The Year Ahead: 2015's Most Anticipated Movie Adaptations

Publishing lead times being what they are, we already know much of what 2015 will bring to theaters — and it's a bumper year for readers. Here's the shortlist we'll be tracking.

The Martian (October): Ridley Scott directs Matt Damon in Andy Weir's self-publishing Cinderella story about a botanist stranded on Mars. Room (fall): Emma Donoghue adapts her own locked-room novel, with Brie Larson as Ma. The Revenant (December): Iñárritu, DiCaprio, one bear. Brooklyn (November): Colm Tóibín's emigrant novel with Saoirse Ronan. Carol (fall): Todd Haynes films Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt.

Also circled on our calendar: Fifty Shades of Grey (February, for sociological reasons), Insurgent and Mockingjay – Part 2 for the YA completists, Paper Towns for the John Green faithful, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl out of Sundance, Michael Punke's The Revenant, and In the Heart of the Sea, Ron Howard's take on the whale-ship Essex history that inspired Moby-Dick.

If the pattern holds, at least two of these will end up in the Best Picture race — adaptations have anchored the category for a decade. Our money is on the castaway botanist and the bear.