Watch the 1956 film adaptation of 'Moby-Dick,' cowritten by sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury.

'Moby-Dick' was inspired by a real whale named Mocha Dick.

In 1820, a sperm whale sank a ship from Nantucket, MA, events that would later inspire Herman Melville to write 'Moby-Dick.'

Ray Bradbury used the structure of John Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath' to structure his influential science fiction masterpiece, 'The Martian Chronicles.'

Watch an episode of 'Ray Bradbury Theater,' the sci-fi writer's '80s HBO show, starring a young Jeff Goldblum.

An early short story by Ray Bradbury was plucked from an open submission call by 'In Cold Blood' author Truman Capote, who believed he'd found a significant voice.

Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury offered to help aid the Kennedy Administration during the 1960s Space Race.

Francis Ford Coppola spent years trying to adapt Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation novel 'On the Road' but ultimately handed it off to another filmmaker.

Watch 'Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse,' the documentary about Francis Ford Coppola's notorious production behind 'Apocalypse Now,' shot by Coppola's wife, Eleanor.

Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' was originally called 'The Fireman,' but he changed the title after learning the temperature at which paper burns.

After his death in 2012, NASA paid tribute to Ray Bradbury by naming a rover landing site on Mars after him.

Ray Bradbury wrote 'Fahrenheit 451,' his landmark dystopian novel, on a rented typewriter in the basement of a UCLA library.

B-movie king Roger Corman mentored many of the star directors of 1970s Hollywood, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Ron Howard.

Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury couldn't afford college, but he spent several days a week in his local library, teaching himself how to become a writer.

Sartre wrote an 8-hour screenplay for a Freud biopic

Sartre was hired to write the screenplay for what would eventually become John Huston's 1962 film "Freud: The Secret Passion," about the life of the psychoanalyst. Sartre, however, had trouble sticking to the parameters of Hollywood. An early draft was estimated to be five hours long. Rather than shortening it, as Huston suggested, Sartre extended it to eight hours and was eventually removed from the production.

Ray Bradbury said Steven Spielberg was 'one of the most incredible young talents that's ever come into the world.'

Mel Brooks served as an uncredited producer on David Lynch's film 'The Elephant Man' because he didn't want people to assume it was a lighthearted comedy.

Explore interactive maps from fictional journeys, including 'The Odyssey,' 'Moby-Dick,' and more.

Read the writing advice of science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury.

'Harold and Maude' became a cult classic thanks to a one-screen theater in Minnesota that featured the film for two years straight.

'Rear Window' was based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich

Hitchcock's 1954 film, which many consider among the director's greatest, was based on Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder." The story is characteristic of his dark, claustrophobic work.

Francis Ford Coppola began working on 'The Godfather' to bail his production company out of dire financial straits.

The Coen brothers imagined 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' as a retelling of 'The Odyssey,' though neither had actually read Homer's epic.

Camus was influenced by American culture, especially literature and jazz

He loved the work of writers like William Faulker and Ernest Hemingway, and loved drinking whiskey and listening to jazz. He also admired the actor Humphrey Bogart and his striking performance in the noir classic "The Big Sleep." He was delighted when his wife gave him a Burberry raincoat, thinking it made him look more like Bogart.

'Plan 9 from Outer Space' gained an audience after it was trashed by critics

The science-fiction film went mostly unnoticed in its original theatrical run, often playing in double-features aimed at teenagers. It wasn't until 1980, when film critics Harry and Michael Medved dubbed it the "worst film ever made," that it began to attract a cult following. In 1994, Johnny Depp starred in a biopic about its director, Ed Wood.

Watch the 1954 film adaptation of George Orwell's 'Animal Farm,' which was covertly funded by the CIA.

Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove' began as a screenplay, which the writer bought back from a studio before turning it into a novel.

Spielberg was inspired by Hitchcock, Kubrick, and other visionary directors

The influence of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” can be seen in the cinematography and tone of Spielberg classics like “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Ray Bradbury said he was inspired to pursue writing after meeting a magician named Mr. Electrico, but scholars have never been able to confirm the story.

While on vacation, writer Mary Shelley was inspired by a challenge from British poet Lord Byron to write the novel 'Frankenstein.'

In 1938, 1.7 million people were fooled into believing a Martian invasion was underway because of a radio play

Orson Welles' realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth, called "The War of the Worlds," caused quite a stir with audiences. The broadcast resulted in panic, with some people in the area where the story took place attempting to flee. It also helped Welles secure a contract with a Hollywood studio, leading to the creation of "Citizen Kane."

'Jaws' creators regret making sharks the monsters

Both Peter Benchley, the author of the original 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg, the director of the blockbuster film based on it, acknowledge that the film's popularity has led to the stigmatization of the mostly harmless creatures.

Aldous Huxley, author of 'Brave New World,' wrote to his former student, George Orwell, after the release of '1984,' suggesting that Orwell's vision of dystopia was misguided.

Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' invoked real panic

The raconteur's teleplay of HG Wells' 1898 science fiction novel presented the plot as a news broadcast, leading some listeners to believe that New Jersey was being invaded by Martians. This retrospective from the National Endowment for the Humanities unpacks how he made it happen, and the media fallout that ensued.

A number of Hitchcock's most celebrated films are based on novels

Hitchcock’s films are often cited as being literary, and with good reason—many of them are based on works of literature. This list from the Los Angeles Public Library not only names the many novels that were adapted for the screen by Hitchcock, like "Rebecca (1940)," but also provides excellent context for how and why Hitchcock came to make his adaptations.

Famed director Brian De Palma idolizes 'Vertigo'

Brian De Palma, director of “Carrie,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “Scarface,” discusses the influence of Hitchcock on his career, including how it led him to abandon engineering and pursue a career in filmmaking. He says Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” in particular changed his understanding of “cinematic language.”

Stephen King is drawn to horror's childish power

This 1986 appearance promoting King's directorial debut finds him reflecting on what makes horror, which he says is its ability to strip away pretense, reducing supposedly sophisticated people to terrified children. He also seems to have already soured on the movie business, calling filmmaking "a primitive way to create," a not-so-subtle dig at Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining," which notoriously disappointed King.

'Dr. Strangelove' is widely considered the best satirical film

Stanley Kubrick’s satire about nuclear war came just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and spoke to Americans still coming to terms with the possibility of nuclear annihilation. In 1989, the Library of Congress included it among the first 25 films preserved in the National Film Registry, a repository for the greatest achievements in cinema.

Francis Ford Coppola was not even close to being Paramount Pictures' first choice for director of 'The Godfather.'

In 1996, Stephen King dominated the publishing industry, occupying 6 of the 15 spots on the New York Times bestseller list with his 'Green Mile' books.

The 'Movie Brats'—the nickname given to 1970s film directors like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and others—ushered in a new era of Hollywood.

Marlon Brando used his 1973 Oscar win to protest the US government's treatment of Native Americans

Brando declined his best actor award at the Academy Awards, sending Chiricahua Apache activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to read a statement protesting Hollywood's depiction of Native people and the federal siege underway at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Why Percival Everett decided to reimagine 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

Percival Everett's novel "James"—a retelling of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Jim, an escaped slave—was one of the most acclaimed books of 2024. In this interview, Everett explains why he decided to rework the classic American novel and why he felt it was necessary to infuse his own with a different voice.

Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, the stars of 'Casablanca,' bonded over how little they thought of 'Casablanca.'

Stephen King threw the draft of 'Carrie,' his first hit, into the trash, but his wife rescued it and convinced him to stick with it.

In 1980, Steven Spielberg added a scene depicting the interior of an alien spaceship to a rerelease of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' at the studio's request, but later regretted the decision, believing it depleted the movie's enchanting mystery.

Inside 'Blood Meridian' author Cormac McCarthy's library of 20,000 books

The reclusive writer published 12 novels and taught himself stonemasonry and quantum physics, among myriad other skills and subjects. Since he died in 2023, scholars have been mining his personal library for lessons on his influences, interests, and more.

Alfred Hitchcock influenced the way Spielberg shot 'Jaws'

Steven Spielberg realized the key to unlocking the terror of the shark in "Jaws" would be by obscuring it, remembering an important lesson from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Spielberg recalled, “It’s what we don’t see that is truly frightening."

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the entire first draft of 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' in a frantic three days, only to burn it out of disgust.

Edwin Porter's 1903 adaptation of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' was one of the earliest American full-length narrative films.

'Brave New World' author Aldous Huxley turned to LSD on his deathbed

As "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley lay dying of cancer in 1963, he asked his wife Laura to dose him with the hallucinogen LSD. A month later, Laura Huxley wrote a letter detailing the author's final trip, which she notes ended "so slowly, so gently, like a piece of music just finishing in a sempre piu piano dolcemente."