The Best Based on Books Movies on Showtime

What it's about: After the death of a friend, a writer recounts a boyhood journey to find the body of a missing boy.

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

What it's about: A romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.

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

What it's about: Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

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

What it's about: 14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

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

What it's about: The story of straight-edge literature professor Vivian who travels to Reno to get away from a relationship breakup when she falls in love with an attractive and unconventional girl named Cay.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy & 2 others), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Wolfe).

What it's about: In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.

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

What it's about: A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life, while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they've left the battlefield.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $9.99 on 5 services (Google Play, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: When ten-year-old Lewis is suddenly orphaned, he is sent to live with his Uncle Jonathan in a creaky (and creepy) old mansion with a mysterious ticking noise that emanates from the walls. Upon discovering that his uncle is a warlock, Lewis begins learning magic, but when he rebelliously resurrects an evil warlock he must find the secret of the house and save the world from destruction.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $12.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: The true story of a disillusioned military contractor employee and his drug pusher childhood friend who became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Vudu).

What it's about: Centers on the unlikely relationship between Ann Atwater, an outspoken civil rights activist, and C.P. Ellis, a local Ku Klux Klan leader who reluctantly co-chaired a community summit, battling over the desegregation of schools in Durham, North Carolina during the racially-charged summer of 1971. The incredible events that unfolded would change Durham and the lives of Atwater and Ellis forever.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: New York police detective John Shaft arrests Walter Wade Jr. for a racially motivated slaying. But the only eyewitness disappears, and Wade jumps bail for Switzerland. Two years later Wade returns to face trial, confident his money and influence will get him acquitted -- especially since he's paid a drug kingpin to kill the witness.

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

What it's about: A supernatural thriller set in the Western frontier of the late 1800s, The Wind stars Caitlin Gerard as a plains-woman driven mad by the harshness and isolation of the untamed land.

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

What it's about: The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O’Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: When rancher and single mother of two Maggie Gilkeson sees her teenage daughter, Lily, kidnapped by Apache rebels, she reluctantly accepts the help of her estranged father, Samuel, in tracking down the kidnappers. Along the way, the two must learn to reconcile the past and work together if they are going to have any hope of getting Lily back before she is taken over the border and forced to become a prostitute.

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

What it's about: On the night that Jasper Jones, the town's mixed race outcast shows him the dead body of young Laura Wishart, Charlie's life is changed forever. Entrusted with this secret and believing Jasper to be innocent, Charlie embarks on a dangerous journey to find the true killer. Set over the scorching summer holidays of 1965, Charlie defeats the local racists, faces the breakup of his parents and falls head over heels in love as he discovers what it means to be truly courageous.

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

What it's about: Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

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

What it's about: Dr. Jean Markham returns to the town she left as a teenager to take over her late father's medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands Charlie in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees, as she once did. The new friendship between the boy and the bee keeper brings his mother Lydia into Jean's world.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime, Kanopy & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself, trying to hide her secret: that star senior Andy raped her at the party. But Melinda does manage to find solace in her art class headed by Mr. Freeman.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Major league baseball player, Moe Berg, a probably gay man lives a double life working for the Office of Strategic Services.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $12.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Laura Chant. 16, lives with her mother and four-year-old brother Jacko in a poor new suburb on the edge of a partially demolished Christchurch, New Zealand. Laura is drawn into a supernatural battle with an ancient spirit who attacks Jacko and slowly drains the life out of him as the spirit becomes ever younger. Laura discovers her true identity and the supernatural ability within her, and must harness it to save her brother's life.

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

What it's about: Emilia, a law-school graduate, falls in love with her married boss, Jack. After Emilia marries Jack, her happiness turns unexpectedly to grief following the death of her infant daughter. Devastated, Emilia nonetheless carries on, attempting to forge a connection with her stepson William and to resist the interference of Jack's jealous ex-wife.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & YouTube).

What it's about: Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Peter, and Djata and his mother Hannah are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A curse transforms a handsome and arrogant young man into everything he detests in this contemporary retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Wealthy Kyle Kingson has everything a teenager could want in life, but he still gets off on humiliating the weaker and less attractive. When Kyle invites his misfit classmate Kendra to an environmental rally at their school, she questions his motivations but reluctantly accepts. Later, Kyle blows Kendra off, prompting the spurned goth girl to cast a dark spell on the swaggering egotist.

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

What it's about: An ex-marine who struggles to provide for his family and a violent drug dealer with an undefeated fighting record are determined to compete in the Donnybrook, a legendary, bare-knuckle brawl with a cash prize of $100,000.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & fuboTV), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $4.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: A young teenage werewolf is torn between honoring her family's secret and her love for a man.

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

What it's about: When a strange signal pulsates through all cell phone networks worldwide, it starts a murderous epidemic of epic proportions when users become bloodthirsty creatures, and a group of people in New England are among the survivors to deal with the ensuing chaos after.

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

What it's about: David’s life is on the slide: he’s broke, in the middle of a divorce and ‘can’t get it up’. His girlfriend, Alice, is his rock, but the magazine she writes for is going down and the pressure is on to find a story. While job hunting online, David stumbles across the perfect antidote to his boredom: a ‘Swingers’ site. The resulting inbox of lewd invitations on the home-laptop justifiably upsets Alice, until she realises this could be just the ‘story’ she needs. The idea of uncovering the swinging scene causes quite a stir in Alice’s office and, much to David’s chagrin, she is urged to pursue the story. Their first reluctant foray is an hysterically low-rent initiation, however, an unexpected upturn for David’s manhood is all the extra encouragement they need. As events accelerate beyond their control the once adoring couple become lost and fundamental questions are asked of their relationship.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A young writer tries to obtain romance letters a poet sent to his mistress.

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