As technological advances improve, film directors are able to paint a clearer picture of how they envision imaginary worlds and characters in books. Here are ten adaptations to watch throughout the year.

 

 

1. Nosferatu

Those who missed the original Christmas 2024 release date still have a chance to watch Robert Egger’s version of Nosferatu in theater, an homage to the classic German expressionist film loosely inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

 

2. Wicked Part II

A Russian nesting doll’s worth of adaptations are behind the Wicked franchise; L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz became a 1939 film, which in turn inspired the Wicked book series, grew into a musical and became a two-part film. Part I is still in theaters, and Part II will be released by the end of the year.

 

3. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, a film about a widow finding love again, concludes the last of Helen Fielding’s trilogy (the first inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice).

 

4. Frankenstein

This year on Netflix, Guillermo del Toro offers a personal spin on Frankenstein, a passion project decades in the making.

 

5. Animal Farm

What at first seems like a light-hearted animated film is in truth a rendition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, an allegorical tale of the Russian Revolution and Stalin’s rise to dictatorship.

 

6. Verity

Writers rejoice: Colleen Hoover’s Verity is a spine-chilling thriller from the perspective of a struggling writer who lands the extraordinary opportunity to finish a successful series written by a best-selling author.

 

7. Mickey 17

Mickey 17, directed by Bong Joon-Ho with lead actor Robert Pattison, is an adaptation of Mickey7, whose protagonist repeatedly dies and gets cloned after performing dangerous tasks for a space colony.

 

8. Klara and the Sun

Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s vision is brought to light in Klara and the Sun, in which Jenna Ortega plays the lead role of Klara, an astute Artificial Friend who cares for a heartbroken family.

 

9. The Unbreakable Boy

The Unbreakable Boy is an inspiring biographical tale about a boy with brittle bone disease and autism whose positive approach to life uplifts others around him.

 

10. Wildwood

Stop motion studio producers of Coraline, Paranorman and Kubo and the Two Strings set out to adapt the New York Times bestselling book about two seventh-graders who discover a magical forest.