‘The Sympathizer,’ ‘One Day’ & More Must-See 2024 Page-to-Screen Adaptations
While there are so many great original series to check out, nothing quite hits the spot like a good book-to-screen adaptation. Here are five adventures gracing the screen in 2024.
One Day (Premieres Thursday, February 8, Netflix)
Pencil this in: July 15 is the date to remember in this serialized adaptation of David Nicholls’ 2009 love story. The bittersweet tale follows Brits Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall, The White Lotus) and Emma Morley (Ambika Mod), and gives a snapshot of their lives each year on the summer day.
Apples Never Fall (Premieres March, Peacock)
March, Peacock In this limited mystery series based on Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty’s novel, coaches Stan and Joy Delaney (Sam Neill and Annette Bening) have sold their legendary tennis academy and are ready to retire—then Joy vanishes. Their adult children, including scattered Amy (Alison Brie) and charmer Troy (Jake Lacy), suspect the needy Savannah (Georgia Flood), whom the couple has taken in. But it may be that the Delaneys are rotten to the core.
The Sympathizer (Premieres Spring, HBO)
“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.” So begins the source material for director Park Chan-wook’s (Oldboy) adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Part thriller, part satire, this series depicts the turbulent moral journey of a nameless antihero (Hoa Xuande) who acts as a Communist spy while exiled to America after the fall of Saigon. Robert Downey Jr. appears in multiple guises as colorful figures throughout the episodes.
Nautilus (Premieres 2024, AMC)
Expect rough waters ahead on this ambitious prequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Penny Dreadful’s Shazad Latif stars as a younger version of Jules Verne’s iconic Captain Nemo, who in this take is an Indian prince hellbent on exacting revenge on the people who robbed him of his birthright.
Ripley (Premieres 2024, Netflix)
Duplicitousness. Lies. Death. You’ll find them all in this 1960s-set limited series based on author Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels. Here, New York City con artist Ripley (Fleabag’s Andrew Scott) is hired by a rich industrialist to travel to Italy and fetch his wayward son, playboy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn).
