The Best Books Becoming Movies And TV Shows In 2025

2024 saw a ton of books get their time in the spotlight, meaning they were adapted for either the big or small screen — with varying degrees of success. Blockbusters and critical darlings like "Wicked: Part One," "Conclave," and "The Nickel Boys" all seem poised to perform quite well during awards season, and Frank Herbert's "Dune" universe ("Duniverse?") got two adaptations ("Dune: Part Two" and the HBO series "Dune: Prophecy," based on "Sisterhood of Dune" by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson).

Some adaptations, like Sophie Turner's solo vehicle "Joan" and Eddie Redmayne's small-screen turn "The Day of the Jackal," flew somewhat under the radar, while others — including Amy Adams' ode to motherhood "Nightbitch" — missed the mark just a bit when it comes to adapting the source material. (At this point, we don't even want to touch the drama and mess surrounding the film version of Colleen Hoover's hit movie "It Ends With Us" due largely to the fact that stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are suing each other.) 

The list of 2024 adaptations goes on and on — so what can you expect in 2025 when it comes to TV and film adaptations of huge books? There are a handful of buzzy projects that are supposed to release in 2025, but in the interest of providing concrete information, we're focusing on ones with release dates confirmed (so keep an eye on this list for any updates we can provide). Here are some of the best texts making their way to the big or small screen this year.

Okay, so this one is sort of a bittersweet mixed bag, if you will. On the one hand, we're getting a new "Bridget Jones" movie after nearly a decade, and Renée Zellweger is returning to play the British heroine! On the other hand, this is the book — written in 2013 by Helen Fielding, who created the story and character in her original 1996 novel — that kills off Mark Darcy, the universally beloved love interest played by Colin Firth. Yes, that's right: the guy who told Bridget, in the first film in 2001, that he liked her just as she is, is dead in the new movie, leaving Bridget widowed with two children and looking for love once again.

Still, there's a lot to feel excited about when it comes to "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy." Fielding herself is writing the screenplay — with Michael Morris ("Better Call Saul," "To Leslie") directing — and alongside returning "Bridget Jones" veterans Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, and James Callis as Bridget's best friends Jude, Shazzer, and Tom, the cast adds Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Isla Fisher, and last but not least, "One Day" and "The White Lotus" star Leo Woodall as Bridget's new boyfriend Roxster. The movie releases on Peacock on February 13 and hits theaters the day after, so grab your girlfriends and go check this one out for Galentine's Day.

Edward Ashton's 2022 novel "Mickey7" made a splash amongst sci-fi fans when it released, and now, it's getting an adaptation from one of the most acclaimed and precise directors working today. Bong Joon-ho, known for movies like "Snowpiercer," "Memories of Murder," and of course, his universally-beloved Oscar-winning 2019 masterpiece "Parasite," is helming this adaptation, adding more Mickeys with the title "Mickey 17" with Robert Pattinson as all of the titular Mickeys.

Here's the deal: Mickey Barnes, played by Pattinson, feels unsatisfied with his humdrum life, a feeling which then drives him to become an "expendable" out in space and away from Earth. In essence, Mickey is a guinea pig, but one that you can (sort of) reanimate; the powers that be repeatedly kill Mickey in test runs only for him to resurface with the same appearance and increasingly limited memories. When a Mickey survives an experiment by accident — the 17th Mickey, to be exact — and an 18th spawns, a problem arises, particularly as more and more Mickeys join the chaotic fray.

Pattinson stars alongside Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo in the trippy film — and employs yet another weird voice, a movie that's becoming Pattinson's delightful signature move — and there's little doubt that Bong's latest effort (and first English-language film since "Okja" in 2017) will blow audiences away. "Mickey 17" releases in theaters on March 7 in the US (and slightly earlier, on February 28, in South Korea).

Frankenstein's monster showed up in two notable forms on the big screen in 2024 — in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" and "Lisa Frankenstein," specifically — but in 2025, actor Maggie Gyllenhaal is stepping behind the camera and shining the spotlight on the monster's wife (so to speak). Inspired by James Whale's seminal 1935 movie "The Bride of Frankenstein" — and, of course, Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" — Gyllenhaal's movie casts Jessie Buckley ("Men," "The Lost Daughter," and "I'm Thinking of Ending Things") as Frankenstein's bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein's monster. (Gyllenhaal is also writing the film.)

Not much is known about the film except that it's set in the 1930s in Chicago and a murdered woman (Buckley) is used to create a partner for Frankenstein's monster, but the cast is pretty impressive. Alongside Buckley and Bale, Gyllenhaal's film features her brother Jake, her partner Peter Saarsgard, and acclaimed performers like Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz, Julianne Hough, John Magaro ("Past Lives"), Jeannie Berlin (Elaine May's daughter who appeared in "Succession"), and Linda Emond ("Only Murders in the Building").

An important note: don't confuse "The Bride!" with Guillermo del Toro's take on the same monster, simply titled "Frankenstein," which will hit Netflix sometime in 2025 and stars Oscar Isaac (as Dr. Frankenstein), Jacob Elordi (as the monster), Mia Goth, Charles Dance, and Christoph Waltz.

"Four legs good, two legs bad" is coming to the big screen for a third time, thanks to motion-capture champion Andy Serkis — so here's what fans can expect from the latest adaptation of George Orwell's classic satire novella "Animal Farm," originally released in 1945. Arguably the author's most famous work aside from "1984," "Animal Farm" focuses on speaking farm animals who decide to stage an uprising against their human master; unfortunately, tensions between specific animals begin to arise before long, particularly after the group's defacto leader Old Major, an elderly boar, dies. After that, two pigs named Snowball and Napoleon take control of the revolt — but even though it succeeds, Snowball ends up ousted by Napoleon, who seizes complete power and creates a farm that's far less stable than it was under human rule.

With a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller (known for directing movies like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Neighbors" and writing others like "The Five-Year Engagement" and "Bros") and a story by Serkis and Rupert Wyatt ("Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), Serkis' movie only has two stars listed as of this writing: Serkis himself (as Benjamin, a donkey on the farm) and Kathleen Turner. Still, this animated take on Orwell's warning against dictatorship is not only timely in 2025, but will absolutely end up being one of the year's most anticipated films when it comes out on July 11.

It's safe to say that 2024 was a pretty phenomenal year for Glen Powell, who firmly cemented his status as a movie star thanks to projects like "Hit Man" (which Powell co-wrote with director Richard Linklater) and "Twisters," the campy sequel to the 1996 action film. Based on Powell's slate of films and projects set to release in 2025, he's going to have yet another good year — and his collaboration with Edgar Wright, "The Running Man," will probably be a big hit for Powell and Wright alike.

Based on Stephen King's 1982 novel (which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, eventually revealing his identity), "The Running Man," which was previously adapted into a movie in 1987 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, focuses on Powell's Ben Richards, a man trapped in a totalitarian society who's incarcerated and then forced to participate in a highly dangerous reality show called — you guessed it — "The Running Man." 

Alongside Powell, Katy O'Brian ("Love Lies Bleeding") and Daniel Ezra ("All America") play contestants, with Josh Brolin and Lee Pace as hunters and Michael Cera and William H. Macy as people who help Ben and contestants on their quest in secret. (Colman Domingo, who earned universal acclaim for his 2024 film "Sing Sing," will also star as the in-universe host of the reality show.) Between Powell's ridiculous charisma and Wright's directorial flourishes, "The Running Man" will probably be a hell of a lot of fun, and it's scheduled to hit theaters on November 7.

Splitting "Wicked" — the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman which itself was adapted from Gregory Maguire's book "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" — into two films makes sense on paper, considering that Act 1 of the musical ends with the showstopper "Defying Gravity." (Schwartz, who helped adapt his musical to the big screen, actually told Variety in 2022 that the movie had to be split due to the fact that "Defying Gravity" so definitively closes the first chapter of the story.) All of this is to say that, in November 2024, the first half of director Jon M. Chu's adaptation of the story, titled "Wicked: Part One," hit theaters and absolutely crushed the box office while also earning rave reviews from critics. The second half, which was originally called "Wicked: Part Two" and was ultimately renamed "Wicked: For Good," will finish the story of Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), the young green sorceress who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, will arrive in theaters this year.

So what can we expect from "Wicked: For Good," besides the tear-jerking duet "For Good" — between Elphaba and her former best friend, Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande-Butera) — that gives the second half its title? After Elphaba flees the Emerald City and escapes the shared clutches of the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), she'll struggle with the fact that her loved ones are now in danger ... especially her beloved younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) and her unrequited love Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey). After the overwhelming success of "Wicked: Part One," there's little doubt that "Wicked: For Good," will wow audiences when it releases on November 21.