Books Made into Oscar-Nominated Films

Before they were nominated for Academy Awards, these stories were books. Which do you prefer, the book or the movie?

Updated March 17, 2025
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12 years a slave illustrated : narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and rescued in 1853 from a cotton plantation in Avoyelles Parish, in the Mississippi Valley of Louisiana
Paper Book
The story that inspired the major motion picture, with an introduction by the bestselling author of Wench, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing, vividly detailed, and utterly unforgettable account of slavery. The story that inspired the major...

306.362 N819 2013

A long way home : a memoir
Brierley, Saroo.
Paper Book
First it was a media sensation. Then it became the New York Times bestseller and #1 international bestseller A Long Way Home. Now it's Lion, the major motion picture starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara--nominated for six Academy Awards! This is the...

362.734 B766 2014

Nomadland : surviving America in the twenty-first century
Bruder, Jessica
Paper Book
From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on...

331.398 Bruder 2017

Black Panther. Book 1A nation under our feet
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
MacArthur Genius and National Book Award-winner T- Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) takes the helm, confronting T'Challa with a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda. When a superhuman terrorist group that calls itself The People sparks a violent uprising, the land famed for its incredible technology...
Room : a novel
Donoghue, Emma
Paper Book
The award-winning bestseller that became one of the most talked about and memorable novels of the decade, Room is "utterly gripping...a heart-stopping novel" (San Francisco Chronicle).   Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her...
Erasure : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has...
The curious case of Benjamin Button and other tales of the jazz age
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
From one of the great voices in the history of American literature, a witty and fantastical satire about aging, and the inspiration for the 2008 blockbuster film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known today for his novels, but during his...
Extremely loud & incredibly close
Foer, Jonathan Safran
Paper Book
ANew York Times Bestseller * NamedA Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch,andRocky Mountain News   Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an...
Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, "one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New...

970.3 Osage Grann 2017

Travelling to infinity : my life with Stephen
Hawking, Jane
Paper Book
Complete with exclusive photographs of the couple, this moving and engaging memoir written by Stephen Hawking’s first wife covers the turbulent years of her marriage with the astrophysics genius, her traumatic divorce, and their recent reconciliation  <...

530.092 H313yh 2014

Seabiscuit : an American legend
Hillenbrand, Laura.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of the runaway phenomenon Unbroken comes a universal underdog story about the horse who came out of nowhere to become a legend. Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular...

798.4 H557 2003

Alan Turing : the enigma : the book that inspired the film The Imitation Game
Hodges, Andrew.
Paper Book
The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley Alan Turing was the mathematician whose cipher-cracking transformed the Second World War. Taken on by British Intelligence in 1938, as a shy young...

510.92 T846yh 2014

Les miserables
Hugo, Victor
Paper Book
Few novels ever swept across the world with such overpowering impact as Les Misérables. Within 24 hours, the first Paris edition was sold out. In other great cities of the world it was devoured with equal relish. Sensational, dramatic, packed with rich excitement and...
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Lee Shetterly, Margot.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller -WINNER OF ANISFIELD-WOLF AWARD FOR NONFICTION -WINNER BLACK CAUCUS OF AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NAACP IMAGE AWARD BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES,...

510.92 L516 2016

The big short : inside the doomsday machine
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine, and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and...

330.973 L587

The blind side : evolution of a game
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday,...
Moneyball : the art of winning an unfair game
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts, Michael Lewis has written not only "the single most influential baseball...

796.357 Lewis 2003

The King's speech
Logue, Mark.
Paper Book
The King's Speech is the previously untold story of the extraordinary relationship between an unknown and certainly unqualified speech therapist called Lionel Logue and the haunted young man who became King George VI. Logue wasn't a British aristocrat or even an Englishman--he was a commoner...

941.084 L829yL 2010

Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the west : a novel
Maguire, Gregory.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire's Wicked is established not only as a commentary on...
Life of Pi : a novel
Martel, Yann.
Paper Book
The Jungle Book meets Not Wanted On the Voyage in a triumph of storytelling and originality: a novel, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God. Piscine Molitor Patel, nicknamed Pi, lives in Pondicherry, India, where his family runs a zoo. Little Pi is a great...
Atonement : a novel
McEwan, Ian.
Paper Book
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her too is Robbie Turner who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the...
The master of disguise : my secret life in the CIA
Mendez, Antonio J.
Paper Book
Tony Mendez led two lives. To his friends, he was a soft-spoken, nondescript bureaucrat working for the Department of Defense. To the leaders of the CIA, he was their master of disguise--an undisputed genius who could create an entirely new identity for anybody, anywhere, anytime. Combining the...

327.1273 Mendez, Antonio Mendez 1999

War horse
Morpurgo, Michael.
Paper Book
The book that inspired Steven Spielberg's Hollywood blockbuster movie and an internationally acclaimed stage show . . . it can only be Michael Morpurgo's War Horse. In the deadly chaos of the First World War, one horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches....
Desolation island
O'Brian, Patrick
Paper Book
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, sail the Leopard to Australia...
True grit
Portis, Charles.
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller, Charles Portis's True Grit is "an epic and a legend" (Washington Post), a story of danger and adventure in the Old West--the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne in his only Oscar-winning role, as...
The revenant
Punke, Michael.
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A thrilling tale of betrayal and revenge set against the nineteenth-century American frontier, Michael Punke's The Revenant is the astonishing story of real-life trapper and frontiersman Hugh...
The silver linings playbook
Quick, Matthew
Paper Book
Why did NPR's popular librarian Nancy Pearl pickThe Silver Linings Playbook as one of summer's best reads for 2009? "Aawww shucks!" Pearl said. "I know that's hardly a usual way to begin a book review, but it was my immediate response to finishing Matthew Quick's heartwarming...
All quiet on the western front
Remarque, Erich Maria
Paper Book
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time--with an Oscar-winning film adaptation now streaming on Netflix.   "[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank."--...
Push : a novel
Sapphire
Paper Book
The acclaimed book that inspired Precious, the Sundance Film Festival winner from Lee Daniels "Even though the film Precious packs quite a wallop, the gritty realism of the novel upon which the movie is based is even more intense." --NPR
The reader
Schlink, Bernhard.
Paper Book
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany.When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is...
Black Klansman : race, hate, and the undercover investigation of a lifetime
Stallworth, Ron
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times Bestseller! The extraordinary true story and basis for the Academy Award winning film BlacKkKlansman, written and directed by Spike Lee, produced by Jordan Peele, and starring John David Washington and Adam Driver. When detective...

322.42 Stallworth 2018

The help
Stockett, Kathryn.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film--a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't--nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Aibileen is a...
Women talking : a novel
Toews, Miriam
Paper Book
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first part of JRR Tolkien's epic masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to...
The return of the king : being the third part of The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The Return of the King is the third part of JRR Tolkien's epic masterpiece The Lord of the Rings, soon to be a major movie. The armies of the Dark Lord are massing as his evil shadow spreads even wider. Men, Dwarves, Elves and Ents unite forces to battle against the Dark....
The two towers : being the second part of the lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The second part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure THE LORD OF THE RINGS The company of the Ring is torn asunder. Frodo and Sam continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin - alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows...
Million dollar baby : stories from the corner
Toole, F. X.
Paper Book
This hard-hitting collection of powerful and moving tales based on the experiences of the late, great fight manager and cut man Jerry Boyd, who wrote under the pen name F.X. Toole, is the basis for the Oscar-winning motion picture starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. Breathing life into...
Brooklyn : A Novel
Tóibín, Colm
Paper Book
It is Enniscorthy in the southeast of Ireland in the early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to...
The nickel boys : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. * "One of the most gifted novelists in...
Winter's bone : a novel
Woodrell, Daniel.
Paper Book
Daniel Woodrell's modern classic is an unforgettable tale of desperation and courage that inspired the award-winning film starring Jennifer Lawrence.  Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose...

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