Film Studies Research Guide 

What's Here

Films are often based on novels, short stories and plays.  This page lists a selection of bibliographies and guides about literature and film. More resources can be found by searching in Orbis with subject headings such as:

• Motion pictures and literature
• Film adaptations
• Film and video adaptations
• English literature--Film and video adaptations

Ingrid Bergman. From the Crawford Collection, Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives.

Selected Resources on Literature and Film

Books and plays in films, 1896-1915: literary, theatrical, and artistic sources of the first twenty years of motion pictures. Denis Gifford. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1991)

SML Stacks, PN1997.85 G54 1991 (LC)

A companion to literature and film. Ed. Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo. (Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Pub., 2004)

SML Reference, PN1995.3 .C65X 2004 and Online

Enser's filmed books and plays: a list of books and plays from which films have been made, 1928-1991. Ellen Baskin. (Aldershot, Hants., England; Brookfield, Vt., USA: Ashgate, 1993)

SML Reference, Z5784 M9 B385X 1993

Fiction Into Film Database

A searchable list of movies and TV shows based on works of fiction. The database only covers science fiction, fantasy and horror.

Film as literature, literature as film: an introduction to and bibliography of film's relationship to literature. Harris Ross. (New York: Greenwood, 1987)

SML Reference Z5784 M9 R66 1987

International guide to literature on film. Tom Costello. (London: Bowker-Saur, 1994)

SML Reference, PN1997.85 I57 1994

Literature and film: an annotated bibliography, 1909-1977. Jeffrey Egan Welch. (New York: Garland, 1981)

SML Reference, Z5784 M9 W37

Literature and film: an annotated bibliography, 1978-1988. Jeffrey Egan Welch. (New York: Garland Pub., 1993)

SML Reference, Z5784 M9 W37 1993

Stories into film. Ed. William Kittredge and Steven Krauzer. (New York: Harper and Row, 1979)

Bass Stacks, PN6014 S87

Women writers, from page to screen. Jill Rubinson Fenton ... [et al.]. (New York: Garland Pub., 1990)

Bass Stacks, PN1997.85 W66 1990

Writers on the American screen: a guide to film adaptations of American and foreign literary works. Larry Langman. (New York: Garland, 1986)

Bass Reference, Z5784 M9 L28 1986