Fiction to Film: 2012's Films vs the Past 10 Years

This year, like last year there are 9 Oscar nominated films. Of those 9 films, 3 of them are based on novels...just slightly above the average of what we've seen over the past 10 years.

This years novel to film best picture nominees are:

• Les Miserables based on the book by Victor Hugo
• Life of Pi based on the book by Yann Martel
• Silver Linings Playbook based on the book by Matthew Quick

The other 6 there are:

• 3 original works (Armour, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty)
• 2 films based on non-fiction work (Lincoln and Argo)
• 1 film based on a stage play (Beasts of The Souther Wild based on "Juicy and Delicious" by Lucy Alibar).

How does this compare to the past 10 years?

This years percent of Oscar nominees from Novels - 3 of 9 nominees : 33.3%

The percent of Oscar nominees coming from Novels over the previous 10 years - 18 of 64 nominees: 28.1%

3 of the past 10 years saw the winner coming from a novel.

Nominees for Best Picture from Novel from the Previous 10 Year (2002-2011 films)
• 2011  films - best picture nominees: 5 of 9 adapted from a novel (Kaui Hart Hemmings' The Descendants, Jonathan Safron Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Kathryn Stockett's The Help, Brian Selznick's Hugo, and Michael Murpurgo's War Horse)

• 2010 films - best picture nominees: 2 of 10 adapted from a novel (Charles Portis' True Grit; Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone)

• 2009 films best picture nominees: 2 of 10 adapted from a novel (Saphire's Push [source material for Precious]; Walter Kirn's Up in the Air)

• 2008 films best picture nominees: 2 of 5 adapted from a novel (Vikas Swarup's Q & A [source material for Slumdog Millionaire]*; Bernard Schlink's The Reader)

• 2007 film best picture nominees: 3 of 5 adapated from a novel (Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men*; Ian McEwan's Atonement; Upton Sinclaire's Oil! [source material for There Will Be Blood])

• 2006 films best picture nominees: 0 of 5 adapted from a novel

• 2005 films best picture nominees: 0 of 5 adapted from a novel

• 2004 films best picture nominees: 1 of 5 adapted from a novel (Rex Pickett's Sideways)

• 2003 films best picture nominees: 3 of 5 adapted from novels (J.R.R. Tolkein's The Return of the King*, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, Dennis Lehane's Mystic River)

• 2002 films best picture nominees: 2 of 5 adapted from novels (J.R.R. Tolkein's The Two Towers, Michael Cunningham's The Hours)

*won the Oscar for best picture