10 Bollywood Movies Based on Books You Should Read

We argue about whether the book is better than the film in Hollywood all the time. Yet many of us don't realise how many Hindi films we love started as novels, plays or even true accounts. Some stayed loyal to the page. Others changed so much that the author barely recognised them.

Devdas (1955 and 2002)

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novella about a doomed love has been filmed many times. Bimal Roy's quiet black-and-white version and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's lavish one feel like two different worlds built from the same heartbreak.

Guide (1965)

Based on R.K. Narayan's novel The Guide, this Dev Anand classic follows a tour guide who becomes an accidental holy man. Narayan was famously unhappy with the changes, but the film's music and boldness made it a landmark.

Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962)

Adapted from Bimal Mitra's Bengali novel, it paints a haunting picture of a crumbling feudal family. Meena Kumari's performance remains one of Hindi cinema's finest.

Maqbool (2003), Omkara (2006) and Haider (2014)

Vishal Bhardwaj moved Shakespeare into India. Macbeth went to Mumbai's underworld, Othello to the badlands of Uttar Pradesh and Hamlet to Kashmir. Read the plays first and you'll spot clever details everywhere.

3 Idiots (2009)

Loosely inspired by Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone. The engineering-college setting is shared, but the film builds its own story and characters around it.

Kai Po Che! (2013)

Adapted from Chetan Bhagat's The 3 Mistakes of My Life, about three friends in Ahmedabad chasing a cricket dream. It's a moving look at friendship and ambition.

2 States (2014)

Another Chetan Bhagat novel, this time about a Punjabi boy and a Tamil girl trying to convince two very different families. Light, funny and very relatable for many couples.

Raazi (2018)

Based on Harinder Sikka's book Calling Sehmat, about a young Kashmiri woman who becomes a spy. The book adds more background to the story the film tells with such tension.

Why adaptations work so well

A good book gives filmmakers characters with depth and a story already tested by readers. The best adaptations don't copy the book. They find what it means and tell that in pictures and songs.