Books to Read Before the Movie Comes Out

There’s never any shortage of biopics during awards season, and this year there is certainly no shortage of adapted screenplays vying for top honors.  The Light Between Oceans was adapted for the big screen by Derek Cianfrance, in a heartbreaking film starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. James Schamus adapted Philip Roth’s Indignation for his elegantly riveting directorial debut. Here is a list of five books you may want to read before the film comes out.

Which, if any of these will go on to receive Oscar nominations? More importantly, which could go on to win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay or Best Picture?

The Girl On The Train
Book by: Paula Hawkins
Film Release Date: October 7.
Amazon link

When The Girl On The Train was released last summer, the book soared straight to the top of the New York Times Fiction Best-seller list and stayed there for fifteen weeks. Hailed as the next Gone Girl, the book tells the story of Rachel (played in the movie by Emily Blunt), a woman who takes the same train to work and imagines stories about the lives of the people she sees on her journey to work. One day a woman vanishes and Rachel thinks she knows what happened. She decides she has to do something about it.

The Help’s Tate Taylor directs this adaptation that stars Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Rebecca Ferguson and Haley Bennett.

The Girl on The Train trailer:

The Queen Of Katwe
Book by: Tim Crothers
Film Release Date: September 23
Amazon link here

Based on a true story, Tim Crowthers wrote the book about Phinoa Mutesi that chronicles how Mutesi becomes one of the best chess players in the world. Mutesi lives in the slums of Uganda, selling corn on the street. She learns to play chess after meeting missionary Robert Katende and uses the game as a way to escape life. She dreams of competing in matches around the world and becoming a candidate master.

The film stars newcomer Madina Nalwanga as Phiona Mutesi, Oscar winner Lupita N’yongo as her mother Harriet, and David Oyelowo as Katende, the man who introduces Phiona to the game.

The Queen of Katwe trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4l3-_yub5A

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Book by: Ben Fountain
Film Release Date:November 11
Amazonlink here

Ang Lee brings Ben Fountain’s 2012 novel to the big screen. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk follows Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn), a 19-year-old soldier who has returned from Iraq to a hero’s welcome. Billy and some of his fellow soldiers are invited to participate in the halftime show at a Thanksgiving Day football game, and through flashback, we learn what really happened during the battle hat made him famous. Billy begins to question the war, the media and most of all, the American Dream.

Newcomer Joe Alwyn stars in the title role. Vin Diesel, Garrett Hedlund and Chris Martin are featured alongside Kristen Stewart who plays Kathryn Lynn, Billy’s sister.

Watch the trailer:

Fantastic beasts and Where To Find Them.
Book by: J.K Rowling
Film Release Date: November 18
Amazon link here

Fantastic Beasts was required reading for Hogwart students in book one of the Harry Potter series. The short read takes the wizarding to New York City 1926. Newt Scamander is the wizard who has been traveling the world researching magical creatures for his book, Magizoology. A No-Maj who goes by the name Jacob Kowalski inadvertently releases dangerous magical creatures into the city, threatening to worsen the relations between the magic and non-magical in the American Wizarding World.

J.K Rowling makes her screenwriting debut for the first installment of a planned trilogy. Eddie Redmanye plays Newt Scamander. Colin Farrell, Zoe Kravitz and Ron Perlman also star.

Watch the trailer:

Tony and Susan
Book by: Austin Wright
Film Released: November 18
Amazon link here

Following A Single Man, Tom Ford returns for his second feature with this adaptation about an art-gallery owner swept up in a tale of backwoods noir. (She’s a school teacher in the novel, but Ford has changed that). She’s sent a mysterious manuscript written by her ex-husband and finds it unsettling that his book, entitled Nocturnal Animals, is not only dedicated to her, but is an alternative reality based on their marriage. When the family in the book-within-a-book come under attack by a trio of rednecks on a late night road trip, uneasy parallels emerge in a diabolical interplay of imagination and memory.

Amy Adams stars as Susan, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Tony. Armie Hammer, Isla Fisher and Michael Shannon star in the Tom Ford directed thriller.