There is no one who doesn’t love a good murder mystery. From the starting point where the mystery is set up to pull in our attention to all the clues that are left behind so that we can solve it on our own and then the reveal, it is really hard not to love a good mystery. So, we have made a list of some of the best Hollywood murder mystery movies that were adapted from brilliant books. So here are the 7 best murder mystery movies adapted from books.
7. Death on the Nile (2022)
Synopsis: Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot’s Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple’s idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short. Set against an epic landscape of sweeping desert vistas and the majestic Giza pyramids, this dramatic tale of love gone wrong features a cosmopolitan group of impeccably dressed travelers and enough wicked twists and turns to leave audiences guessing until the final, shocking denouement.
6. Shutter Island (2010)
Synopsis: Academy Award® winning† director Martin Scorsese once again teams up with Leonardo Dicaprio in this spine-chilling thriller that critics say “sizzles with so much suspense that it’s hot to the touch.”** When U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) arrives at the asylum for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, what starts as a routine investigation quickly takes a sinister turn. As the investigation unfolds and Teddy uncovers more shocking and terrifying truths about the island, he learns there are some places that never let you go. **Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.
5. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Synopsis: Elegant, escapist entertainment at its stylishly European best. This Agatha Christie whodunit boasts an incredible international cast as some of the most wonderfully eccentric characters ever created. Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her slightly dim-witted, Bible-quoting Swedish missionary. Albert Finney is the dapper detective Hercule Poirot, for whom murder-solving is a precise, intellectual exercise. Poirot agrees to interview all aboard the famous train’s Calais coach, hoping to find the killer of an American millionaire before the local police arrive. Packed with sparkling dialogue and visually rich in texture, this incomparable thriller received six Academy Award nominations.
4. Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Synopsis: When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl’s aunt, Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons – they’re not cops and they know the tough neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve the case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that tears them apart.
3. Gone Girl (2014)
Synopsis: Directed by David Fincher and based on Gillian Flynn’s bestseller, this engaging thriller reveals secrets of a modern marriage. On his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports his beautiful wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing. Amidst a media frenzy and pressure from the law, Nick’s portrait of a blissful union fades. Soon, his behavior prompts the question: Did he kill his wife?
2. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Synopsis: Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) accepts an invitation to surreptitiously investigate a forty year old unsolved murder on behalf of the victim’s uncle, Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Meanwhile, tattooed hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), hired to investigate Blomkvist, discovers the truth behind the conspiracy that led to his fall from grace. Thrown together by fate, the unlikely duo uncovers a secret history of murder and sexual abuse festering beneath the veneer of Sweden’s industrial past, all the while drawing closer to a quiet evil waiting to engulf them both.
1. Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Synopsis: In this multiple Oscar-winning thriller, Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, a top student at the FBI’s training academy. Her usually skillful and shrewd analyses of serial killers is challenged by her next subject, brilliant psychiatrist and violent psychopath cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
