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 fit 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).

(there are a zillion affiliate links in here)

Classic 12th grade books made into movies

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 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
3. 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
4. Beowulf [movie]- I’ve heard The Seamus Heaney translation is the best one
5. Time Machine [movie] [post]- One of the books that created the Sci-Fi genre
6. Tess of the Dubbervilles [movie]- I personally mash this and all the Bronte books together into a mash of nonsense
7. 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

I obviously did not stick to that.

Modern Classic 12-grade books made into movies

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 20th century (to explain why The Age of Innocence is not in this category)

1. 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)
2. John Adams [movie]- Okay I’m totally lying because this would not have been out then
3. 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 Peacock streaming service
4. Doctor Zhivago [movie]- I’m pretty sure this is 20th century
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. Beloved [movie]- I don’t know much about this besides Oprah Winfrey is in the movie version
7. Book Thief [movie]- I once accidentally put this on 5th grade, and then had a very upset 10 year old
8. Lord of the Flies [movie]- I’m refusing to ever assign this one
9. The Green Mile [movie]- I think technically this is a short story
10. Shawshank Redemption [movie]- this movie was so popular when I was in college
11. Atlas Shrugged [movie]- My Mom super loved this book, and really wanted me to read it
12. The Godfather [movie]- I’ve heard the book is super violent

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

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.

1. 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.
2. 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
3. Gorillas in the Mist [movie]- I know nothing of this
4. Perfect Storm [movie]- Jeff super loves this movie, I should suggest he read the book
5. The Queen of Katwe [movie]- This was all the rage a few years ago
6. In the Heart of the Sea [movie]- Huh, this seems like it would be more well-known with Christ Hemsworth in it
7. He Knew He Was Right [movie]- Huh, well this appears to be from 1860s
8. 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 awhile 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
9. 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!”

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 scary as all get out
3. 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…

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

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.

1. DaVinci Code [movie]- the writing is terrible, truly terrible, but it has some fun ideas to discuss
2. Eaters of the Dead [movie]- a modernization of Beowulf, and it’s an interesting idea
3. John Carter of Mars [movie]- written by the king of pulp fiction, the same guy who wrote Tarzan
4. Simon V. the Homo-Sapiens [movie]- it could have some interesting ideas to discuss in it
5. Good Omens [movie]- we had a blast reading and discussing this one
6. Friday Night Lights [movie]- this may be required reading in Texas, which I have gleefully ignored because I don’t like football
7. Starship Troopers [movie] [post]- You should hear my husband rail about how horribly the movie adapted the book
8. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist [movie]- I’ve heard this is adorable
9. 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

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.