10 Riveting Reads That Need to Be Movies

Alex Michaelides’s fantastic debut, The Silent Patient, has been optioned for film, and his sophomore novel, The Maidens, is being adapted into a TV show. We’d love to see The Fury, his newest thriller, hit the big screen next. Set on a picturesque Greek island, The Fury would be a must-see movie: a reclusive movie star main character, guests trapped by a storm, an untrustworthy and unreliable narrator, and a twisty narrative in the style of Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith. It will keep you guessing until its climactic, cinematic end. 

Renowned chef Erin French already hosts her own television show — The Lost Kitchen on Magnolia Network — but we’d take great pleasure in seeing her celebrated memoir, Finding Freedom, hit the big screen. And lucky for us, it looks like that’s going to happen! In 2021, the film rights were sold at auction. In Finding Freedom, French lays bare the rocky path that led to her opening The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine. Today, her restaurant is so popular that hopeful diners must send a postcard and be chosen to eat there. 

Alex North’s books always play out like a movie. And now that his novel The Whisper Man is coming to Netflix this fall, with a star-studded cast that includes Michelle Monaghan, Adam Scott, and Robert De Niro, we’re ready to see The Angel Maker adapted next. The intense supernatural thriller follows Katie Shaw as she searches for her missing brother, Chris. Still guilty over not protecting Chris from a brutal attack when they were both younger, Katie now races against the clock to find her sibling before it’s too late. Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page probes the gruesome murder of a professor, with clues pointing back to the attack on young Chris and the crimes of a serial killer believed to have psychic abilities. Exploring fate, free will, and prophecy, The Angel Maker would definitely draw in crowds with its twisted mystery. 

Christine Kuehn’s propulsive account reveals her family’s shocking involvement as Nazi and Japanese spies during WWII and the pivotal role they played in the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Kuehn’s true-life chronicle is incredibly cinematic — indeed, the author only uncovered her family’s secret history after a screenwriter wrote her to ask about it. What happens next is a wartime journey of tragedy and deception that you’ll have to experience to believe. We’re certain this real-life spy story would be as gripping on the big screen as it was to read. 

The amount of heartbreak — and triumph — in Mikel Jollett’s Hollywood Park makes it a prime candidate for a film adaptation. In this bestselling memoir about family and transformation, Jollett revisits his troubled upbringing, from escaping a notorious cult to enduring poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet Jollett persevered, graduating from Stanford and finding success as a writer and the lead singer of the band Airborne Toxic Event. We’d love to see a big-screen biopic that follows his inspiring journey.

As one of the biggest names in crime fiction, Ruth Ware knows how to craft a captivating tale. In fact, at least two of her books — In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Lying Game — are currently being produced for the big screen, while an adaptation of The Woman in Cabin 10 recently hit Netflix. Yet it’s One by One that we most wish to see in a darkened theater. The 2020 mystery centers on the employees of a fashionable tech startup during a corporate retreat in the French Alps. At first, the luxe mountain setting is sublime. Yet it isn’t long before the snowy weather turns treacherous, tensions boil over, and the business function takes a turn for the deadly.

Women’s rage is having such a moment, and we’re ready to see this tale of secrets, disappearances, and revenge make it to the big screen. Thankfully, Beautiful Ugly was recently optioned for adaptation. One year ago, author Grady Green’s wife, Abby, disappeared without a trace during a roadside stop: One moment, they were talking on the phone, and the next, she was gone. Unable to sleep or write and desperate to put his life back in order, Grady retreats to a remote Scottish island where he encounters a mysterious sight amid the windswept landscape: a woman who looks exactly like his vanished wife.

An exceptional memoir can translate into an exceptional biopic, and that is what we’d expect if Bill Browder’s true-life political thriller Red Notice were to make its way onto the big screen. In the book, Browder chronicles his experience as a Wall Street mogul turned Russian enemy of the state. While he made his fortune in post-Soviet Russia, Browder’s account is more about how he exposed corruption, impacted the law, and fought for justice for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was imprisoned and tortured to death under the Putin regime. 

At one point, The Family Upstairs was expected to become a miniseries. Since that has yet to happen, might we suggest a feature-length film? Lisa Jewell’s New York Times bestseller is a gripping psychological thriller about Libby Jones, an adoptee who learns the identity of her birth parents, inherits a fancy London mansion, and must navigate the disturbing, murderous secrets she uncovers within the home. 

Kristin Hannah’s Firefly Lane became a hit Netflix series, and a number of her other novels — including the #1 New York Times bestseller The Nightingale — are slated to become films in the near future. We humbly request that this epic literary love story by the author make its way into movie theaters as well. Set during the Great Depression, The Four Winds follows Elsa Wolcott as she braves the drought and devastation sweeping across the Great Plains. Soon, Elsa must choose whether to endure the hardships of home or head west to California in hopes of finding a better life.