A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World
Updated on Jan. 06, 2025
Need a reading list for the new year? Bookmark these acclaimed bestsellers—the film adaptations are coming soon to a screen near you.
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If your New Year’s resolution was to read more—ahem, more literature and not more social media posts—you may as well start with one of the many books becoming movies in 2025. After all, source material not only entertains on its own merit, but it also consistently offers better plot and character insights than its big-screen counterpart. More important: One of the most effective flexes in life is the ability to discuss a buzzy new movie and then casually drop the line, “I thought the book was better.”
It’s true, everybody. The best books outshine even the most stellar film adaptation. The novel Nightbitch delved more deeply into the suburban mom’s transformation into a feral dog. Killers of the Flower Moon focused more on the CIA investigator than the criminals. And don’t even get me started on Gone Girl. A decade later, I’m still miffed that the movie neglected to include any scenes of Amy faux-caring for Nick’s dying mom in Missouri. (I also read the book picturing Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon in my brain and believe the movie casting was all wrong. But that’s another story!)
This year’s book-to-movie adaptations go well beyond outstanding literary fiction and nonfiction. Think: a horror classic, a rom-com favorite and a certain The Wizard of Oz prequel back for seconds, oh my. Ahead, browse our roundup of the books becoming movies in 2025. Read (or reread) them now; be the all-knowing reference guru by next year’s Christmas party.
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Release date: Feb. 14
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Leo Woodall, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Emma Thompson
Where to watch: Peacock
It’s been 29 years since Helen Fielding introduced the self-deprecating, lovelorn British heroine of her laugh-out-loud funny novel. Let’s catch up, shall we? The third in the book series, 2013’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy finds the icon exploring life as a 51-year-old mom and, sigh, widow. (Poor Mark Darcy was killed in a land-mine accident.) But charming Daniel Cleaver is the godfather to her kids, and Bridget ends up dating a younger guy who reignites her sexual prowess. Zellweger returns in the role that netted her an Oscar nomination in 2002. And while Bridget’s original love triangle is long kaput, it will be nice seeing Grant (as Cleaver) and Firth (appearing in flashbacks?) back on the scene.
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Release date: March 7
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Aoki, Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette
Where to watch: In theaters
Set in the postapocalyptic future, Mickey7 focuses on a grunt worker—played in the movie by Robert Pattinson doing an exaggerated American accent—looking for a way out of debt. The solution: Volunteer for colonizing missions in space that are guaranteed to kill him. Every time he dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. But during one expedition, a version of Mickey survives and returns to meet the latest clone of himself. Despite all this talk of death, the overall tone is more provocative than ponderous.
Important footnote: The title of the film is actually Mickey 17. But Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) didn’t stray far from the primary plot of Edward Ashton’s sci-fi novel, which NPR named one of the best books of 2022.
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Release date: April 11
Starring: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, Caitriona Balfe and Jon Bernthal
Where to watch: In theaters
Originally published in 1981, The Amateur is Robert Littell’s first espionage thriller novel. (The former Newsweek journalist has gone on to write spy novels such as The Company and The Stalin Epigram.) Charles Heller is a mild-mannered CIA cryptographer who, after his fiancee is killed in a terrorist attack, demands his bosses go after the bad guys. When it becomes clear they won’t lift a finger to help, he blackmails the agency into training him and letting him take action himself. (Malek will do all the above in the film.) At the time of its release, the book earned a rave review from the New York Times, which praised the “taut, chilling plot and a protagonist as memorable as one of Len Deighton’s, or le Carré’s Smiley.”
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Release date: July 18
Starring: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Tyriq Withers, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt
Where to watch: In theaters
The irony is that Gen Xers who grew up reading Lois Duncan’s impressive oeuvre know that I Know What You Did Last Summer isn’t even her most spine-tingling novel. (Shoutout to Down a Dark Hall and Killing Mr. Griffin!) Yet her inventive 1973 slow-burn thriller has already spawned a three-part horror movie franchise—and fresh blood arrives this summer. The YA novel chronicles a group of teens involved in a seemingly fatal hit-and-run accident. Though they swear one another to secrecy, a stalker soon terrorizes them about it. This film is technically a sequel to the 1998 follow-up, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, with Prinze and Hewitt reprising their roles.
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Release date: Sept. 18
Starring: Liam Neeson, Joe Keery, Lesley Manville and Sosey Bacon
Where to watch: In theaters
David Koepp, an ace screenwriter who has scripted blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible and Panic Room, unveiled his debut novel, Cold Storage, in 2019. Now he adapts his white-knuckled thriller for the big screen. It follows Robert Diaz (Neeson), a Pentagon bioterror operative sent to investigate a suspected biochemical attack. He finds something far scarier: a highly mutative organism capable of extinction-level destruction. Though he contains it and buries it in cold storage deep beneath a little-used military repository, the specimen ends up finding its way out years later. Only Diaz can stop it from destroying mankind. Maybe now is a good time to reiterate that this is a work of fiction.
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Release date: Nov. 21
Starring: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Katy O’Brian, Michael Cera and Emilia Jones
Where to watch: In theaters
The future is now. Stephen King‘s popular sci-fi effort The Running Man—published in 1982 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman—is set in a dystopian 2025. No wonder producers were eager to update the 1987 film version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The pulsating story revolves around a popular game show called The Running Man, in which contestants win moola by evading a team of hit men sent to murder them. A desperate, cash-strapped man named Ben Richards (Powell) is the player aiming to win on every level. The book has sold 100 million copies worldwide. Only time will tell whether the remake can cross a similar finish line.
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Release date: Nov. 21
Starring: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Peter Dinklage and Bowen Yang
Where to watch: In theaters
OK, fine. The Wicked Witch of the West character dates back to L. Frank Baum’s 1901 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. But in 1995, Gregory Maguire gave the green-skinned villain a name (Elphaba) and a fascinating backstory involving Galinda, the Good Witch of the North. As it turned out, the two were friends in college, but their opposing philosophies and bitter rivalry led to a falling out. He called his prequel Wicked, and it led to a phenomenon of a Broadway musical and a blockbuster Golden Globe–nominated movie … that featured only half the narrative. Wicked: For Good focuses on the consequences of Elphaba (Erivo) breaking bad, while newly named Glinda (Grande) becomes a beloved figure in Oz.
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Release date: Fall
Starring: Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz
Where to watch: Netflix
In the 207 years since Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, more than 185 films have featured variations of the legendary monster—along with one hit song, “Monster Mash.” The classic Gothic novel, of course, tells the tale of a young Swiss scientist named Victor Frankenstein. Working in the lab, he discovers how to give life to an inanimate body and create a man-monster. But his great experiment wreaks havoc! This iteration of the beloved 1818 horror novel stars Isaac as the doctor and Elordi as the monster. It’s adapted and directed by Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro, known for his inventive and fantastical storytelling—just look to Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water for an idea of the type of Frankenstein we’re bound to get.
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Release date: Dec. 25
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar
Where to watch: In theaters
Of all the books becoming movies in 2025, Frieda McFadden’s 2022 thriller is most likely to leave you breathless … and begging for the sequel. The Housemaid spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list and almost two years on the Amazon bestseller list, and it has sold more than 2 million English language copies (and counting). No wonder the movie rights were snapped up!
Millie (Sweeney) is a struggling woman determined to make a fresh start as a housemaid. She soon discovers the family secrets of her upscale bosses—Seyfried and Sklenar play the couple in question—prove far more dangerous than her own. If the film reaches blockbuster status, moviegoers may get more twists from McFadden; she’s already polished off two hit follow-ups in the book series.
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Release date: TBA
Starring: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Aran Murphy, Mia Tharia, Natasha Lyonne and Steve Buscemi
Where to watch: In theaters
The eighth novel by Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun came out in 2021 and has become even timelier by the second. Klara is a companion robot (called an AF for “artificial friend”) who looks out the window of a store hoping to be purchased. She eventually goes home with a sweet but sick 14-year-old girl named Josie. As Klara learns about the world around her, she discovers difficult truths about humans and the complex decisions they must make. Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) directs the adaptation, with Wednesday‘s Ortega in the role of Klara and Adams portraying Josie’s mom.
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