24 book-to-TV adaptations you need to see in your lifetime

The HBO comedy about four New Yorkers confiding in each other about their sex lives defined a generation and made the careers of its four stars — Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon. It was adapted from a book of essays of the same name by Candace Bushnell, which started out as a series of columns in the New York Observer.

HBO's adaptation of Liane Moriarty's novel was a thriller that scratched an itch for fans of "Gone Girl" and carried an important message to boot. But what really made it amazing wasn't the murder mystery, it was the cast — one of the best assembled in the history of television. Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Alexander Skarsgård were all nominated for Emmys. Kidman, Dern, and Skarsgård took the prizes home.

David Simon is most famous for "The Wire," his depiction of crime and justice on the streets of Baltimore, drawing from his experience as a police reporter. But before that, his book "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" was the basis for the NBC show "Homicide: Life on the Street," which ran for seven seasons and focuses on the work of the Baltimore Police Department's homicide unit. It followed the earlier, acclaimed HBO series "The Corner," also based on one of Simon's books.

The miniseries based on Alex Haley's "Roots: The Saga of an American Family" is a landmark on television, tracing the author's family back to the enslaved man Kunta Kinte. Some of the history has been disputed, but there's no denying the show's sheer power.

Larry McMurtry's 1985 novel was his magnum opus, a paean to the old West and the winner of that year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The miniseries captured all of that grandness as well as the rich interior lives of its characters — two Texas rangers, played by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones — who set off on a cattle drive across the great plains. The miniseries garnered 18 Emmy nominations and inspired additional miniseries based on the book's sequels.

Canceled after just three seasons, "Hannibal" was murdered too soon. The series based on Thomas Harris' novels about the murderous Dr. Hannibal Lecter — the same source material as the 1991 movie "The Silence of the Lambs" — is praised for its brilliant visual style and astute psychological analysis. It's all anchored by Mads Mikkelsen's performance as Lecter at the center of the show.

Based on Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God," BBC's series tells the story of the Roman Empire through the life of one of its emperors, Claudius, played by Derek Jacobi in a towering performance.

If millions of people just disappear one day, what comes next for the people who remain? HBO's "The Leftovers" — based on Tom Perrotta's novel of the same name — takes a hard look at the answers and turns it into emotionally riveting television.

Based on Piper Kerman's memoir of the same name, Netflix's "OITNB," as it's come to be known, goes through the experience of a group of women in prison. It successfully veers between harsh portrayals of brutality, surprising analysis of the characters' social dynamics, and the comedy of it all.

The story of Coach Taylor and the small town high school football team he led seems like a small one, but its inspiring message and dramatic characters made the NBC show a hit with audiences. It's based on the 1990 nonfiction book "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream" by H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger.

Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" about the rise of Thomas Cromwell got the prestige miniseries treatment from BBC and PBS — and it delivers. The six-hour show successfully recreates the 16th century setting and depicts the complicated political machinations behind the scenes, with Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis delivering excellent acting. 

The three-part "Red Riding" Channel 4 TV series, based on David Peace's book quartet, is an arresting, visually stunning noir series about interconnecting characters in England against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper serial murders between the late 1960s and early 1980s. The show introduced the world to Andrew Garfield yet it somehow — unfairly and undeservedly — faded away from the public consciousness. Give it another look.

Olivia Manning's "Fortunes of War" book series is a towering literary achievement: more than 1,500 pages about civilian existence in Europe during World War II. Yet the BBC miniseries captures the magic with stunning lead performances from Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who married in real life after filming the show, and a cast of excellent supporting actors like Alan Bennett and Rupert Graves.

The ITV drama is considered by many to be the gold standard in adapting a novel for TV, called "television’s greatest literary adaptation, bar none" by The Telegraph. It gives Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder" all the time it needs to be accurately represented onscreen, but also translates the scenes well to a visual medium instead of merely staging the book.

HBO's ambitious miniseries, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Paul Giamatti, sought to capture the life of America's second president over a 50-year span in seven episodes. It's the quintessential prestige historical miniseries, based on the acclaimed biography by David McCullough and garnering 13 Emmy Awards, more than any other miniseries in history.

HBO's miniseries, based on the Stephen E. Ambrose nonfiction book of the same name, dramatizes an American military unit's role in World War II, showing how every soldier made a difference in battle and had to face their own moral challenges.

"The Pacific" was a sort of follow-up to "Band of Brothers," covering the marines in World War II. That series is based on several memoirs, including "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" and "China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II" by Eugene Sledge, "Helmet for My Pillow" by Robert Leckie, and "Red Blood, Black Sand" by Chuck Tatum.

While "Agents of Shield" and "Daredevil" have their fans, it's "Jessica Jones" that stands out among comic books adapted into a television series. Played by Krysten Ritter, Jones kicks down everyone who stands in her way while living in a noirish, brutal, male-dominated world. And the Netflix series knows when to crack a joke, too.

Jane Austen's novel has been adapted many times, but the 1995 BBC adaptation stands out as the best. As a miniseries, it has the time to capture all the details of Austen's novel, and Colin Firth makes a smokin' Mr. Darcy.

Margaret Atwood's novel about a dystopian era where a Christian theocracy rules the United States still feels as urgent today as it did in 1985, when it was published. The Hulu series adaptation does the book justice, with high production values and a brilliant performance by Elisabeth Moss as Offred, a "handmaid" who seethes at the restrictions imposed upon her.

BBC's "Sherlock" would be grating if its two stars weren't so great. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman plays Dr. John Watson on the adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous mystery stories. The gimmick is that it's set in the present day instead of a century ago, but the show charms viewers by being a witty brainteaser.

Based on the book series by Cecily von Ziegesar, "Gossip Girl" is about the vicious drama in the lives of teen girls living on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It works as both entertainment and an anthropology, with a great performance by Blake Lively and omniscient narration from Kristen Bell.

Based on Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, HBO's "Olive Kitteridge" is a devastating portrayal of the troubles haunting a family in a small town in Maine. It stars Frances McDormand as an emotionally troubled former schoolteacher with an iron will, along with Richard Jenkins as her husband.

Is there any show that represents the Golden Age of Television more than HBO's "Game of Thrones"? Based on George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series," "Game of Thrones" upended the way we think about TV.

We can have long, grand sequences with dragons and hellfire rendered on the small screen instead of going to the theater. It gave prestige to fantasy TV shows, paving the way for shows like "The Magicians" and "Outlander." There's nothing else like it.