The Best Based on Books Movies and TV Shows on Netflix

What it's about: The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Microsoft & Vudu).

What it's about: A modern update finds the famous sleuth and his doctor partner solving crime in 21st century London.

Where to Watch: 12 episodes (92%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix). 13 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Peacock Premium) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 4 others).

What it's about: On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room as a small site among friends soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991. High school freshman Charlie is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two senior students, Sam and her stepbrother Patrick, become his mentors, helping him discover the joys of friendship, music and love.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: After spending eight months in a mental institution, a former teacher moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as he investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: The story of Claire Randall, a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743, where she is immediately thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. When she is forced to marry Jamie, a chivalrous and romantic young Scottish warrior, a passionate affair is ignited that tears Claire's heart between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Where to Watch: 67 episodes (97%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Starz). 67 episodes (97%) are available to stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz). 68 episodes (99%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 2 others). Episodes coming soon to Netflix on January 26th, 2021 (PST).

What it's about: Ricky is a defiant young city kid who finds himself on the run with his cantankerous foster uncle in the wild New Zealand bush. A national manhunt ensues, and the two are forced to put aside their differences and work together to survive.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix, Hulu, Hoopla & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Aibileen Clark is a middle-aged African-American maid who has spent her life raising white children and has recently lost her only son; Minny Jackson is an African-American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is a young white woman who has recently moved back home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around "the help"; yet they are always kept at a certain distance because of racial lines.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Geralt of Rivia, a mutated monster-hunter for hire, journeys toward his destiny in a turbulent world where people often prove more wicked than beasts.

Where to Watch: 8 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The story of two vampire brothers obsessed with the same girl, who bears a striking resemblance to the beautiful but ruthless vampire they knew and loved in 1864.

Where to Watch: 1 episodes (1%) are available to watch free online (Guidebox). 155 episodes (89%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix). 172 episodes (98%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Eccentric consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson battle to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy England.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Microsoft & Vudu).

What it's about: Wealth, lust, and betrayal set in the backdrop of Regency era England, seen through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family.

Where to Watch: 8 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: 100 years in the future, when the Earth has been abandoned due to radioactivity, the last surviving humans live on an ark orbiting the planet — but the ark won't last forever. So the repressive regime picks 100 expendable juvenile delinquents to send down to Earth to see if the planet is still habitable.

Where to Watch: 100 episodes (99%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix). 101 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Construction worker Douglas Quaid discovers a memory chip in his brain during a virtual-reality trip. He also finds that his past has been invented to conceal a plot of planetary domination. Soon, he's off to Mars to find out who he is and who planted the chip.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: An aspiring actor in Hollywood meets an enigmatic stranger by the name of Tommy Wiseau, the meeting leads the actor down a path nobody could have predicted; creating the worst movie ever made.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm. His journey takes him into a world beyond his wildest dreams and reveals his true identity.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Lara Jean's love life goes from imaginary to out of control when her secret letters to every boy she's ever fallen for are mysteriously mailed out.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A dangerously charming, intensely obsessive young man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by.

Where to Watch: 20 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix). 20 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (Google Play, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: An exclusive group of privileged teens from a posh prep school on Manhattan's Upper East Side whose lives revolve around the blog of the all-knowing albeit ultra-secretive Gossip Girl.

Where to Watch: 121 episodes (99%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & HBO MAX). 122 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A drama based on the experiences of Agu, a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows the journey of Agu as he's forced to join a group of soldiers. While Agu fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination. Depicts the mechanics of war and does not shy away from explicit, visceral detail, painting a complex, difficult picture of Agu as a child soldier.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: A young mother kills a stranger in a fit of unexplainable rage. An inquisitive detective obsesses over the case, attempting to get to the bottom of the true motive behind the act.

Where to Watch: 19 episodes (79%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix, fuboTV & TVision). 3 episodes (13%) are available to stream on a TV everywhere service (USA). 24 episodes (100%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Inventor Flint Lockwood creates a machine that makes clouds rain food, enabling the down-and-out citizens of Chewandswallow to feed themselves. But when the falling food reaches gargantuan proportions, Flint must scramble to avert disaster. Can he regain control of the machine and put an end to the wild weather before the town is destroyed?

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hulu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: The Crains, a fractured family, confront haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

Where to Watch: 19 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix). 10 episodes (53%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (Google Play, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: A boy imagines a monster that helps him deal with his difficult life and see the world in a different way.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A Hasidic Jewish woman in Brooklyn flees to Berlin from an arranged marriage and is taken in by a group of musicians -- until her past comes calling.

Where to Watch: 4 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: The life of George Falconer, a British college professor, is reeling with the recent and sudden loss of his longtime partner. This traumatic event makes George challenge his own will to live as he seeks the console of his close girl friend Charley, who is struggling with her own questions about life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (Google Play & Vudu).

What it's about: In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A small unit of U.S. soldiers, alone at the remote Combat Outpost Keating, located deep in the valley of three mountains in Afghanistan, battles to defend against an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters in a coordinated attack. The Battle of Kamdesh, as it was known, was the bloodiest American engagement of the Afghan War in 2009 and Bravo Troop 3-61 CAV became one of the most decorated units of the 19-year conflict.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In Knockemstiff, Ohio and its neighboring backwoods, sinister characters converge around young Arvin Russell as he fights the evil forces that threaten him and his family.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: After a failed anti-Nazi sabotage mission leaves his eleven comrades dead, a Norwegian resistance fighter finds himself fleeing the Gestapo through the snowbound reaches of Scandinavia.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hulu) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A story of Naoufel, a young man who is in love with Gabrielle. In another part of town, a severed hand escapes from a dissection lab, determined to find its body again.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: When her husband's sex game goes wrong, Jessie (who is handcuffed to a bed in a remote lake house) faces warped visions, dark secrets and a dire choice.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: The orphaned Baudelaire children face trials, tribulations and the evil Count Olaf, all in their quest to uncover the secret of their parents' death.

Where to Watch: 25 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A coming-of-age story about an outsider who, against all odds and numerous challenges, fights for love and acceptance and for her place in the world. The series centers on a young orphaned girl in the late 1890’s, who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly woman and her aging brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne will transform their lives and eventually the small town in which they live with her unique spirit, fierce intellect and brilliant imagination.

Where to Watch: 27 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Bombs tear through Bombay, wreaking havoc and polarising the citizens. With perpetrators at large, the state launches a massive drive to unmask the truth behind these events.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Based on the true story of Grace Marks, a housemaid and immigrant from Ireland who was imprisoned in 1843, perhaps wrongly, for the murder of her employer Thomas Kinnear. Grace claims to have no memory of the murder yet the facts are irrefutable. A decade after, Dr. Simon Jordan tries to help Grace recall her past.

Where to Watch: 6 episodes (100%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Quan is a humble London businessman whose long-buried past erupts in a revenge-fueled vendetta when the only person left for him to love – his teenage daughter – dies in a senseless act of politically-motivated terrorism. His relentless search to find the terrorists leads to a cat-and-mouse conflict with a British government official whose own past may hold the clues to the identities of the elusive killers.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Drama following the lives of a group of midwives working in the poverty-stricken East End of London during the 1950s, based on the best-selling memoirs of Jennifer Worth.

Where to Watch: 75 episodes (84%) are available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Hoopla). 80 episodes (90%) are available to rent or buy from $1.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a survivor and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).