The Handmaid's Tale and other adaptations of books worth watching (and reading)

The TV adaptation first aired on HBO in 2017 with lead actress Elisabeth Moss and starring roles for Yvonne Strahovski, Joseph Fiennes, and Alexis Bledel. now there are five seasons of the gut-wrenching series and each is more gripping, terrifying, and emotional than the last.

Photo: Hulu

Canadian author Margaret Atwood published 'The Handmaid's Tale' in 1985. It describes the dystopian nation of Gilead where fertile women are enslaved and forced to have babies for the majority of people who are infertile.

Photo: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Emma Stone, the actress known for her sweet, romantic leads took on the villain - Cruella - in this Disney film of the same name. The movie depicts Cruella’s beginnings from the time that she was still called Estella.

Photo: Disney

'Cruella' is based on Dodie Smith’s original book (The Hundred and One Dalmatians). Glenn Close originally played Cruella in the 1996 101 Dalmatians movie and its sequel.

Photo: Heinemann / Disney

Tom Clancy is well known already for filmmakers successfully adapting his Jack Ryan series of books, and this film is believed to be equally as successful. John Kelly, a Navy Seal goes on a revenge spree as he loses two loved women in his life and tries to bring down the drug lords responsible. The best thing? The lead is played by none other than Michael B. Jordan, an award-winning actor, and People Magazine’s 2020 sexiest man.

Photo: Berkley / Paramount Pictures

Peter Rabbit, voiced by James Cordon, is now happy with his family in a rural home but has the twitch to go out and seek something more exciting. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, follows Peter as he ventures to the big city and creates all kinds of problems for his rabbit family. With voices by a star-studded cast, including Margot Robbie and Rose Byrne, this film is a lively adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s original books. A feel-good, family story worth watching.

Photo: Penguin Random House / Sony Pictures

Sure you have heard of the first two films in this trilogy, 'To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before' and 'To All the Boys P.S. I Still Love You'. The third and final film is a great cherry on the cake. Still available to stream, 'To All The Boys: Always and Forever', follows Lara Jean in her senior year of high school as she is forced to make difficult head/heart decisions.

Photo: Simon & Schuster / Awesomeness Films

Mark Wahlberg leads the cast of this book adaptation. Based on Maikranz’s sci-fi thriller, The Reincarnationist Papers, Evan Michaels discovers his strange hallucinations are actually snippets of a past life. He joins a secret group and discovers he is not the only one with this ability.

Photo: D. Eric Maikranz / Paramount Pictures

The film was pushed back to give way to Sing 2, then it was due to be released on December 22nd, 2021; and it has now been pushed back to 2024. Following the ‘other story’ of the classic, The Wizard of Oz, this story follows the ‘good’ witch Glinda (Ariana Grande), and the ‘wicked’ witch, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), and how they came to receive their titles. Questioning people’s perspectives of good and evil, the story, based on the book by Gregory Maguire, has already been an incredibly successful Broadway and West End musical so many are looking forward to it hitting the screens.

Photo: Cavalier House Books / GETTY IMAGES

Based on the book of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, the film takes a look at the life of Marilyn Monroe, a woman who remains extremely relevant to our pop culture today. Ana de Armas brings Marilyn to life in this up-close-and-personal look at Monroe’s behind-closed-doors tale. Armas is a perfectionist who spent a long time perfecting Marilyn’s well-recognized voice. "It took me nine months of dialect coaching and practicing, and some [automated dialogue replacement] sessions," she said. "It was a big torture, so exhausting. My brain was fried."

Photo: Harper Collins / Netflix

Kristin Hannah’s World War 2 drama is being adapted into a highly-anticipated film that will be released later this year. The story focuses on two sisters (played by sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning) who have to host a German officer in their home. The dilemma develops as they must choose whether to accept what is, or resist the German occupation. The sad news? The film has been pushed back and now there seems to be no release date at all.

Photo: Griffin / GETTY IMAGES

Jane Campion took on the honor of directing an adaptation of Thomas Savage’s wonderful book, which describes a family feud between two wealthy brothers in Montana. Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst returned to our screens to star in this dark and twisted story where one of the brothers sets out to destroy the other using his wife and stepson as pawns in his game.

Photo: Hatchett Book Group / Netflix

'Those Who Wish Me Dead,' based on Michael Koryta's novel of the same name is a thriller that follows two assassins searching for a teenager murder witness while a survival expert is tasked with protecting him as he hides in a forest. Warner Bros released this adaptation in 2021.

Photo: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd / Warner Bros.

This was another anticipated and long-delayed adaptation of 'The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness. Spiderman’s Tom Holland proves he is more than a superhero actor and takes on the lead role in this dystopian world where there are no women and everyone can hear each other’s thoughts. He discovers a woman who crash lands on the planet, Viola (played by Dasiy Ridley) and he must help her escape danger. The film was initially announced in 2011 so it has taken a long time to reach our screens, but it was finally released in the US on 5th March 2021.

Photo: Candlewick / Lionsgate

Originally a sci-fi novel written by John Wyndham, David Farr (Writer of The Night Manager) has developed a series adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos - a story that has already been adapted twice for the cinema. The weird and wonderful story centers around the Midwich community’s women falling pregnant with powerful, glowing-eyed alien children. It definitely sparks interest, doesn’t it? It came to us in June 2022 on Sky and has some pretty good reviews.

Photo: Penguin / Sky

To finish, we have to include one of the most anticipated book-to-film adaptations coming to us in 2023. 'Oppenheimer'. Perhaps you have heard the name. The book follows the story of the 'father' of the atomic bomb and its creation. The film is based on 'American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer', a biography written by Kai Bird. The film is directed by Christopher Nolan who has managed to get a jaw-dropping cast to portray the story. The likes of Cillian Murphy, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, and Matt Damon will grace our screens in July 2023.

Photo: Blackstone / Universal