Nosferatu Remakes a Legendary Film—Plus Four Other Extraordinary Adaptations
These movies transform classic tales into new and original cinematic experiences.
Long before he became a filmmaker, Robert Eggers yearned to remake F. W. Murnau’s 1922 horror classic Nosferatu. “I saw a picture of Max Schreck as Count Orlok in a book in my elementary school and I lost my mind,” Eggers told Indiewire. “Nosferatu has a very close, magical connection for me.” With his new film Nosferatu, Eggers realizes his childhood dream with a wondrous and terrifying adaptation of the legendary story.
How Robert Eggers' Past Truly Crafted Nosferatu | Origin Story
As in the original film, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) leaves his young wife (Lily-Rose Depp) behind when he travels to the far reaches of Romania to bring an estate contract to the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). In the process, Hutter unwittingly sets off a wave of terror that affects everyone around him. With a cast that includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, and Willem Dafoe, Nosferatu reimagines the story as a haunting epic of beauty and horror. The Daily Beast writes, “Eggers’ peerless command of tone, rhythm, and composition transforms Nosferatu into a savage portrait of desire as a force that poisons and destroys as well as empowers and redeems.”
With Nosferatu coming to theaters on December 25, we’re honoring other brilliant adaptations of classic stories, movies that capture the essence of the original while displaying the filmmaker’s unique genius.
Mia Goth and Anya Taylor-Joy in EMMA.
EMMA.
In adapting Jane Austen’s beloved novel to the screen, director Autumn de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton found a way to cinematically express the novelist’s razor-sharp wit in EMMA. “I wanted to bring out the humor,” de Wilde told IndieWire, “to poke fun at human nature and the hubris of youth.” With Anya Taylor-Joy as the irrepressible heroine, the film’s candy-colored outfits and dream-house-styled decor set the perfect tone for this witty love story about a woman who knows everyone’s heart but her own. Vox notes that this “adaptation gets Jane Austen’s balance of satire and romance just right.” Although EMMA. looks stunningly modern, The Smithsonian Magazine writes, “Catton and de Wilde bring us closer to Emma, and to Austen's own sensibility of irony and ambivalence than most Austen films can ever hope to do.”
The official trailer for EMMA.
Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender in Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre
In Jane Eyre, director Cary Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini transform Charlotte Brontë’s romantic novel of profound love into a moody tale of the gothic imagination. In an exclusive Focus Features interview, Buffini describes the heart of the novel as a “vulnerable young woman in this creepy old house.” Mia Wasikowska plays Jane, the poor orphan who takes up residence in the spooky estate of the formidable Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender) and his peculiar housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench). “Neither a radical updating nor a stiff exercise in middlebrow cultural respectability, Mr. Fukunaga's film tells its venerable tale with lively vigor and an astute sense of emotional detail,” writes the New York Times. Crowning it the best adaptation of Brontë’s novel, Screenrant wrote that “no other [film] has captured the essence of the novel the way that” Fukunaga’s version does.
The official trailer for Jane Eyre
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
In adapting John Le Carré’s spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriters Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan translated the byzantine world of Cold War espionage into a profoundly moving cinematic experience. Gary Oldman was nominated for an Oscar® for his performance as George Smiley, the stone-faced master spy tasked with finding the mole deep inside British intelligence. With a cast that includes Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, and Benedict Cumberbatch, the film subtly sifts through multiple storylines to arrive at the traitor. To get to the book’s essence, Straughan—who also adapted Conclave—told The Film Stage that the secret was to “leave the air, leave the melancholy tone and pace.” Bringing out the essence of the period, the film captures the story’s universal appeal. The Globe and Mail writes, “Thanks to Tomas Alfredson's direction, a taut screenplay, and a uniformly brilliant cast, the film also retains its contemporary relevance, doubling as a crisp reminder that the ethical ambiguities of today's geo-political climate are hardly new.”
The official trailer for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Keira Knightley and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
To adapt Leo Tolstoy’s epic Anna Karenina to the screen, Joe Wright set the story on a theater stage. "The action would be taking place within a beautiful decaying theater,” Wright told The Hollywood Reporter, “a metaphor for Russian society of the time” in which everyone was always on display. Keira Knightley plays Anna, the tragic heroine married to Count Karenin (Jude Law) but in love with the dashing Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Her affair, conducted in elegant restaurants and on glittering ice rinks, is performed for all to see. USA Today writes that the film is “an intoxicating spectacle that breathes new life into the classic Tolstoy novel, incorporating the notion that all life's a stage—at least for imperial Russian society.”
Anna Karenina: Creating the Extraordinary World Featurette