Best Based on short story Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of based on short story cinema — measured across 3,272 indexed frames from 48 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Based on short story films over-index on fedora and skin — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
David FincherDP Claudio MirandaIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
On the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams (nee Fuller) is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline. Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud the diary of Daisy's lifelong friend, Benjamin Button. Benjamin's diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being diagnosed with several aging diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button, after Benjamin's biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin was raised by Queenie, a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy's grandmother was a resident at that home, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when in age they finally match up. Some of the revelations in Benjamin's diary are difficult for Caroline to read, especially as it relates to the time past this reconnection between Benjamin and Daisy, when Daisy gets older and Benjamin grows younger into his childhood years.
- 2
The Adjustment Bureau (2013)
George NolfiDP John TollIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us? A man glimpses the future Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. To get it, he must pursue across, under and through the streets of modern-day New York the only woman he's ever loved. On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Matt Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a woman like none he's ever known. But just as he realizes he's falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart. David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself, the men of The Adjustment Bureau, who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path... or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her.
- 3
It Happened One Night (1934)
Frank CapraDP Joseph WalkerIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Ellie Andrews has just tied the knot with society aviator King Westley when she is whisked away to her father's yacht and out of King's clutches. Ellie jumps ship and eventually winds up on a bus headed back to her husband. Reluctantly she must accept the help of out-of- work reporter Peter Warne. Actually, Warne doesn't give her any choice: either she sticks with him until he gets her back to her husband, or he'll blow the whistle on Ellie to her father. Either way, Peter gets what (he thinks!) he wants .... a really juicy newspaper story.
- 4
Love, Death & Robots (2019)
Tim MillerIMDb 8.4TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Love, Death + Robots is a 5-time Emmy winning animation anthology series produced by Blur Studio. Launched in March of 2019 on Netflix, Love, Death + Robots delivers a variety of style and story unlike anything else, spanning the genres of science fiction, fantasy, comedy, horror, and more. Created by Tim Miller with David Fincher as executive producer, the series brings together a global team of directors and animation studios to push and expand the medium. Eighteen shorts in all, Love, Death + Robots has something for everyone.
- 5
Arrival (2016)
Denis VilleneuveDP Bradford YoungIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Linguistics professor Louise Banks leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touchdown in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.
- 6
Memento (2000)
Christopher NolanDP Wally PfisterIMDb 8.4TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he's going, or why.
- 7
The Grey (2012)
Joe CarnahanDP Masanobu TakayanagiIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
In Alaska, a team of oil workers board a flight home; however, they cross a storm and the airplane crashes. Only seven workers survive in the wilderness and John Ottway, who is a huntsman that kills wolves to protect the workers, assumes leadership of the group. Shortly after they learn that they are surrounded by a pack of wolves and Ottway advises that they should seek protection in the woods. But while they walk through the heavy snow, they are chased and attacked by the carnivorous mammals.
- 8
Re-Animator (1985)
Stuart GordonDP Mac AhlbergIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Obsessed with the idea of overcoming the obstacle of death and determined to vindicate himself by backing up his theory, the ambitious medical student, Herbert West, arrives in New England, after the horrific incident at the Institute of Medicine in Switzerland. Before long, Herbert will pick up where he left off--at first, experimenting with dead feline tissue, and then, with fresh human cadavers--talking his sceptic roommate, Dan Cain, into joining his audacious project. Inevitably, as the two young scientists burrow deeper and deeper into uncharted territories, the campus will start brimming with West's reanimated corpses, catching the eye of his arch-nemesis, Dr Hill, who yearns to take credit for this astounding discovery. The dead will rise again, even with a bit of help; however, can the young re-animator harness the power of his phosphorescent green reagent?
- 9
Hellraiser (2022)
David BrucknerDP Eli BornIMDb 5.9TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
A young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings from another dimension.
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- 10
Two Lovers (2008)
James GrayDP Joaquín Baca-AsayIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Leonard Kraditor is a burned-out case, living with his immigrant parents after his fiancée left him, helping out at their Brooklyn dry cleaners, taking photographs, at loose ends, suicidal. In quick succession, he meets two women: Sandra, the daughter of his parents' business associates, frank, direct, sensual, Jewish like Leonard; and, his neighbor Michelle, mercurial, rootless, fun, blond, unattainable. Michelle is in love with a married man and cries on Leonard's shoulder; Sandra wants to save him. Is Leonard willing to risk losing Sandra's fidelity for the moments Michelle's moods swing toward him? Can this end well?
What based on short story films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a based on short story frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — fedora is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- fedora2.3×
- skin1.5×
How based on short story films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate based on short story from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 84%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 3,272 frames from 48 films carrying the based on short story label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/based-on-short-story
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