List of films based on civics books explained

A list of films that are based on books about common topics and issues in social science and political science.

Addiction

Alcoholism

Mexico

• ♠ The subject is the British consul in a Mexican town (based on Cuernavaca).

United States

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
The Lost Weekend			USA	The Lost Weekend		1944	Novel	-
Leaving Las Vegas			USA	Leaving Las Vegas		1990	Novel/ Memoir	John O'Brien (simulacrum)
The Doors		Oliver Stone	USA	notes ^[1] (unpublished) for No One Here Gets Out Alive (uncredited)	Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman (both uncredited)	1980	Non-fiction	Jim Morrison

Drug addiction

Germany

• ♠ The German book title translates literally as Christiane F. – We Children from the Zoo Station.

United Kingdom

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Trainspotting			UK	Trainspotting		1993	Novel	-
The Seven Percent Solution		Herbert Ross	UK & USA	The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.		1974	Novel	Sherlock Holmes

United States

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
The Boost			USA	Ludes		1982	Novel	-
The Basketball Diaries			USA	The Basketball Diaries		1978	Diary	Jim Carroll
Permanent Midnight			USA	Permanent Midnight		1995	Memoir	Jerry Stahl

Sex addiction

United States

Civil rights

South Africa

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Cry Freedom			UK	Biko		1978	Memoir	Steve Biko, Donald Woods
In My Country			UK ?	Country of My Skull		1998	Memoir	-
Goodbye Bafana aka The Color of Freedom				Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend		199?	Memoir	Nelson Mandela

United States

For slave revolts, see List of films based on war books — 1775–1898.

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Boycott *			USA	Daybreak of Freedom: the Montgomery Bus Boycott	Stewart Burns (editor)	1997 ^[2] ^¤	Non-fiction	Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks
*			USA			1970	Non-fiction	Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman

• * TV movie.
• ** TV miniseries.

Journalism

(Print and television)

Reporters

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Culloden ^[3] ♠ *		Peter Watkins	UK	Culloden		1962	Non-fiction	-
All the President's Men		Alan J. Pakula	USA	All the President's Men		1974	Memoir	Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein

• ♠ A television reporter broadcasts live from the 1746 Battle of Culloden.
• * TV movie.

Publishers

• ♠ Mrs. Graham is often mentioned but not dramatized.

Labour

United States

Agriculture

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
The Grapes of Wrath ^[4]		John Ford	USA	The Grapes of Wrath ^[5]	John Steinbeck^[6]	1939	Novel	Okies
Mr. Majestyk		Richard Fleischer	USA	Mr. Majestyk		1974	Novel	-

Manufacturing

• * TV movie.

Mining

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
North Country		Niki Caro	USA			196?	Non-fiction	Lois Jenson
One of the Hollywood Ten		Karl Francis	Spain & UK			1965	Non-fiction	Salt of the Earth ^[7]

Sports

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Eight Men Out		John Sayles	USA	8 Men Out		1963	Non-fiction	Black Sox
Net Worth ♠ *		Jerry Ciccoritti	Canada	Net Worth: Exploding the Myth of Pro Hockey	David Cruise & Alison Griffiths	1991 ^[8]	Non-fiction

• ♠ The hockey players in the wage dispute are Canadian; the club owners are American.
• * TV movie.

Mental disorder

19th century

Canada

20th century

United States

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Frances			USA	Shadowland		198?	Fictional biography	Frances Farmer, lobotomy
Mister Buddwing			USA	Buddwing		1964	Novel	amnesia

Native issues

United States

• ♠ The story of Ira Hayes was also told in Flags of Our Fathers.

Penology

United Kingdom

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Boy A			UK	Boy A		2004	Novel	-
A Clockwork Orange		Stanley Kubrick	UK	A Clockwork Orange ♠		1962	Novel	-

• ♠ The earliest editions of the novel did not contain a glossary, or any indication that the slang was based on Russian.

Capital punishment

United States

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Birdman of Alcatraz			USA	Birdman of Alcatraz		1955	Non-fiction	Robert Stroud
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang ^[11]			USA	I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang		1932	Autobiography	Robert Elliott Burns

Capital punishment

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
The Executioner's Song *			USA	The Executioner's Song ^[12]		1980	Novel	Gary Gilmore
Shot in the Heart *			USA	Shot in the Heart		1995	Non-fiction	Gary Gilmore

• * TV movie.

USSR

Political prisoners

Greece

• ♠ The film concerns torture during the period of the colonels.^[14]

South Africa

Poverty

United Kingdom

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Broken Blossoms ^[15]		D. W. Griffith	USA	"The Chink and the Child" from Limehouse Nights		1916	Story	Limehouse
Love on the Dole		John Baxter	UK	Love on the Dole: a Tale of Two Cities		1933	Novel	Salford

United States

Urban

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn		Elia Kazan	USA	A Tree Grows In Brooklyn		1943	Novel	Brooklyn
Last Exit to Brooklyn		Uli Edel		Last Exit to Brooklyn		1964	Novel	Brooklyn

Rural

Film	Date	Director	Country	Source work	Author	Date	Type	Basis
Beggars of Life		William A. Wellman	USA	Beggars of Life		1924	Novel	hobos
The Grapes of Wrath		John Ford	USA	The Grapes of Wrath		1939	Novel	Okies
Sounder		Martin Ritt	USA	Sounder ^[16]		1969	Novel	sharecroppers
Conrack		Martin Ritt	USA	The Water Is Wide		1972	Memoir	Sea Islands

References

Bibliography

Lavington, Stephen. Virgin Film: Oliver Stone, Virgin Books, London, 2004.

See also

• List of fiction works made into feature films
• List of non-fiction works made into feature films
• List of biographical films

Pages with the same format

• List of films based on arts books
• List of films based on crime books
• List of films based on film books
• List of films based on sports books
• List of films based on spy books
• List of films based on war books
• List of films based on westerns

Notes and References

1. The families of Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson both objected to the book by Hopkins and Sugerman. The producers bought the rights to the notes, rather than the book itself.
   Source: Lavington (q.v.), p. 138.
2. Publication details for this title have been confirmed by the catalogue of the US Library of Congress.
   Source: Library of Congress Online Catalog.
3. Recipient of the BAFTA Award for Specialised Programmes in 1965.
4. Inducted into the US National Film Registry in 1989.
5. Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.
6. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.
7. Inducted into the US National Film Registry in 1992.
8. Publication details for this title have been confirmed by the catalogue of Library and Archives Canada.
   Source: Library Search.
9. Lagerkvist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951.
10. Recipient of the Prêmio Jabuti in 2000.
11. Inducted into the US National Film Registry in 1991.
12. Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1980.
13. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.
14. "Der erste Buch von Periklis Korovesis, der selbst ein Opfer der Folter der Junta ist, mit dem Titel «Anthropofylakes», auf griechisch «Ανθρωποφύλακες» (1969), beschreibt ausführlich die Foltermethoden der Militärpolizei ESA. Der buch ist auf viele Sprachen übersetzt worden: La filière, Seuil, 1969, Frankreich; The Method-A Personal Account of the Tortures in Greece, Allison & Busby, 1970 und The Method, Panther, 1970, England [...]"Source: Folter während der griechischen Militärdiktatur (1967-1974), Krimpedia .
15. Inducted into the US National Film Registry in 1996.
16. Recipient of the Newbery Medal in 1970.