Hollywood loves a sure thing. So for many filmmakers, adapting an already successful book is a recipe for big-screen success. The 2016 award season, already in full swing, is no exception; some of the year’s most anticipated and celebrated movies got their start as novels, biographies and histories. Here, a list of books that have served as fodder.
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The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu won four Oscars for last year’s expansive Birdman, so it’s no surprise his next project is similarly ambitious. The director’s notoriously expensive adaptation of the Michael Punke novel stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a frontiersman whose company leaves him for dead after a bear mauling—but he survives, and tracks down his deserters to seek revenge.
Published: 2002
In theaters: Dec. 25 (limited), Jan. 8 (wide)
Room
Critics wondered how a movie could capture the voice of Emma Donoghue’s novel, narrated by a young boy who has spent his life locked inside a room with his kidnapped mother, yet most have been impressed by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay’s skillful handling.
Published: 2010
In theaters: Oct. 16 (limited), Nov. 25 (wide)
The Price of Salt, or Carol
The movie version (just called Carol) of Patricia Highsmith’s lesbian love story stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Published: 1952
In theaters: Nov. 20
The Danish Girl
Eddie Redmayne, the British actor who won last year’s Best Actor trophy for The Theory of Everything, stars in the adaptation of David Ebershoff’s novel based on the true story of transgender Lili Elbe, one of the first people known to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
Published: 2000
In theaters: Nov. 27
Steve Jobs
Michael Fassbender takes on the tech visionary in this biopic based on the biography by former TIME managing editor Walter Isaacson.
Published: 2011
In theaters now
In the Heart of the Sea
Nathaniel Philbrick’s National Book Award-winning story of the whaleship Essex—whose sinking inspired Moby Dick—gets the silver screen treatment in an adaptation starring Chris Hemsworth, Brendan Gleeson and Cillian Murphy.
Published: 2000
In theaters: Dec. 11
The Martian
Ridley Scott directs Matt Damon in Andy Weir’s story of an astronaut left behind on Mars who struggles to find a way to survive.
Published: 2011
In theaters now
To Reach the Clouds
Philippe Petit’s memoir of his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers is the starting point for The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Published: 2002
In theaters now
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis’s anatomy of the financial crash—and profiles of the people who saw it coming—gets the Hollywood treatment with Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt.
Published: 2010
In theaters: Dec. 11 (limited), Dec. 23 (wide)
Beasts of No Nation
Uzodinma Iweala’s novel about a young African boy recruited as a guerrilla warrior has caused a sensation as Netflix’s first original feature film, which debuted online and in theaters.
Published: 2005
On Netflix now
Trumbo
Bryan Cranston stars as the blacklisted Spartacus screenwriter in an adaptation of Bruce Cook’s biography.
Published: 1977
In theaters now
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Jesse Andrews’ simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming YA novel about a teenage cancer patient became a Sundance favorite starring Olivia Cooke and Thomas Mann.
Published: 2012
On DVD and Blu-ray now
Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself
The David Foster Wallace biopic The End of the Tour, starring Jason Segel, took much of its dialogue from journalist David Lipsky’s interviews with the Infinite Jest novelist, which were published in book form after Wallace’s death.
Published: 2010
On DVD and Blu-ray now
Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal
Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill’s biography of the Boston crime boss, which covers his fights with competitors and his strange alliance with the FBI, is fodder for a shapeshifting Johnny Depp.
Published: 2000
In theaters now
