12th Grade Books Made Into Movies

It’s time to finish off my high school books made into movies, with this final post (until I give in and make all of the extra books that I didn’t specifically put into a grade level) of 12th-grade books made into movies.

As always look at your kids, and see where these books best fit into your high school plans. I have books from this list we read as Freshman because that’s where it fits best into our high school plans.

One last final caveat, I’m splitting these up somewhat arbitrarily into divisions that make sense to me (classic, modern, plays, I don’t know what).

Hey, Future Ticia 2023 doing another update here, and I’m changing around how it’s organized again… I’m insane, why do I do this to myself?

(there are a zillion affiliate links in here)

12th-grade books made into movies 1

I’m going to put about 10 books in each group, or that’s my theory to start off. We’ll see if I stick with that.

1. Mansfield Park [movie]- a less popular Jane Austen book
2. The Color Purple [movie]- I think this was just starting to be assigned when I was in high school and it was controversial for reasons (I don’t remember why, there were several books in the 90s that went through controversy)
3. The Age of Innocence [movie]- Huh, this came out in 1920, for some reason I classify it in the Gothic age, but it obviously is so not from there
4. DaVinci Code [movie]- the writing is terrible, truly terrible, but it has some fun ideas to discuss
5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest [movie]- I’ve read scenes from this, well that’s interesting, it’s a novel, I knew it in high school as a play…
6. Oliver Twist [movie]- we just finished reading this (timing went well with our history lesson), okay I finished writing this post 5 months later (these take awhile to write), and it truly reminded me why I hate Dickens
7. Wuthering Heights [movie]- more Gothic literature, I have to admit this is partially on the 12th-grade books made into a movie list because I don’t like Gothic literature
8. Beowulf [movie]- I’ve heard The Seamus Heaney translation is the best one
9. Time Machine [movie] [post]- One of the books that created the Sci-Fi genre [Time Machine book club]
10. Eaters of the Dead [movie]- a modernization of Beowulf, and it’s an interesting idea

I obviously did not stick to that.

Want to find more adaptations?

I have bookmarks for every grade level starting at 3rd grade, and before that I have a picture book list. There are over 300 books between all of these bookmarks.

You can get all of these books and every other grade level in my books made into movies by grade level bookmarks. Buy them, OR JOIN MY NEWSLETTER and get a coupon during the welcome series to get them for free.

12-grade books made into movies 2

These are any books I might have been told to read during high school or had friends have to read it in high school I thought were produced in the 20th century (to explain why The Age of Innocence is not in this category)

1. Henry V [movie] [post]- honestly we read this in 8th grade, solely because a local group put on an amazing production
2. Macbeth [movie]- The Scottish play is one of the better ones to my mind, side note I’m also linking to what is generally agreed to be the best adaptation, but I personally find it scary as all get out
3. The Nick Adams Stories [movie (Adventures of a Young Man)]- The movie is created from a collection of short stories Hemingway wrote, and it took me a while to figure this out because everything said “based on Hemingway’s book,” but the book isn’t the same name because it was a collection of short stories released separately
4. Book Thief [movie]- I once accidentally put this on 5th grade, and then had a very upset 10-year-old
5. Howard’s End [movie]- the movie versions of this put it late 19th, maybe early 20th century, natural form or bustle era, so I’ll put it here
6. Simon V. the Homo-Sapiens [movie]- it could have some interesting ideas to discuss in it
7. Doctor Zhivago [movie]- I’m pretty sure this is the 20th century
8. Brave New World [movie]- I have heard nothing good about the movie, also my kids literally groaned when I said I was going to make them read this as Seniors as yet another dystopian to read, oh no it looks like this movie is super hard to get ahold of… Oh, there’s a new version that came out in 2020 that is only available on the Peacock streaming service
9. He Knew He Was Right [movie]- Huh, well this appears to be from 1860s
10. Beloved [movie]- I don’t know much about this besides Oprah Winfrey is in the movie version

12th-grade books made into movies that I clearly do not know when they came out

12th-grade books made into movies list 3

Honestly, I don’t know quite when some of these books came out, but I’m fairly sure many of these came out in the 21st century.

That original section title greatly amuses me

1. Lord of the Flies [movie]- I’m refusing to ever assign this one
2. Tess of the Dubbervilles [movie]- I personally mash this and all the Bronte books together into a mash of nonsense
3. The Godfather [movie]- I’ve heard the book is super violent and rather misogynist
4. The Green Mile [movie]- I think technically this is a short story
5. Starship Troopers [movie] [post]- You should hear my husband rail about how horribly the movie adapted the book [Starship Troopers book club]
6. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist [movie]- I’ve heard this is adorable
7. Crazy Rich Asians [movie]- if you have only seen the movie, the book adds so much of the author’s commentary, which is amusing as all get out
8. Atlas Shrugged [movie]- My Mom super loved this book, and really wanted me to read it
9. Shawshank Redemption [movie]- this movie was so popular when I was in college
10. Black Klansman [movie]- I can’t decide if I want to read this or not, I don’t usually like nonfiction stories, but it also look fascinating

12th-grade plays made into movies

Pretend I said something witty here, like “The play’s the thing!”

This section is no longer plays.

1. John Adams [movie]- Okay I’m totally lying because this would not have been out then
2. Redeeming Love [movie]- this movie was so controversial in Christian circles when it came out
3. In the Heart of the Sea [movie]- Huh, this seems like it would be more well-known with Chris Hemsworth in it
4. Good Omens [movie]- we had a blast reading and discussing this one [Good Omens book club]- huh, I thought I’d written that
5. The Queen of Katwe [movie]- This was all the rage a few years ago
6. The Shack [movie]- when this movie came out this was all the discussion among my Christian friends on the theology of the book/movie. In some cases discussion is a nice phrase for argument.
7. The Glass Castle [movie]- my brother reviewed this movie and talked about how it resonated with him as our Dad was an alcoholic that was (what we would now call) emotionally abusive, he got into a big argument with a fellow youtube reviewer over this review, showing just how personal movies can be
8. Friday Night Lights [movie]- this may be required reading in Texas, which I have gleefully ignored because I don’t like football
9. Perfect Storm [movie]- Jeff super loves this movie, I should suggest he read the book
10. Killer Angels [Gettysburg movie]

Pulp schlock, that has some fun to discuss, but wasn’t intended to be assigned reading

Final 12th-grade books made into movies, list 5

Honestly, some of this is included because I find it fun to read, and there are interesting concepts to discuss, but I fully admit the writing isn’t that great. I’ve spread all of the fun schlock through the lists, I’ll let you make your own guesses as to which books I originally had in this list.

1. Call the Midwife [TV series]
2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (movie)- I gotta warn you that there are a couple of, ummm, questionable adaptations, you should be able to tell from the cover
3. Passing BY Nella Larsen (movie)- I capitalized BY because I totally misunderstood the title. The title is PASSING, and the book is BY Nella Larsen. The title is not “Passing Nella Larsen,”
4. The Last Letter from Your Lover (movie) – I’m curious about this one from what I read about it, I’m adding this caveat, from clicking around I don’t know if the movie is available in the US, it looks like the DVDs I’m finding are intended for somewhere else?
5. Shogun (movie)- Jeff loves this book
6. Cold Comfort Farm (movie)
7. Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love (Fatherhood)- this looks like it would be a tear jerker, but could also have some interesting things to talk about dealing with loss [Ewwww, it’s a movie-tie in cover, and to make it even worse, it’s renamed to tie-in with the movie)
8. The Martian (movie)
9. Last Duel by Eric Jager (movie)- there is a lot that could be done with this, but it also will be emotionally difficult for many
10. Hidden Figures (movie)- somehow I thought I had already put this on a list, and then I discovered it was not on any of my lists, so it squeaked onto this list, we did our Hidden Figures book club in 9th grade.

Big sigh of relief, and that’s DONE! It’s amazing how much time these posts take as I hunt down the name of the book versus the movie, and all those links.