The 10 best film adaptations

David Nicholls' TV credits include the third series of Cold Feet, Rescue Me, and I Saw You, as well as adapting works for the screen, including Simpatico, Starter for Ten (from his own novel) as well as Tess of the D’Urbervilles for the BBC. His latest novel is One Day.

For the (London) Independent, he named his favorite film adaptations.

One title on the list:

LA Confidential by James Ellroy, adaptation by Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland

With his labyrinthine plotting, intense prose-style and ultraviolence, James Ellroy might seem to be high on the list of unadaptable authors. But by being bold with its excisions, this movie captures the essence of this fine crime novel in a way that De Palma's Black Dahlia singularly fails to achieve. Not nearly as bleak and apocalyptic as Ellroy's novel, but still a fine mainstream film. To my mind, the recent C4 adaptation of the Red Riding books also successfully pulled off the same trick.

Read about another notable adaptation.

--Marshal Zeringue