Adaptation Movies 2011 List

A journalist-investigator and a precocious computer hacker become embroiled in life-threatening mysteries as they attempt to expose institutions that pull the strings behind the scenes.

Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War. War Horse begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets--British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter--before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man's Land. The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse--an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure.

Eleven-year-old Oskar Schell is an exceptional child: amateur inventor, Francophile, pacifist. And after finding a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, he embarks on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. As Oskar roams the city, he encounters a variety of individuals, all survivors in their own way. Ultimately, Oskar’s journey ends where it began, but with the solace of that most human experience: community.

Story follows a young white woman in the early 1960s in Mississippi who becomes interested in the plight of the African-American domestic servants that every family has working for them. She writes their stories about mistreatment, abuse and heartbreak, all just before the Civil Rights revolution.

A private detective investigates the killing of a professor and it becomes a clash of faiths: The detective is a born-again Christian, the dead man an atheist, the accused killer an Islamic foreign student and the D.A. is Jewish.

Sarah's Key is the story of an American journalist living in Paris, Julia Jarmond (Kristen Scott Thomas), whose research for an article about the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in 1942 in France ends up turning her own world upside down. In July 1942, Sarah, a ten-year old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door in the middle of the night arresting Jewish families. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard – their secret hiding place – and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released. Nearly seventy years later, Julia stumbles on the terrible secret that the home Sarah's family was forced to leave is about to become her own. As Julia's life becomes entwined with Sarah's heart-breaking story she must tackle the complex issue of how to live with the past and keep moving forward.

Sarah's Key is the story of an American journalist living in Paris, Julia Jarmond (Kristen Scott Thomas), whose research for an article about the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in 1942 in France ends up turning her own world upside down. In July 1942, Sarah, a ten-year old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door in the middle of the night arresting Jewish families. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard – their secret hiding place – and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released. Nearly seventy years later, Julia stumbles on the terrible secret that the home Sarah's family was forced to leave is about to become her own. As Julia's life becomes entwined with Sarah's heart-breaking story she must tackle the complex issue of how to live with the past and keep moving forward.

"Rodrick Rules," which will be based on the second book in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, follows middle school student Greg Heffley, his older brother Rodrick, and the school talent show.

It's a whimsical fish-out-of-water story of two spoiled sisters: Nora (Camilla Belle), a law student, and Mary (Alexa Vega), an undergrad party girl, living with their father in a luxurious mansion in Beverly Hills. Mary has become so "90210" she refuses to admit she is of Mexican descent. When dad suddenly passes away, their posh lives are turned upside down. They discover they have been left penniless and are forced to move into their estranged aunt Aurelia's (Adriana Barraza) modest but lively home in the Latino-centric Boyle Heights neighborhood of East LA. They are terrified to leave their world of privilege; neither Nora nor Mary speak Spanish or have ever had to take on actual responsibility. The girls gradually adapt to their new environment; their BMW and Prius are traded for the public bus and a used car. As they embrace the culture that for so long they refused to accept, they both discover romance, the true meaning of family, and they learn that the life of PRADA actually means NADA without love, family and community.