Spotlight
Wondering which films to watch? Spotlight presents thematically grouped, must see films, hand-picked by Fandor's curators.
Based on the Book
Literary adaptations have forever provoked us to debate: Book or movie? In this collection, we bring the written word to the screen so you can decide for yourself! These movies are all based on literature, including a Shakespearean tragedy (HAMLET), a work from Charles Dickens (NICHOLAS NICKLEBY), a play about the life of poet T.S. Eliot (TOM & VIV), a classic by Emily Brontë (WUTHERING HEIGHTS), and a few novels by contemporary literary icons Jack Kerouac (BIG SUR) and Haruki Murakami (NORWEGIAN WOOD). Plus a saga so successful in Europe (THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY) that we needed an American version (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO), and many more!
SHARE
Embed
Copy and paste the embed code shown below into your webpage editor.
Selected Films
-
Hamlet
This hip, thoroughly contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare's epic story of passion, betrayal, and revenge is set in present-day New York City. The president of the Denmark Corporation is dead and his wife is already remarried to the man suspected of his murder. Nobody is more troubled...Watch Movie
-
Low Down
LOW DOWN, based on Amy-Jo Albany's powerful memoir of growing up in the care of her gifted, tormented and frequently absent musician father, the bebop jazz pianist Joe Albany, focuses on the years 1974 to 1976, when Amy had few resources other than the love of her aging grandmother and a ragtag...Watch Movie
-
Wake in Fright
Alongside MAD MAX and WALKABOUT, WAKE IN FRIGHT is widely acknowledged as one of the seminal films in the development of modern Australian cinema. Directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Donald Pleasence, WAKE IN FRIGHT tells the nightmarish story of a schoolteacher's descent into personal...Watch Movie
-
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO: Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his...Watch Movie
-
The Girl Who Played with Fire
In this second installment of Stieg Larsson's phenomenal "Dragon Tattoo Trilogy," Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. A researcher and a Millennium journalist about to expose the truth about the sex trade in Sweden are brutally murdered and Salander's prints are on the weapon....Watch Movie
-
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
In this last installment of Steig Larsson's "Dragon Tattoo Trilogy," Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers,...Watch Movie
-
A Shock to the System
A middle-aged advertising executive loses his long-awaited promotion to a younger man. In frustration, he accidentally pushes a panhandler in front of a subway train... and gets away with the death. Realizing that committing murder might be a little easier than he previously...Watch Movie
-
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
Nineteenth century England. When Nicholas Nickleby's father dies and leaves his family destitute, his uncle, the greedy moneylender, Ralph Nickleby, finds Nicholas a job teaching in a repulsive school in Yorkshire. Nicholas flees the school taking with him one of the...Watch Movie
-
Man of the Crowd
Juvenal is a train conductor for the metro in Belo Horizonte. Margo controls train traffic. Both live in a state of deep solitude – each in their own way. This film is a reflection on different forms of loneliness and friendship in an overcrowded Brazilian urban environment.Watch Movie
-
Mood Indigo
Eminently inventive auteur Michel Gondry finds inspiration from french novelist Boris Vian's cult novel to provide the foundation for this visionary and romantic love story starring Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris. Set in a charmingly surreal Paris, Duris plays wealthy bachelor Colin, whose...Watch Movie
-
Last Ride
A desperate father takes his ten-year -old son, Chook, on the run after committing a violent crime. As the two journey into the desert and an unknown future, their troubled relationship and the need to survive sees them battling the elements and each other. Chook eventually takes control and the...Watch Movie
-
Mysteries of Lisbon
Raul Ruiz's masterful adaptation of the eponymous nineteenth-century Portuguese novel MYSTERIES OF LISBON (by Camilo Castelo Branco) evokes the complex intertwined narratives of Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens. The core story centers on Joao, the bastard child of an ill-fated...Watch Movie
-
The Man with the Golden Arm
Otto Preminger extracts a powerful performance from Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine, a former drug addicted card dealer just out of detox and trying to establish a new career as a jazz drummer. Back in his old neighborhood Frankie finds it difficult to stay clean faced with...Watch Movie
-
Mademoiselle Chambon
A love story that has bewitched audiences and critics worldwide, MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON delicately captures the initial stirrings of romance. Vincent Lindon plays Jean, a burly and happily married housing contractor. One fateful afternoon, he picks up his son (Arthur Le Houérou)...Watch Movie
-
Tom and Viv
In 1915, young T.S. (Tom) Eliot and the flamboyant Vivienne Haigh-Wood elope, but her longstanding health and emotional problems disrupt their planned honeymoon. While Tom tries to establish himself as a writer, Viv serves as his secretary and muse. However, Viv is moody, often despondent, and...Watch Movie
-
Robinson Crusoe
The year is 1659. There is a shipwreck and the sole survivor, Robinson Crusoe, is washed ashore on a deserted tropical island. Suddenly faced with a hostile and unknown wilderness, he carves out a life for himself with his bare hands. Remarkably, he learns how to survive the maddening absence of...Watch Movie
-
The Tree
The exquisite Charlotte Gainsbourg stars in French filmmaker Julie Bertuccelli’s achingly beautiful follow-up to her sleeper hit SINCE OTAR LEFT. The Closing Night film at Cannes in 2010, THE TREE is a mystical drama of loss and rebirth in the Australian countryside. Not since classic 1970s works...Watch Movie
-
Lady Chatterley
Robbed of intimacy by her blueblood husband's war injuries, Constance Chatterley longs for the emotional fulfillment and physical passion that her marriage lacks. When she espies the gamekeeper Parkin (Jean-Louis Coullo'ch) unselfconsciously bathing, stripped to the waist amidst the beauty of...Watch Movie
-
Norwegian Wood
Tokyo, the late 1960s: Students around the world are uniting to overthrow the establishment and Toru Watanabe’s personal life is similarly in tumult. At heart, he is deeply devoted to his first love, Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), a beautiful and introspective young woman. But their complex bond has been...Watch Movie
-
Wuthering Heights
Andrea Arnold's WUTHERING HEIGHTS is an excitingly fresh and distinct take on the classic novel by Emily Brontë. An epic love story that spans childhood well into the young adult years, the film follows Heathcliff, a boy taken in by a benevolent Yorkshire farmer, Earnshaw....Watch Movie
-
Tell No One
TELL NO ONE is based on Harlan Coben's international best selling thriller about pediatrician Alexandre Beck who still grieves the murder of his beloved wife Margot Beck eight years earlier. When two bodies are found near the scene of the crime, the police reopen the case and Alex becomes a...Watch Movie
-
Maborosi
One of the finest films of Japanese cinema, Hirokazu Kore-eda's first feature film is a story of love, loss and ultimately, regeneration. Haunted by the mysterious loss of her grandmother many years ago, a beautiful young mother struggles to come to terms with the sudden loss of her husband....Watch Movie
-
The Dry Valley
DRY VALLEY is the first full feature film by Alexandra Strelyanaya. The film is based on the famous novel written by Nobel Prize laureate Ivan Bunin. This story unites the destinies of the landowners and their servants, and is considered to be one of the most complete portraits of the Russian...Watch Movie
