You must have heard about movies being inspired from Hollywood, Tollywood and real life stories. One more thing which inspires movies is Books.

Here is the list of 15 such movies which were inspired from the Novels and Books.

List of Best Bollywood Movies based on Novels and Plays

Guide (1965)

Guide Dev Anand Hindi Movie Still

The movie Guide is based on the critically acclaimed novel The Guide written by R K Narayan. The award winning performances by Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman made the movie more memorable. To make the movie more interesting, the end of movie and novel are a little different.

Tere Mere Sapne (1971)

Tere Mere Sapne 1971 film on novel and book

Tere Mere Sapne is based on The Citadel, by A J Cronin. Dev Anand and Mumtaz played the lead roles in the movie. The movie was made as a Bengali film in 1972 and then in 1982 it was again remade into Telugu movie, Madhura Swapnam.

Devdas (1936, 1955, 2002)

Shahrukh Khan in Devdas

Devdas is based on a Bengali Romantic Novel written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Devdas 2013 was 3rd Hindi version of the novel. Lead roles were played by Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai.

3 Idiots (2009)

3 Idiots Sharman,Madhavan and aamir

3 Idiots is loosely adapted from the best seller novel Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat. Lead stars of the movie are Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, R Madhavan, Sharman Joshi and Boman Irani. The movie broke all the Box Office records and became the Highest grossing Bollywood movie of all time worldwide.

Saawariya (2007)

Saawariya 2007 film based on books

The movie is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Short Story White Nights. Directed by Sanjeay Leela Bhansali, Debut movie of Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor. This movie was the first Bollywood movie to be released in Blu ray Disc. Clashed with SRK’s Om Shanti Om and flopped.

Omkara (2006)

Langda Tyagi Omkara

The movie is based on Shakespeare’s Othello, and directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. Main leads- Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan.

Parineeta (1953 and 2005)

parineeta 1953 movie ashok kumar and meena kumari

The movie is a musical film, based on a Bengali novel, Parineeta (1914) by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Main leads were Vidya Balan, Saif Ali Khan and Sanjay Dutt.

Hello (2008)

hello 2008 film based on chetan bhagat novel

Based on Chetan Bhagat’s bestselling novel, One Night at the call center. Directed by Atul Agnihotri, the movie has Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Isha Koppikar, Amrita Arora and Sharat Saxena in the main leads. Movie performed averagely at Box office.

Gaban (1966)

Gaban 1966 film starring sunil dutt based on munshi premchand

Gaban is based on Munshi Premchand’s novel with the same name. it was directed by the Legendary director Hrishikesh Mukherjee starring Sunil Dutt and Sadhna.

7 Khoon Maaf (2011)

7 Khoon Maaf 2011 priyanka chopra film on novel

The film is directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, and is based on the short story, Susanna’s Seven Husbands by Ruskin Bond. Priyanka Chopra plays the lead role. Most of the critics gave negative reviews and the film couldn’t survive for long on screens. The movie was unsuccessful, however it made profits.

Kai Po Che! (2013)

Kai Po Che 2013 film on chetan bhagat novel

Kai Po Che! Is directed by Abhishek Kapoor and is based on Chetan Bhagat’s Novel The Three Mistakes Of My life. Main leads of the movie- Sushant Singh, Raj Kumar Yadav, Amit Sadh and Amrita Puri. The film did quite well at the box office.

2 States (2014)

2-states-poster wiki

Yet to release, the movie is directed by Abhishek Varman. Main leads are Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt. The movie is based on Chetan Bhagat’s best seller novel, 2 states. The film is set to release on 18 April 2004.

Aisha (2010)

Aisha sonam kapoor film on novel

Directed by Rajshree Ojha, based on the novel, Emma by Jane Austen. Main leads of the movie- Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol. The movie received average critical response and was an average on box office

The Namesake (2006)

The Namesake 2006 film on novel

The Namesake is based on Jumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, which was earlier published in The Newyorker as a novella. The movie is directed by Mira Nair. Main lead of the movie is played by Tabu and Irrfan Khan. The film received great response from American critics.

Maqbool (2003)

Maqbool

Maqbool is directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and is based on the famous play Macbeth by Shakespeare. Main leads are Tabu, Pankaj Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah.

The Blue Umbrella (2005)

The Blue Umbrella vishal bhardwaj film

The movie is directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, adapted from a novel of the same name, written by Ruskin Bond. Main leads were Pankaj Kapur and Shreya Sharma. The film did well at the Box office.

Haider (2014)

Haider shooting locations in kashmir

Based on the Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Haider is the part of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Shakespeare trilogy, sets in Kashmir. It was highly praised by critic and Shahid Kapoor’s performance was one of the best of his career.

Your Turn!

Share, your favorite films based on Novels and Plays in the comment section, you can also include if any good film is missing in this list.