Monday, September 07, 2009

Pulitzer Prize & Best Picture Oscar

My friend AK is attempting to read the Pulizer Prize winning novels for fiction, history, and autobiography, and as she's been progressing in her reading, I realized that I hadn't noticed that Gone With The Wind won the Pulitzer a few years before the film version came out and then went on to win the Oscar for best picture.

I was curious what other Pulitzer Prize winners have gone on to win and be nominated for Best Picture.

I discovered 4 Winners (two novels, two plays), and 12 nominees (eight novels, four plays).

This years one pulitzer winner could join the list, Cormac McCarthy's The Roadwhich I definitly enjoyed reading and wish I watching a Telluride this weekend.

Pulitzer Prize Winnner & Academy Award Best Picture Winner


* You Can't Take It With You- 1937 Pulitzer Prize Drama, 1939 Best Picture Winner
* Gone with the Wind- 1937 Pulitzer Prize Novel, 1940 Best Picture Winner
* All the King's Men- 1947 Pulitzer Prize Novel, 1950 Best Picture Winner
* Driving Miss Daisy- Pulitzer Prize Drama 1988, 1990 Best Picture Winner

Pulitzer Prize Winner & Best Picture Nominee
* The Magnificent Ambersons- 1919 Pulitzer Prize Novel, 1943 Best Picture Nominee
* The Good Earth- 1932 Pulitzer Prize Novel, 1938 Best Picture Nominee
* Our Town- 1938 Pulizer Prize Drama, 1940 Best Picture Nominee
* The Yearling- 1939 Pulitzer Prize Novel, 1947 Best Picture Nominee
* The Grapes of Wrath- 1940 Pulitizer Prize Novel, 1941 Best Picture Nominee
* A Streetcar Named Desire- 1948 Pulitzer Prize Drama, 1942 Best Picture Nominee
* The Caine Mutiny- 1952 Pulizer Prize Fiction, 1955 Best Picture Nominee
* Picnic- 1953 Pulizaer Prize Drama, 1956 Best Picture Nominee
* The Diary of Anne Frank- 1956 Pulitzer Prize Drama, 1960 Best Picture Nominee
* To Kill a Mockingbird- 1961 Pulitizer Prize Fiction, 1963 Best Picture Nominee
* The Color Purple- 1983 Pulitizer Prize Fiction, 1986 Best Picture Nominee
* The Hours- 1999 Pulitzer Prize Fiction, 2003 Best Picture Nominee

It's interesting how films and plays transfer from the page and stage to the big screen. There's certainly a divergence at times with great books often not being the material for great film.

Yet, great stories are often just that, great stories that we love being told. I'm glad thee films above were brought to the screen.

3 comments:

Danny King said...

Interesting article. This year especially I've been trying to read as many source materials as possible (Shutter Island, Push, The Lovely Bones)...Last year I didn't read any of them, and I'm interested to see how it will affect my viewing experience.

AK said...

I was actually surprised by the number of Oscar nominations that Gone with the Wind got. You will also appreciate that we checked out the DVD from the library :-)

I did watch the Magnificent Ambersons after I read it and was pretty disappointed...

Anonymous said...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Soldier's Play (retitled A Soldier's Story) were also Pulitzer Prize Drama winners that became Best Picture Oscar nominees. And although I realize you wrote this article in 2009, you could update the list in 2017 with Fences.