Série noire. Poster of the 1979 movie and cover of the 1954 book, A Hell of a Woman
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A Hell of a Woman
Jim Thompson, 1954
movie vs book
Alain Corneau, 1979

Franck Poupart is a door-to-door salesman. His wife leaves him when he knocks her into a bathtub filled with water after she refuses to make him dinner. Then he gets imprisoned for embezzlement. Mona, an underage prostitute he meets early in the film, bails him out and persuades him to rob her rich aunt.


Coup de Torchon. Poster of the 1981 movie and cover of the 1964 book, Pop. 1280
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Pop. 1280
Jim Thompson, 1964
movie vs book
Bertrand Tavernier, 1981

In 1938 in the french West Africa, Lucien Cordier is a weak and corrupted policeman despised by the local bad boys. His wife is openly cheating on him and he hasn’t got any self-respect anymore. But when comes the occasion, his revenge will be terrible.


The Getaway. Poster of the 1972 movie and cover of the 1958 book
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The Getaway
Jim Thompson, 1958
movie vs book
Sam Peckinpah, 1972

Four years into his ten-year sentence for armed robbery, Carter Doc McCoy is denied parole from a Texas prison. When his wife Carol visits him, he tells her to do whatever is necessary to make a deal with Jack Beynon, a corrupt businessman in San Antonio, to free him. Beynon uses his influence and obtains Doc’s parole on the condition that he take part in a bank robbery with two of his henchmen, Rudy and Frank.


The Grifters. Poster of the 1990 movie and cover of the 1963 book
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The Grifters
Jim Thompson, 1963
movie vs book
Stephen Frears, 1990

Lilly Dillon is a veteran con artist. She works for Bobo Justus, a mob bookmaker, making large cash bets at race tracks to lower the odds of longshots. On her way to La Jolla for the horse races, she stops in Los Angeles to visit her son Roy, a small-time grifter whom she has not seen in eight years.


The Killer Inside Me. Poster of the 2010 movie and cover of the 1952 book
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The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson, 1952
movie vs book
Michael Winterbottom, 2010

In 1952, Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of his small west Texas community; secretly, he is a sociopath with violent sexual tastes. As a teenager, Lou was caught raping a five-year-old girl by his adopted brother Mike, who pleaded guilty to the crime to protect Lou. Released from prison, Mike was hired by Chester Conway, and died in a construction accident Lou believes was staged by Conway.


The Kill-Off. Poster of the 1989 movie and cover of the 1957 book
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The Kill-Off
Jim Thompson, 1957
movie vs book
Maggie Greenwald, 1989

The film is set in a small coastal community in New Jersey where the only action in town is a nightclub called The Pavilion. Pete, the owner of the club, can barely make the payroll, so in an effort to bring in more business, hires a sultry stripper named Danny Lee.


The Killer Inside Me. Poster of the 1976 movie and cover of the 1952 book
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The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson, 1952
movie vs book
Burt Kennedy, 1976

Beneath his likable exterior, Lou Ford, the sheriff of a small Texas town, is a sadistic sociopath with violent sexual tastes. When Lou gets involved with a local prostitute’s blackmail schemes, the carefully crafted facade he maintains begins to unravel into a killing spree.


The Getaway. Poster of the 1994 movie and cover of the 1958 book
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The Getaway
Jim Thompson, 1958
movie vs book
Roger Donaldson, 1994

Carter Doc McCoy and his wife Carol are taking target practice with pistols when Rudy arrives to propose they break a Mexican drug lord’s nephew out of jail for a $300,000 payment. The job is successful, but it turns out the drug lord wanted his nephew free to kill him.


Hit Me. Poster of the 1996 movie and cover of the 1954 book, A Swell-Looking Babe
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A Swell-Looking Babe
Jim Thompson, 1954
movie vs book
Steven Shainberg, 1996

Sonny lives with his intellectually disabled older brother Leroy and works as a bellhop in a hotel, struggling to pay back a loan to Jack Cougar, the head of hotel security. Everything changes when Monique a beautiful, suicidal nut-case checks in. Sonny is offered a part in a heist that goes wrong.