 Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, and Robert Hamer 640
3 The War of the Worlds 1953 Byron Haskin 711
4 The Invisible Man 1933 James Whale 731
5 Things to Come 1936 William Cameron Menzies 931
6 The Time Machine 1960 George Pal 1264
7 War of the Worlds 2005 Steven Spielberg 1449
8 Island of Lost Souls 1932 Erle C. Kenton 1877
This page was last modified on May 24, 2011