Academy Awards: Oscar winners that came from books
Various films that triumphed at the 2015 Oscars had their origin in the printed page.
At the Oscars held on Feb. 22, actor Eddie Redmayne won the Best Actor Oscar for the film “The Theory of Everything,” the Stephen Hawking biopic that was based on a memoir by Hawking’s wife Jane titled “Traveling to Infinity.”
The film for which Julianne Moore won the Best Actress statuette, “Still Alice,” was adapted from a book of the same name by author Lisa Genova.
Meanwhile, the film “American Sniper,” which is based on the memoir of the same name by film protagonist Chris Kyle, received the Oscar for Best Sound Editing and the movie “The Imitation Game,” which was adapted from the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges, captured the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
The movie “Big Hero 6,” which is based on a comic, took the Best Animated Feature prize at the ceremony.
Several of this year's high-profile Oscar nominees also came from the written word. Best Adapted Screenplay nominee “Inherent Vice” was based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon.
Rosamund Pike of “Gone Girl,” which was adapted from a book of the same name by Gillian Flynn, received a Best Actress nod and Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern were nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their work in the movie “Wild,” which was based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir.
Other book-based Oscar nominees include “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” (nominated for Best Sound Editing), comic-based “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” and “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (all nominated for Best Visual Effects), and “Unbroken,” which was based on Laura Hillenbrand’s book and was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
