Adapting canonical literary classics into cinema is an inherently difficult task, as it requires walking a razor’s edge between remaining faithful to the text and translating it into another medium.

Will Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey be up to the task? The trailer has viewers divided.

No matter how noble the attempt at an adaptation is, it’s impossible to please everyone. And arguably the older the work, the more ways its retelling can enrage audiences.

Perhaps older classics are simply harder to adapt due to how drastically storytelling conventions have changed over the centuries.

Today’s audiences demand insight into what motivates their heroes and villains. But this nuance in storytelling, for the most part, only became common in the Middle Ages with the rise of Arthurian legends and the like. Earlier characters from ancient myth such as Gilgamesh and Beowulf were (with some exceptions) relatively “flat” archetypal figures: they slayed dragons because that’s what heroes do.

20th-century Hollywood often treated source materials liberally, oscillating between looseness and outright contempt. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein still suffers to this day for its halcyon adaptations. Even the best in their own right leave viewers with little understanding of the original text.

For those who prefer to watch

I’ve rounded up eight of the most faithful literary adaptations to grace our screens. While they may or may not be the most cinematically impressive, they do stick to the source material.

1. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

How might an atheist director adapt a canonical gospel faithfully? With striking fidelity, as Pier Paolo Pasolini demonstrates.

Though polarising on its release, the film later achieved widespread acclaim for its........

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