International
Ten books that deserve to be adapted into films in 2026
MUMBAI: As 2026 kicks off, cultural authority feels increasingly dispersed. First-time novelists sit alongside literary mainstays, while actors, influencers, and playwrights all compete for cinematic attention. In this environment, the old question resurfaces with urgency: why do some books translate so effectively to film, while others are dismissed as unadaptable?
We already know the canonical successes. Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Normal People. But as attention spans shorten and viewing habits fragment, can interior, structurally difficult novels still hold an audience? And should cinema even try?
The following books suggest that it should.
1. Flesh by David Szalay
Szalay’s novel follows a male protagonist drifting through sex, work, and power with an emotional blankness that becomes its own diagnosis. The book is an anatomy of masculine passivity, entitlement, and quiet self-destruction.
Seen against the rise of online masculinity discourse and figures emerging from the so-called manosphere, Flesh offers a far more unsettling portrait. It neither redeems nor condemns its subject. A film adaptation would succeed only if it preserved this moral discomfort, forcing viewers to sit inside a masculinity that does not announce itself as a problem.
Adaptation status: no announced screen adaptation.
2. I Want to Die, but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee
First published in 2018, this book documents therapy sessions addressing depression, medication, and stigma in South Korea. Baek Se-hee has unfortunately passed away, yet the book’s popularity has endured.
Its appeal lies in its ordinariness. There is no narrative breakthrough, only repetition and honesty. A restrained film adaptation could offer a rare depiction of mental health that avoids both melodrama and uplift, while also opening a culturally specific conversation rarely shown on screen.
Adaptation status: no confirmed adaptation.
3. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
Despite the current enthusiasm for romantic adaptations, this novel has yet to be adapted for the screen. Told largely through monitored workplace emails, it follows an IT employee who falls in love with someone he has never met.
It is a romance shaped by surveillance, distance, and ethical unease. In an era of digital intimacy and algorithmic proximity, this would make a sharp, contemporary romantic film that understands how affection now develops indirectly.
Adaptation status: previously optioned, not produced.
4. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
This short story collection is built on silence, miscommunication, and emotional failure. Its minimalism is cinematic rather than literary, relying on what is withheld rather than explained.
A film adaptation in vignette form could capture this accumulation of small disappointments. It would resist plot in favour of mood and implication, demanding patience rather than rewarding it.
Adaptation status: individual stories adapted; no definitive feature adaptation of the collection.
5. The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Published in 2023, this is Zadie Smith’s first historical novel. Set around the Victorian Tichborne Trial, it examines race, class, authorship, and credibility in a society obsessed with legitimacy.
Though intellectually dense, it has a strong narrative frame and vivid historical texture. A film adaptation could streamline its arguments while preserving its central concern: who gets believed, and why.
Adaptation status: no announced adaptation.
6. Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
This graphic novel follows three university friends as they drift through New York, capturing the emotional slackening that defines early adulthood.
Its visual language and episodic structure already resemble cinema. A film adaptation could thrive as a quiet coming-of-age story focused on atmosphere rather than transformation.
Adaptation status: no announced adaptation.
7. The Years by Annie Ernaux
Ernaux’s collective autobiography rejects traditional narrative, moving instead through memory, photographs, and shared cultural experience.
A recent stage adaptation showed that the book can survive translation across forms. A film version would need to embrace fragmentation and essayistic techniques, but the result could be formally daring and emotionally precise.
Adaptation status: stage adaptations exist; no major film announced.
8. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
This polyphonic novel traces the interconnected lives of Black British women across generations. Its modular structure suits screen adaptation, particularly ensemble formats.
While television may be the natural home, a carefully constructed film could foreground its thematic coherence without flattening difference.
Adaptation status: a screen adaptation has been announced and is in development.
9. Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Published in 2024, this memoir explores Roy’s relationship with her mother, politics, faith, and personal history. It is intimate, uncompromising, and formally loose.
A film adaptation would need to avoid biopic conventions in favour of reflection and contradiction. It would appeal to audiences comfortable with ambiguity rather than narrative closure.
Adaptation status: no announced adaptation.
10. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Orwell’s account of poverty and precarious labour remains unsettlingly current. Its depiction of invisible work and social indifference resonates strongly in an age of gig economies and housing insecurity.
A modern adaptation could retain its period setting while making its relevance unmistakable. Darkly comic and ethically sharp, it is overdue for a serious cinematic reimagining.
Adaptation status: adapted previously; no recent major adaptation announced.
Books that adapt well are not necessarily plot-driven but structurally honest. They trust audiences to tolerate discomfort, ambiguity, and silence. If cinema is serious about reflecting contemporary life, fractured, anxious, plural, these are exactly the stories it should be brave enough to attempt.
* Note: These books are not in any particular order
International
Moskino and Bollywood: Moscow Film Cluster and Film City Mumbai signed a cooperation agreement
Moscow Film Cluster has signed a cooperation agreement with Film City Mumbai. The parties agreed to cooperate in developing the film industry, promoting shooting locations and supporting filmmakers.
The memorandum was signed on the sidelines of the India International Film Tourism (IIFTC) Conclave in Mumbai. At this forum, the Moscow Film Cluster presented Moscow’s opportunities for film shooting, including infrastructure projects such as Film City Moskino and Film Factory. Special attention was paid to the Moscow rebate system – up to 45% – and the co-production development.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Film City and Moscow Film Cluster provides for the establishment and development of mutually beneficial cooperation in the film industry development, including joint promotion of shooting locations, support for filmmakers, implementation of marketing and industry events, development of incentive support measures and strengthening of economic and cultural interaction between India and Moscow.
The parties also intend to promote the development of the audiovisual sector through the exchange of experience, joint initiatives and the search for opportunities to create new industry partnerships and clusters.
Moscow Film Cluster is a major city initiative led by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to develop the capital into a global cinema hub. It brings together key production infrastructure – such as the Moskino Film Сity, Film Factory and Gorky Film Studio – along with the Film Commission, digital platform and cinema chain to streamline shooting, support productions and attract international filmmaking to Moscow.
Also, Moscow offers a rebate of up to 45%: 30% as direct production cost compensation, up to 15% for visa and accommodation support. The Moscow Image Grant provides up to $255,000 for films showcasing iconic city views.
The Moscow Film Cluster booth attracted considerable attention from Indian producers and studios. Over 80 business meetings were held, including those with major Indian companies.
One of the booth guests was the famous Indian actress Khushboo Sundar, known to Soviet and Russian audiences for her role in My Soul and considered the leading star of Tamil cinema, in whose honor one of the local temples was even built. Prithul Kumar, representative of the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and one of the officials responsible for regulating the film industry in the country, also expressed interest in the development of the Moscow Film Cluster.
One of the highlights of the India International Film Tourism Conclave was the awarding of The Greatest of All Time in the For Cinematic Excellence category. The movie was shot in Moscow. The jury members noted the project’s contribution to the development of tourism.
The shooting of The Greatest of All Time AGS by Entertainment was organized with the assistance of the Moscow Film Cluster and the Moscow Film Commission and took place in April 2024 on the streets of Moscow. The scenes were shot in such famous locations as Patriarch Bridge, Teatralnaya Square, Manezhnaya Square, Kazarmenny Lane, Podsosensky Lane, Nikolskaya Street and one of the festival venues of Moscow Seasons.
The Greatest of All Time became a landmark event in Indian box office history. It ranked fourth in box office earnings among all movies released in India in 2024 and is one of the most successful Tamil-language movies in history.
At the same time, the shooting of another joint Russian-Indian movie started at the Moskino Film City in Moscow. A film project dedicated to badminton became one of the first participants in the Moscow rebate program.
A project by Smena & WISH Media (Russia) and Kartina Entertainment And Sports Private Limited (India) will tell the story of a badminton player who travels to India with the Russian national team to compete in a tournament. Russian viewers will see for the first time the scale of sporting competitions in Asia, where badminton is a cult sport and draws packed stands of fans.
The agreement on the joint production of the Smash movie was signed st the Moscow International Film Week in August 2025. And as Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, a rebate application was also submitted at that time to reimburse part of the costs incurred during the shooting process in the Russian capital.
