Hollywood's 15 all-time best movies based on kids' books

Steven Spielberg's The BFG, which debuted last month at Cannes and comes to theaters July 1, is an appropriately big adaptation of a characteristically strange Roald Dahl story, first published in 1982, about an orphan girl (played by the very-Dahlish sounding Ruby Barnhill) scooped up and taken away in the dead of night by a big friendly giant.

The towering BFG takes the diminutive SLG (scared little girl?) clear across England to the land of giants, where she becomes less scared, and he becomes more open to the notions of friendship, feelings, and the benevolent power of the British monarchy. Mark Rylance, motion-captured and digitally enhanced, plays the BFG.

Dahl, who wrote stories for grown-ups and a few screenplays, too (the Bond film You Only Live Twice is his doing), enjoyed his biggest successes with his books for kids. They have long been best-sellers. They have been turned into plays and musicals and movies.

The BFG is the 12th film to be made from a Dahl book (11th, if you discount an animated BFG, done for British television, that aired in 1989). And because they have captured the imagination of people such as Spielberg and Tim Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Nicolas Roeg (The Witches), they tend to turn out quite nicely, thank you.

As I see it, two of them belong on anyone's short list of truly excellent big-screen interpretations of kid-lit classics. Fantastic Mr. Fox and James and the Giant Peach make my cut here among the 15 best of all time.

There are talking animal stories on my list, there are kind wizards and evil witches, there are boys and girls who must find the courage to fend for themselves. There are horses that can run like the wind, a robot from outer space.

If your favorites aren't here, apologies. And let me know what they are. Like a certain green ogre whose tale I include, your BFFC (big, friendly film critic) is all ears. This is a subjective list, after all. But it's a list that abounds with magic and adventure, danger and delight.

Babe (1995). From Dick King-Smith's 1983 children's book The Sheep-Pig (published as Babe: The Gallant Pig in the U.S.), the film, cowritten by Mad Max's George Miller, received seven Oscar nominations, including one for best picture. It's the tale of a pig who believes he is better-equipped to herd sheep, and who is befriended by a duck (who thinks he's a rooster), a border collie, and a ewe. James Cromwell is farmer Hoggett, and thanks to some innovative CG lip-synching and animatronics, Babe and company walk and talk without a hitch. A charmer.

The Black Stallion (1979). Based on Walter Farley's 1941 classic and directed by Carroll Ballard, this beautiful horse-and-his-boy adventure begins with a dramatic shipwreck off the coast of North Africa. The boy (Kelly Reno) and the horse (an Arabian stallion) bond on a desert island, are eventually rescued, and find their way to America, where Black - thanks to the help of an old, forgotten jockey (Mickey Rooney) - proves himself lightning fast on the track. As the race announcer says, "He could be the greatest sensation in racing history!"

The Brave Little Toaster (1987). Jerry Rees' animated feature, adapted from Thomas M. Disch's 1980 novel The Brave Little Toaster: A Bedtime Story for Small Appliances, answers the oft-asked question: Do household appliances have souls? OK, maybe not so often asked, but the film - nominated for the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - answers anyway, with wit and whimsy, as the title character and four best buds (a vacuum cleaner, a lamp, a radio, and an electric blanket) go on a quest to find their owner. David Newman wrote the score, Van Dyke Parks contributed songs, and influences from Busby Berkeley to Walt Disney to General Electric are homaged.

Coraline (2009). From Neil Gaiman's 2002 Hugo-winning novella, a glorious - and gloriously spooky - story about a misfit girl who discovers a parallel and seemingly idyllic universe through a small door in her family's creaky new home. Henry Selick, of The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed the stop-motion animated gem. Moral: Beware of loving moms with buttons for eyes.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). Wes Anderson's meticulously staged, magically realized stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1970 book, about a wily fox, his painter wife, and an alliance of forest critters forced to do battle against some menacing farmers. Nominated for the animated feature Academy Award, it's unique in modern-day 'toons for Anderson's decision to record his cast (George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray among them) together, in an outdoorsy, woodsy setting, rather than isolate each voice actor in a sterile studio soundbooth. The chemistry and spontaneity is palpable, the detail of the scale-model sets astounding. And is there a more dapper dresser than Mr. Fox? We think not.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). The third entry in the film franchise based on J.K. Rowling's series of boy-wizard best-sellers is the first to fully capture that Hogwarts magic on the big screen. Thanks go to Alfonso Cuarón, who took over the directing job from HP 1 and 2's Chris Columbus. Cuarón's skills as a visual storyteller are out of this world, a fact borne out by his best director Oscar win in 2014 for the space odyssey Gravity.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004). A young woman, a witch's curse, a heroic wizard, an ambulatory steampunk castle - the fairy-tale elements come together with the grace and beauty that Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki is known for. An immersive and imaginative take on Diana Wynne Jones' 1986 book.

The Iron Giant (1999). Ted Hughes wrote the 1968 novel (called The Iron Man in the U.K.), about a humongous robot from outer space and the Earth boy who befriends him. Brad Bird, who would go on to direct Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille (and the rollicking live-action Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol), oversaw the traditionally animated adventure, injecting energy and emotion into the Ike-era tale.

James and the Giant Peach (1996). Roald Dahl's surreal yarn - first published in 1961 - follows our boy hero as his parents are killed, and he is sent to live with two impossibly cruel aunts. A man with a bag of magic crocodile tongues comes along, a withered peach suddenly swells to gigantic proportions, and James meets a septet of talking insects who live inside the fruit. What's next? A transatlantic journey - by peach - to view the skyscrapers of New York, of course. Henry Selick's terrific stop-motion animated adaptation, with a soundtrack courtesy of Randy Newman.

A Little Princess (1995). "I am a princess - all girls are!" a defiant Liesel Matthews tells a severe Eleanor Bron in Alfonso Cuarón's dazzling screen reading of the 1905 Frances Hodgson Burnett novel. Matthews plays Sara, a girl sent to boarding school when her father goes off to World War I. When news comes that he has been killed, the headmistress played by Bron makes the pampered schoolgirl scrub and toil for her keep, and sends her to a cold, uncomfortable space in the attic to live. But the stories Sara spins in secret captivate the other schoolgirls, and goodness and kindness win the day.

National Velvet (1944). Elizabeth Taylor is 12-year-old Velvet Brown, an English girl who wins a horse in a contest, and who - with the help of a wanderer played by Mickey Rooney - trains the gelding to compete in the Grand National Steeplechase. Nothing can stop the girl and her horse - not even the fact that girls can't be jockeys, and when the rider's true identity is found out, well, who knew Enid Bagnold's 1935 novel was a stealth feminist tract?

Pinocchio (1940). Walt Disney's adaptation of the 19th-century Carlo Collodi tale about a wooden puppet-turned-real-life-boy is one of the great cartoon features to emerge from the House of (Mickey) Mouse. Fun and frightening, an allegory about self-realization and social assimilation, the landmark animated film is full of iconic moments - the terrifying transformation on Pleasure Island, Geppetto's journey with(in) Monstro the whale - and classic songs ("I've Got No Strings," "When You Wish Upon a Star"). As Jiminy Cricket says, let your conscience be your guide.

Shrek (2001). William Steig's smart and snappy 1990 picture book - about a profoundly ugly ogre who must win the heart of an equally unsightly princess - experienced a fairy-talelike transformation of its own, losing the book title's exclamation point, but gaining kazillions of dollars as a DreamWorks Animation megahit. With Mike Myers' supplying the voice of the big green galumph, and Cameron Diaz as the princess, Fiona, (no longer ugly, at least not during daylight hours), and Eddie Murphy as the wisecracking tagalong "steed" (a donkey), the eye-popping, computer-animated film mashes up a bookshelf of fairy tales, and also merrily bashes up (as in parodies) the tropes and traditions of its more-established competition, the Walt Disney Studio. Diehard fans of author/illustrator Steig's original work grumble about the liberties and lampooning going on in the movie, but it's hard not to laugh - a lot - at what the filmmakers have wrought.

Watership Down (1978). Quiet and gentle and yet fierce in its depiction of how death shapes us all, the British animated hit based on Richard Adams' 1972 novel follows a small band of rabbits on the run, forced to find a new warren before "the terrible thing" happens. The animals have their own laws, their own mythologies - and the voices of some wonderful British actors, including Denholm Elliot, Michael Hordern, John Hurt, and Ralph Richardson. Set in rolling English countryside, with meadows and woods, with dangers from beast and man, this talking-animal cartoon has a poetry, and a profundity, that feels very real, indeed. Bonus points if you know the lyrics to Watership Down's signature song, Art Garfunkel's "Bright Eyes."

The Wizard of Oz (1939). Not just one of the best film adaptations of a children's book ever, but one of the best films ever, period. With a teenage Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, the Kansas lass who rides a twister all the way to a magical Technicolor land, populated by Munchkins and flying monkeys and a seriously wicked witch. L. Frank Baum's 1900 fantasy The Wonderful Wizard of Oz provided the rich source material, and Victor Fleming (with assists from several other directors) provided the Hollywood vision, casting a trio of unforgettable sidekicks - Ray Bolger's Scarecrow, Jack Haley's Tin Man, and Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion - to join Dorothy on her journey down the yellow brick road. Iconic.

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