50 Tween & Teen Books Made Into Movies

Inside: 50 of the best tween and teen books made into movies.

Connect your tween or teen with a book they can really identify with, one that resonates with their inner dreams or takes them on the most thrilling adventure, and you’ll have a reader for life. Pairing that book with a movie can help encourage even the most reluctant reader to take that leap. Plus reading a book and watching the movie provides lots of opportunities for comparing and contrasting the two…how often does the movie live up to the book, after all!?!

And many of the titles below are part of a book series, which can result in many hours of reading pleasure – that’s a win for sure.

And teachers, within this huge list of book and movie pairs you’re sure to also find the perfect choice for your middle school or high school class English project.

If you’re looking for book and movie combinations for younger children, combine this list with our 50 Kids Books That Are Movies post for a total of 100 books made into movies that are suitable for kids of all ages -that’s family movie night sorted for a good long time!

50 Tween & Teen Books Made Into Movies

I suggest checking out the reviews on the Common Sense Media website for more information regarding titles you are unfamiliar with. They provide helpful age recommendations from experts, parents and children. Each book and movie listed below is linked to an online store page – these are affiliate links and I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.

Tween Books Made Into Movies

1. Holes  Stanley Yelnats is fighting his family’s generational curse of being the bad kid when sentenced to dig holes at a boy’s detention camp. Stanley then discovers the warden has a reason for all these holes, he’s trying to find something…but Stanley is on to him! Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

2. Hoot  Roy is the new kid in town and it’s hard enough trying to make friends but now he will learn a lesson in standing up for what is right as well as he helps his new friends stop a pancake house being built on land that is home to a colony of endangered owls. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

3. The Chronicles of Narnia Four siblings journey through the back of a wardrobe to a magical world cursed with an eternal winter, where they encounter an evil snow witch, make new friends, meet a majestic king and learn important lessons about courage, honour and loyalty. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

4. How to Eat Fried Worms  Billy is a normal kid with no money who wants a new minibike. To earn the money his friend Alan bets Billy  $50 that he can’t eat 15 worms in 15 days. Billy and his friend Joe get creative with ways to prepare the worms so they’re more edible- boiled, fried, topped with ketchup, mustard, horseradish, even whipped cream! Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

5. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events Series  A trio of young orphans face down just about everything that could go wrong for a group of kids. From losing their parents to fighting bad guys (including their mysterious and ruthless Count Olaf), they defy death and more to overcome a truly horrible series of unfortunate events. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

6. A Wrinkle in Time When a mother and her two children come down for a late-night snack and find a stranger speaking of tesseracts that allow travel through space and time, it stirs up memories of the children’s father and his disappearance, and sets them on a journey to find him. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

7. Bridge to Terabithia Unlikely friends Jess and Leslie love to play in their amazing enchanted world in the woods called Terabithia. When tragedy strikes, Jess is heartbroken and must learn to deal with his grief, thanks to the support of his family and the lessons his friend left with him. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

8. Freaky Friday  Annabel wants nothing more than her mother to leave her alone. She doesn’t want to do chores, babysit, or do anything her mother asks. One day she wakes up to find she has switched bodies with her mother, requiring her to take on all the tasks her mother usually does. Can she do it? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

9. Ella Enchanted  A new take on the tale of Cinderella, Ella is a girl who is cursed with the gift of obedience. After losing her mother, her father weds again and Ella is determined to survive both her new step-mother and her horrible step-sisters but tired of being taken advantage of, Ella sets out to break the curse that binds her. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

10. I Am David  Twelve year old David has only ever known life in a concentration camp. When he is given the opportunity to escape the camp he struggles to cope in the outside world, facing danger, fear, loneliness and hunger, David must learn to trust others in the face of many challenges. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

11. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children  A teenage boy is sent to a relative’s home on an island after a family tragedy. When he discovers an abandoned orphanage he also discovers that the children that have lived there were more than a bit different, and potentially dangerous and that they may in fact still be alive. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

List continues below.

12. Wonder  Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he’s being sent to a real school – and he’s dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted – but can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, behind his terrible facial abnormality? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

13. Little Women  A classic tale exploring the lives of four very different sisters growing up in the late 1800s as they each discover their own sense of self, the importance of family and friends, and their place within their community and the wider world, all while wondering if their father will return safely home from war. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: 1994 Version | 2019 Version

14. The City of Ember  The lights of the City of Ember are said to provide the last place safe for the human race, however after centuries of use the embers are starting to dim. When Lina finds an ancient message, she’s sure it holds a secret that will save the city, but first she and her friend Doon must race to figure out the clues that will stop the lights burning out and keep the darkness away. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

15. Paper Planes  A young Australian  boy named Dylan realises he has a talent for making paper planes and becomes determined to win the World Paper Plane Championships. Along his journey, he makes friends, finds out who his enemies are, and deals with family issues he’s been avoiding. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

16. The Never-ending Story Bastian finds an old book called The Never-ending Story and, as he reads, Bastian discovers himself as an actual character in the book! He discovers the magical land in the book, Fantastica, is in grave danger and that he is the only one who can save it. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

17. Eragon Eragon believes he’s just a poor boy living on a farm until he discovers that he’s actually the last of the Dragon Riders. With only a sword, a fiercely loyal dragon, and the wise words from a friend he begins his journey as one fated to play an essential role in an upcoming war – along the way enduring perilous travels, sudden battles, capture and escape. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

18. The Golden CompassLyra is a strong, young girl from a world that feels very familiar but is also very different from our own. Hers is a world of magic, where each person is paired with a “daemon”, an animal connected to them. But Lyra must journey to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule to save her friend, Roger, who has been stolen by the evil Gobblers for sinister purposes. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

19. Lemonade Mouth  The tale of five outcasts who make plans in detention to pool their hidden talents form a band. Along the way they become the pride of the socially awkward at their high school (and far beyond) as their band, Lemonade Mouth, becomes legendary – changing rock and roll in Rhode Island, and high school, forever. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

20. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland  When Alice spies a  little white rabbit who is very much in a hurry she follows him and finds herself in the magical land of Wonderland on an odd adventure with a cast of strange characters, including Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Red Queen. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

21. The Princess Diaries  A young girl from New York learns her father is the prince of a small, European country, and she’s the only heir to his throne. Forced to endure princess lessons from the grandmother she’s just met, Mia thinks there is just no way she’s princess material…or is she? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

22. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants As a group of four 16-year-old girls face their first summer apart, they promise to rotate a pair of seemingly magical jeans among them, at the summer’s end sharing their favourite adventure while wearing the pants. The jeans travel the world, tying together the four girls as they discover their own strength in the face of new love, unexpected friendships, a father’s remarriage and more. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

List continues below.

Teen Books Made Into Movies

With so many great YA books being published it is not hard to find characters teenagers will relate to, whatever their interests. These characters can comfort young adults, helping them to know they are not alone whatever the challenges they face.

23. The Giver  Twelve year old Jonas finds nothing odd about his colorless world of conformity and contentment, until he receives his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory. As he learns more about the world through the memories he realizes there are dark secrets deciding the fate of the community. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

24. Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess  Sleuthing is in the blood for Enola Holmes, the teenage sister of Sherlock. In this first installment in the series, Enola proves to be both smart and resourceful as she searches for her mother, who has disappeared on Enola’s fourteenth birthday, leaving only the gift of a book of ciphers behind. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

25. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas  Set during World War II in Germany, Bruno moves with his family to a new location for his father’s work. Bruno, bored with his surroundings, finds a friend but his new friend is separated by a fence and he just doesn’t understand why. The forbidden friendship has startling consequences for Bruno and his family. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

26. Ender’s Game  In order to create a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s attack, the government breeds child geniuses and trains them as soldiers. Growing up in this environment, child genius Ender Wiggin suffers greatly due to the isolation, rivalry, pressure and fear. Ender’s siblings are also gifted – with other unique gifts and it is going to take the combined talents of all three to remake the world…if it survives. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

27. Tomorrow When the War Began  Coming home from a camping trip with friends, Ellie discovers that everyone in her small, country town has disappeared. The friends are left with many questions – what has happened? Are their families and friends alive or dead? Do they stay and fight or do they hide or do they run? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

28. The Hobbit  The tale of a place called Middle-Earth where elves, humans, orcs, and dwarfs are at war for their homes and treasures. Bilbo Baggins is a comfort loving hobbit who finds himself on the wrong end of adventure when recruited to help a family of dwarves raid the home of a dragon. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

29. The Lord of the Rings  Join Frodo Baggins as he gathers together a courageous band representing the different races of Middle-Earth for a journey to destroy the legendary One Ring and stop an evil rulet. The fellowship is broken as the true battle for Middle-Earth begins… who will survive. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

30. The Outsiders  When a group of poor, outcast “greasers” is ongoingly harrassed by the rich boys in town who always get away with everything, it eventually all goes more than a little too far, and before they know it, for Ponyboy, his brothers and friends,  there’s no going back. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

For more like The Outsiders, check out our list of Young Adult Books for Social Emotional Learning.

31. The Maze Runner  Thomas remembers only his name as he wakes inside a lift that takes him up to meet a group of boys who also only know their names. They have formed a community within the confine of the highwalls. What faces them on the outside – death, monsters, and more, they know little of. All they know is they have to survive somehow. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

32. Divergent  In a futuristic Chicago it comes time for Beatrice to decide her faction. Should she stick with that destined by her family or choose a new destiny. When the results of her choice aren’t quite what she planned, Beatrice finds herself on the run to hide a secret. Ultimately she must decide – stay and endanger her family or unleash the truth and endanger her new friends. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

33. Moxie  Teen girls show courage by standing up to the longheld sexist and racist traditions of their school through an anonymous zine called Moxie. Alongside strong feminist messages, the story includes teen experimentation with sex and alcohol and chauvinistic behaviour. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Netflix

34. The Book Thief  When a small, lost and broken German girl living through war learns to read, and love and treasure books, she finds comfort and strength between their pages and shares this comfort with those she shelters with. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

35. The Hate U Give Starr moves freely between her poor neighbourhood and the rich prep-school she attends, until the night her whole world is shattered when a police officer kills her best friend. Starr is the only one who really knows what happened that night and the information she holds could not only destroy her community but also put her whole family at risk. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

List continues below.

36. Looking for Alibrandi  Josephine is nearing her final year at her Catholic high school and her traditional, Italian family is set on keeping her away from the world. But this will be the year she falls in love, the year she discovers her family’s secret and the year she grows up. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

37. The Hunger Games Panem is a nation divided into districts, those districts must fight to the death yearly for supplies to survive. But this year it all changes when an older sister volunteers to save her younger sister from being a part of the Hunger Games. Katniss becomes a beloved star in the Capitol, finding allies and making plenty of enemies along the way. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

38. Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda  When sixteen year old, not-yet-openly gay Simon discovers that his secret has fallen into the wrong hands he learns to embrace his truth and tell his own story – tricky to do without alienating family and friends and scaring off the boy he likes, rather than letting someone else tell it for him. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

39. Ready Player One  In the year 2045 the Earth is an ugly place and its residents seek relief in the virtual world known as OASIS. When the creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of puzzles based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. The first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune and control of the OASIS itself. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

40. Five Feet Apart  Can you really fall in love with someone you can never touch? When teenagers Stella and Will defy the rules of their illnesses – being closer than six feet apart could endanger both of their lives, to be together, could it really be worth it? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

41. If I Stay  17 year old Mia has no memory of the accident, only recalling driving along the snow covered Oregon road with her family. Then she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck. With her whole family gone Mia must make a choice – does she stay or does she go? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

42. Everything Everything  Maddy has a rare medical condition – she’s allergic to the world and has never left her home, cocooned in the sterile sanctuary of her home. That is until Olly moves in next door. They quickly become friends and it is then Maddy begins to question everything she has ever known about herself and wonders if just being alive is enough. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

43. The Fault in our Stars  When Hazel finds that her tumor has shrunken it gives her parents hope, but Hazel isn’t so sure. She’s accepted her diagnosis no matter how grim until Augustus Waters appears at her Cancer Support Group, now Hazel must rethink the ending of her story. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

44. Romeo and Juliet  A town divided into two families, but the teens from both families have a secret affair and are pried apart and sworn never to see each other. How will they survive without the other, what secret plans will they make to see each other? Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

45. To Kill a Mockingbird  Based in the 1930s, a tale of the unjust and cruel things people faced and put others through. A young girl watches as her lawyer father puts it all on the line to defend a young black man in the south during these times when that’s unheard of. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

Biographies Made Into Movies for Teens

46. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind  After drought causes his family to lose all of their crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and no income, a young boy is determined to find a way to fix the situation. After searching for a solution in his village library, William builds a windmill from scrap parts, bringing electricity to his village and it, so much more. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Netflix

47. Soul Surfer  An inspiring true story of grit and determination – Bethany Hamilton was just a teen when she lost her arm in a shark attack. Seemingly with saltwater in her veins, she survived the attack and went on to fight against all odds to become a world surfing champion. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

48. Hidden Figures  Before man walked on the moon, a group of dedicated four female NASA mathematicians known as human computers used pencils, rulers and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. This is their story. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

49. Lion  Five year old Saroo lived in a poor village in India, in a one-room hut with his mother and three siblings, until the day he boarded a train alone and got lost. For twenty-five years. In those years Saroo went from the streets of Calcutta all the way across the world to Tasmania. And then he found his way back home again. Get the Book: Amazon | The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

50. Mao’s Last Dancer  When a small peasant boy is chosen to study ballet at the Beijing Dance Academy his mother urges him to take the chance to do something special with his life. But at eleven years old Li is scared, lonely and homesick for his small village and it is hard to imagine that he will go on to become one of the greatest ballet dancers in the world, and Chairman Mao’s last dancer. Get the Book:  The Book Depository Get the Movie: Amazon

For even more movies to watch with your tween or teen, be sure to check out our fun 80s movie list: 15 80’s movies to watch with tweens and teens.

Pin this post for later: