15 TV Shows Based on Books That Bring Your Favorite Characters to Life

Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, based on Carola Lovering’s novel, just ended an epic three-season run. The series follows Lucy (Grace Van Patten), a college freshman who enters a manipulative relationship with Stephen (Jackson White) that ends up having disastrous consequences for several people. If you like your TV drama messy, Tell Me Lies is the perfect binge—and its throwback setting will have you craving the ‘00s.

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If you don’t mind your fiction with a heavy dose of heartbreak, One Day is the only TV series you’ll ever need. Based on the book by David Nicholls, Netflix’s One Day follows Dexter (Leo Woodall) and Emma (Ambika Mod), college students who forge an unexpected friendship that spans 14 years. As they grow up, move away, get jobs, and start new relationships, they never lose sight of each other, for better and worse.

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Released in 2021, the TV adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s sweeping post-apocalyptic human epic is a literal masterpiece with an impeccable cast. After a deadly virus wipes out much of the world, a disparate group of survivors attempts to rebuild in the aftermath. With a fractured social contract, a complicated cast of characters tries to stay alive without losing touch with their humanity.

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Margaret Qualley’s acting prowess knows no bounds in Netflix’s Maid, an adaptation of Stephanie Land’s memoir about life as a single mother. Trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship and lacking the financial support necessary to provide a safe life for her daughter, Alex takes on any cleaning job she can. Her focus is firmly on building a life for her child, but as she strives towards her dreams, Alex encounters terrifying predators in unexpected places.

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Brie Larson shines as Elizabeth Zott, a research chemist who defies convention in 1960s America while struggling to break through her profession’s glass ceiling. Enter Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman), a talented scientist who lacks social skills but finds an unexpected connection with Zott. After facing a drastic, life-changing curveball, Zott finds herself becoming the most unlikely of celebrities. Based on the novel by Bonnie Garmus.

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Comedian and actress Michelle Buteau’s book of essays, Survival of the Thickest, tracks the origins of her career, her marriage, and her identity as a Black woman. In the Netflix adaptation of her book, Buteau stars as Mavis, an aspiring plus-size stylist whose life falls to pieces after her boyfriend cheats on her. As she navigates the dating world for the first time in years, Mavis learns to love everything about herself—even the most hilariously disastrous events she endures.

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During his tenure at Netflix, Mike Flanagan created a smorgasbord of horror TV shows, all of which will be studied for years to come. Along with The Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan adapted the work of Edgar Allen Poe for the intricate and ambitious series, The Fall of the House of Usher. Roderick Usher runs a successful business empire, which he hopes to bestow to his children upon his death. But after the Usher family is seemingly hit by a gory curse, Roderick is forced to reflect on his questionable life choices.

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Apple TV’s Pachinko is based on Min Jin Lee’s book of the same name, which is a sprawling saga exploring the lives of four generations of one Korean family. Taking place between 1915 and 1989, Pachinko begins with a woman leaving Korea for Japan to start over, even though Korean immigrants face persecution in the country. Through subsequent generations, family members attempt to pursue their own successful lives and careers against a backdrop of poverty, racism, and crushing expectations.

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The Starz series Three Women is based on Lisa Taddeo’s non-fiction book, which details the sex lives of real women whom the author interviewed over almost a decade. In the series, Shailene Woodley plays Gia, a writer based on Taddeo, and her subjects are Sloane (DeWanda Wise), Lina (Betty Gilpin), and Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy). These three women couldn’t be more different from one another, but they all embrace their identities while grappling with their experiences.

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Inspired by the world created in the graphic novel of the same name, 2019’s Watchmen presents an alternate history of what happened after 1921’s Tulsa Race Massacre. In 2019, Detective Angela Abar (Regina King) continues the hunt for white supremacist group the Seventh Kavalry, which murdered dozens of police officers years prior. Under the disguise of her new identity, Sister Night, Angela fights against racism and attempts to prevent dangerous conspiracies and a potential attack on Dr. Manhattan from transpiring.

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Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects was adapted for the screen in an HBO series starring Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, and Eliza Scanlen. After two girls are murdered in her hometown, reporter Camille Preaker returns to cover the story, while also wrestling with her own traumas. Plagued by memories of her past and confronted by her own dysfunctional family unit, including an unreachable mother, Camille tries to solve the crimes without losing her mind in the process.

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There are only two seasons of Netflix’s Mindhunter, which has left fans constantly demanding more. Based on the non-fiction book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the series takes viewers inside the early world of serial killer profiling. FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) meet with America’s most dangerous criminals in an attempt to understand how a murderer’s mind works.

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TV titan David E. Kelley translated Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies for television with an impressive all-star cast: Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Zoë Kravitz, Laura Dern, and Shailene Woodley, with Meryl Streep joining for season 2. The series—which has already been renewed for a third season—finds a group of women at the center of a murder investigation as they navigate life within an upper-class community in Monterey, California. As detectives delve deeper into everyone’s motives on the night in question, deeply buried secrets threaten to derail the friendships and relationships of everyone involved.

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