Many of this year’s Academy Award-nominated movies started on the page, and that doesn’t mean a printed script! Of the films fighting it out to be crowned the best at the 96th Academy Awards, half took inspiration from novels, which are well worth reading for movie fans eager to see how these incredible stories reached the screen while they further explore their themes.
The year in movies was dominated by theBarbenheimer phenomenonthat made the most of the vastly different blockbustersOppenheimerandBarbie, much to the joy of audiences, movie theaters, the color pink, and Hollywood. That shows the direct literary inspiration for this year’s crop of fantastic films isn’t the whole story of 2023 and 2024, but there’s no doubt novels have opened up incredible moments of history, fantasy, and satire at cinemas this year. Here are the fiction and non-fiction books secretly in the running to pick up an Oscar on March 10th.
Erasure
The outstanding comedy-dramaAmerican Fictionis based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novelErasure. Typical of the writer’s novels, Erasure embeds narrative in narrative and uses an experimental structure to make searing points against discussion of African-American literature. As the adaptation proves, with its 5 nominations at the 96th Academy Awards, the issues raised have lost none of their relevance.
The Zone Of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of acclaimed novelist Martin Amis’s 14th novel stripped back the story to provide one of the year’s jaw-dropping films. The book is far less minimalist and fictionalized than the adaptation, where the story of a Nazi officer who falls with the wife of the commandant of Auschwitz (in the novel, Paul Doll is used in place of the real-life Rudolf Höss) is told through three narrators.
Poor Things
Nominated in 11 categories at the 2024 Academy Awards, the dark comedy fantasy starring Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo is adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel. Readers can expectPoor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officerto delve deeper into the film’s themes of social inequality and identity.
The Color Purple
The Color Purplemay not be nominated for Best Picture at the 2024 Oscars, but it’s the second adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel to make a showing at the Academy Awards. The 1985 film achieved 11 nods but didn’t claim a single statue. In 2023, the musical adaptation’s best chance lies with Danielle Brooks for Best Supporting Actress. Four decades after its publication, Walker’s Pulitzer-winning novel remains one of the most challenging and thought-provoking American novels.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction book, which has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, may run to 3.5 hours, but it only adapts the first two-thirds of its inspiration. Grann’s work fulfills its subtitle with a full exploration of the murder of wealthy Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma and the role the investigation into those terrible crimes played in the formation of the FBI.
American Prometheus: The Triumph & Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is an Oscar front-runner with an impressive 13 nominations at the 96th Academy Awards. The writer-director adapted it from this 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the scientist. At 721 pages, this deep dive into Oppenheimer breaks the man’s life into five parts, providing a greater account of his life’s work and legacy.
From a weighty biography about the father of the atomic bomb to a fantastical commentary on society and a stinging critique of the publishing industry’s perception of race, the varied selection of Best Picture nominees has translated to this diverse collection of books. Film fans looking to dig into the inspiration behind these movies can find the best prices and delivery options at Amazon bysigning up for a free 30-day trial of Prime.
