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
A testimony of personal strength and a telling portrait of American slavery in the pre-Civil War South. When Solomon Northup, born a free black man in Saratoga, New York, was offered a short-term job with a circus in Washington, D.C., in 1841, he jumped at the opportunity. But when he...

306.362 N819 2013

A long way home : a memoir
Brierley, Saroo.
Paper Book
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and Rooney Mara, this #1 international best-seller tells the miraculous and triumphant story of a young man who rediscovers not only his childhood life and home...but an identity long-since left behind. ...

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
Audiobook
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...
Underwater wild : my octopus teacher's extraordinary world
Foster, Craig (Filmmaker)
Paper Book
From the creators of the Academy Award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher, an immersive journey into the underwater world that inspired it--and holds transformative lessons for us all Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck regularly dive together in the awe...

577.78 Foster 2021

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 York...

970.3 Osage Grann 2017

Travelling to infinity : my life with Stephen
Hawking, Jane
Paper Book
Professor Stephen Hawking is one of the most famous and remarkable scientists of our age and author of the scientific bestseller A Brief History of Time, which sold more than 25 million copies. In this compelling memoir, his first wife, Jane Hawking, relates the inside story of...

530.092 H313yh 2014

Seabiscuit : an American legend
Hillenbrand, Laura.
Audiobook
Seabiscuit was a crooked little horse, built like a cinderblock, but there was something special about his attitude. In 1936, when a wealthy businessman, an aging trainer, and a destitute jockey focused their attention on Seabiscuit, they were astonished at the results. Despite heavy handicaps,...

798.4 H557 2003

Alan Turing : the enigma : the book that inspired the film The Imitation Game
Hodges, Andrew.
Ebook
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912...

510.92 T846yh 2014

Les miserables
Hugo, Victor
Paper Book
Victor Hugo's towering novel of Jean Valjean, his unjust imprisonment, and his lifelong flight from a relentless police officer.
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 #1 New York Times Bestseller "Lewis has such a gift for storytelling...he writes as lucidly for sports fans as for those who read him for other reasons." --Janet Maslin, New York Times When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by...
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.
Audiobook
The King's Speech was written by London Sunday Times journalist Peter Conradi and Mark Logue-grandson of Lionel Logue, whose recently discovered diaries and correspondence contain fascinating details about these true events. At the urging of his wife, Elizabeth, the Duke of York (known to the royal...

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
NOW ON BROADWAY The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play.  After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the...
Atonement : a novel
McEwan, Ian.
Paper Book
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony&...
The master of disguise : my secret life in the CIA
Mendez, Antonio J.
CD
From the author of Argo comes an unforgettable behind-the-scenes story of espionage in action. In the first ever memoir by a top-level operative to be authorized by the CIA, Antonio J. Mendez reveals the cunning tricks and insights that helped save hundreds from deadly situations. Adept at creating...

327.1273 Mendez, Antonio Mendez 1999

War horse
Morpurgo, Michael.
Paper Book
A powerful tale of war, redemption, and a hero's journey. In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the...
A beautiful mind : a biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, 1994
Nasar, Sylvia.
Audiobook
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
A New York Times bestseller, The Silver Linings Playbook was adapted into the Oscar-winning movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. It tells the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wife's betrayal....
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
An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world...
The reader
Schlink, Bernhard.
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER *  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. "A formally beautiful...
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 internationally bestselling novel based on real events. Now a major motion picture from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. "This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real...
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
For over fifty years, J.R.R. Tolkien's peerless fantasy has accumulated worldwide acclaim as the greatest adventure tale ever written. No other writer has created a world as distinct as Middle-earth, complete with its own geography, history, languages, and legends. And no one has created characters...
The return of the king : being the third part of The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The awesome conclusion to The Lord of the Rings--the greatest fantasy epic of all time--which began in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read ...
The two towers : being the second part of the lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The second volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, now featuring film art on the cover. Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the...
Million dollar baby : stories from the corner
Toole, F. X.
Paper Book
Brooklyn : A Novel
Tóibín, Colm
Paper Book
From the award-winning author of The Master, a hauntingly compelling novel--by far Tóibín's most accessible book--set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s about a young woman torn between her family in Ireland and the american who wins her heart. Eilis Lacey has come...
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
When Ree Dollys father skips bail, the 16-year-old knows if he doesn't show up, her family will lose their home. Her goal had been to leave her life of poverty and join the Army, but first she must find her father, teach her little brothers to fend for themselves, and escape a downward spiral of...

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