The Best Based on Books Movies on Showtime

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), 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 watch free online (Sony Crackle), stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime & CBS All Access), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Wounded Civil War soldier, John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV & IMDb TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 4 others). Coming soon to Hulu on July 31st, 2019 (PDT).

What it's about: Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to use Jackie to get to her boss, she hatches a plan—with help from a bail bondsman—to keep the money for herself. Based on Elmore Leonard's novel “Rum Punch”.

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 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: An arrogant, high-powered attorney takes on the case of a poor altar boy found running away from the scene of the grisly murder of the bishop who has taken him in. The case gets a lot more complex when the accused reveals that there may or may not have been a third person in the room. The intensity builds when a surprise twist alters everyone's perception of the crime.

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

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 (Showtime) & stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime).

What it's about: "The Hours" is the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

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 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Will Freeman is a hip Londoner who one day realizes that his friends are all involved with the responsibilities of married life and that leaves him alone in the cold. Passing himself off as a single father, he starts to meet a string of single mums, confident in his ability to leave them behind when they start to ask for a commitment. But Will's hope of a continued bachelorhood is interrupted when he meets 12-year old Marcus, in many ways his complete opposite.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Showtime), 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: The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

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 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Following the murder of his fiancée, Mitch Rapp trains under the instruction of Cold War veteran Stan Hurley. The pair then is enlisted to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on military and civilian targets.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $9.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $9.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

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 (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: As a fan of Albert Camus and Jean-Luc Godard, teenage Nick Twisp is definitely out of his element when his mother and her boyfriend move the family to a trailer park. When a pretty neighbor named Sheeni plays records by French crooners, it's love at first sight for frustrated and inexperienced Nick. Learning that she is dating someone, Nick launches a hilarious quest to find his way into Sheeni's heart -- and bed.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime) & stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime).

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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: A friendly St. Bernard named "Cujo" contracts rabies and conducts a reign of terror on a small American town.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & 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), 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: A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him re-think his current situation in life.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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), 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town, patient and apparently thoughtful. Some people think he is a little slow and maybe boring, but that is the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his "sickness": He is a brilliant, but disturbed sociopathic sadist.

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

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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $7.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

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) & stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime).

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), 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: 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), 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: A social misfit, Willard is made fun of by his co-workers, and squeezed out of the company started by his deceased father by his boss. His only friends are a couple of rats he raised at home, Ben and Socrates. However, when one of them is killed at work, he goes on a rampage using his rats to attack those who have been tormenting him.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Showtime & Shout Factory TV), 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 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 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 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), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).