Books and comic books that have spawned cult movies

In the late 1940s, Andy Dufresne receives two consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife and her lover. Despite maintaining his innocence, Andy finds himself incarcerated in Shawshank Prison, where he must adapt to the harsh and competitive environment of prison life. As a reserved banker in the outside world, Andy learns to navigate the brutality of his new surroundings. Over time, his quiet resilience garners the respect of both fellow inmates and prison staff alike.

A gang of criminals robs a Gotham City mob bank, murdering each other for a higher share until only the Joker remains; he escapes with the money. The Joker kills Gambol and takes over his gang, and the mob ultimately decides to accept the offer.

Fight Club centers on an anonymous narrator, who works as a product recall specialist for an unnamed car company. When he seeks treatment, his doctor sarcastically tells him to visit a support group for testicular cancer victims to ‘see what real suffering is like’. While on a nude beach, the narrator meets Tyler Durden, a charismatic extremist of mysterious means.

In 1981 at a bus stop in Savannah, Georgia, a man named Forrest Gump recounts his life story to strangers who sit next to him on a bench. He lives alone with his mother, who runs a boarding house out of their home that attracts many tenants, including a young Elvis Presley, who plays the guitar for Forrest and incorporates Forrest’s jerky dance movements into his performances.

In the Second Age of Middle-earth, the lords of Elves, Dwarves, and Men are given Rings of Power. Bilbo reveals that he intends to leave the Shire for one last adventure, and he leaves his inheritance, including the Ring, to his nephew Frodo. As Frodo departs with his friend, gardener Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf rides to Isengard to meet with the wizard Saruman, but learns that he has joined forces with Sauron, who has dispatched his nine undead Nazgûl servants to find Frodo.

Two Hobbits, Sméagol and Déagol, are fishing when Déagol discovers the One Ring in the river. Gollum leads Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee to Minas Morgul, where they watch the Witch-king of Angmar, leader of the nine Nazgûl, lead an army of Orcs towards Gondor.

The offspring of the head of New York’s most influential Mafia dynasty returns from war with a resolve to forge his own path, only to find himself drawn into a conflict between his father’s entrenched traditions and the encroaching rivals endangering the family’s enterprise.

Awakening from a dream of Gandalf fighting the Balrog in Moria, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee find themselves lost in the Emyn Muil near Mordor and discover they are being tracked by Gollum, a former bearer of the One Ring. Capturing Gollum, Frodo takes pity and allows him to guide them, reminding Sam that they will need Gollum’s help to infiltrate Mordor.

Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, is asked to carry out an errand by Jack Crawford, the head of the FBI division that draws up psychological profiles of serial killers. Crawford ‘s real intention, however, is to try to solicit Lecter’s assistance in the hunt for a serial killer dubbed ‘Buffalo Bill’, whose modus operandi involves kidnapping overweight women, starving them for up to two weeks, killing and skinning them and dumping the remains in nearby rivers.

In the story, a man named Earl has anterograde amnesia. Because of his inability to remember things for more than a few minutes, he uses notes and tattoos to keep track of new information. Earl owes his condition to an attack against him and his wife by an unknown assailant.

In 1955, a young Henry Hill becomes enamored of the criminal life and Mafia presence in his working class Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn. Henry starts dating Karen Friedman, a Jewish woman. In 1970, Billy Batts, a made man in the Gambino crew who was recently released from prison, repeatedly insults Tommy at a nightclub owned by Henry; Tommy and Jimmy then beat, stab and shoot him to death.

In Oregon in the fall in 1963 , repeat offender Randle Patrick McMurphy is transferred to a mental institution after serving a few months on a prison farm on charges of assault and statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. Upon arriving at the hospital, he finds the ward is being dominated by head nurse Mildred Ratched, a cold, passive-aggressive tyrant who uses her authority to intimidate her patients.