50 Favorite List of Movies and Books

Sarah SoonWriting

50 FAVORITES list

Top 10 movies: (not in order)

  • Casablanca
  • BBC’s Pride and Prejudice
  • Empire Strikes Back
  • BBC’s North and South (adaption of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel)
  • Schindler’s List
  • Rocky
  • Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Rings
  • The Notebook
  • Life Is Beautiful
  • Ben Hur (1959)

Top 10 novels:

  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen
  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • My Antonia by Willa Cather
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • The Age of innocence by Edith Wharton
  • The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  • Brother Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky*
  • Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
  • Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Ronald Dahl
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christy
  • The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
  • Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Eleventh Hour by Michael Phillips (I read this as a teenager and became intrigued by the character Baron von Dortmann, especially as a type of Christ figure. It opened my eyes to realize the power of fiction to convey truth.

* Disclaimer: I’m almost finished with the Audible version. I’m fascinated with the characters, especially Alyosha. This is the only book I’ve listened on Audible. I’ve read the paperbacks for the rest of the books on this list.)

Top Books of the Bible:

  • John
  • 1 John
  • Matthew
  • Psalms
  • Proverbs
  • Genesis
  • Esther
  • 1 Samuel
  • Judges
  • Ephesians

Top Craft Books:

    • Story Trumps Structure by Steven James
    • Story Grid by Shawn Coyne
    • Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose
    • Seven Drafts by Allison K. Williams 
    • Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
    • Revision and Self-Editing for Publishing by James Scott Bell
    • Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass
    • Chicago Manual of Style from University of Chicago Press
    • The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
    • Literature by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia