50 best book-inspired films

Whether it's Great Expectations or The Da Vinci Code, novels have always been a fertile source for film-makers.

Now a survey of publishing figures has chosen the 50 greatest film adaptations of all time.

Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice, John le Carré's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist all feature in the list.

Inclusion on the list, which was compiled by the Book Marketing Society, could provide a windfall for authors such as Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting), Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains Of The Day) and Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain).

Book chains Borders and Waterstone's will promote the titles in coming weeks, with readers able to vote for the best in shops or online. The winner will be announced at the Hay Literary Festival in June.

Books adapted by director Steven Spielberg have earned three places on the list: JG Ballard's Empire Of The Sun, Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark (filmed as Schindler's List) and Peter Benchley's Jaws.

Others have inspired great filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, who based Apocalypse Now on Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness and directed The Godfather, David Lean, who made Oliver Twist and Doctor Zhivago, and Anthony Minghella, who directed The English Patient.

As well as classics such as Graham Greene's Brighton Rock and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, the list includes edgier modern entries such as Goodfellas and American Psycho.

James Bond aficionados will be pleased to see that the spy makes the grade with Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, the film of which starred Sean Connery.

But some of the 50 did not make it to screen without controversy. Truman Capote's Breakfast At Tiffany's starred Audrey Hepburn as socialite Holly Golightly. But Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the lead and the character bears little resemblance to the novella.

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, starring Jack Nicholson, won several Oscars but Kesey hated the film and tried to stop it getting made.

Novelist Frederic Raphael, whose script adaptations include Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd and Henry James's Daisy Miller, said: "The two forms aren't necessarily made for each other."