unfilmable
adjective
un·film·able
ˌən-ˈfil-mə-bəl 
: not fit or able to be adapted to movies : not filmable
an unfilmable novel
Examples of unfilmable in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Emerging at the end of a big year for TV adaptations of unfilmable novels, from The Sympathizer to 3 Body Problem to Interior Chinatown, One Hundred Years of Solitude is among the best of the bunch.
—
Judy Berman, TIME, 2 Dec. 2024
The book is in that pantheon of classics often deemed unfilmable.
—Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 27 Oct. 2024
The 23 best psychological horror movies of all time, ranked
'Salem's Lot'
It has been called unfilmable, but Stephen King's Salem's Lot has, again, been filmed, and is again quite good.
—Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 5 Oct. 2024
Villeneuve, however, had the luxury of filming his adaptation of Herbert's famously unfilmable novel in two parts, the first released in 2021 and the second in 2024.
—and Kevin Jacobsen, EW.com, 30 July 2024
The Netflix adaptation of a brilliant novel so conceptually complicated that it has long been called unfilmable is perfectly decent (albeit simplified) sci-fi.
—Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2024
That’s one reason the material had long been deemed unfilmable.
—Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Feb. 2024
At the same time, the novel, with its shifting narrators and dreamlike structure that resists pat interpretations, was long considered all-but unfilmable.
—Mark Schilling, Variety, 15 Feb. 2024
Many books have been called unfilmable, but in the case of Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 best-seller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, that label would hardly be an exaggeration.
—Rebecca Sun, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Jan. 2024
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Judy Berman, TIME, 2 Dec. 2024
The book is in that pantheon of classics often deemed unfilmable.
—Stewart Clarke, Deadline, 27 Oct. 2024
The 23 best psychological horror movies of all time, ranked
'Salem's Lot'
It has been called unfilmable, but Stephen King's Salem's Lot has, again, been filmed, and is again quite good.
—Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 5 Oct. 2024
Villeneuve, however, had the luxury of filming his adaptation of Herbert's famously unfilmable novel in two parts, the first released in 2021 and the second in 2024.
—and Kevin Jacobsen, EW.com, 30 July 2024
The Netflix adaptation of a brilliant novel so conceptually complicated that it has long been called unfilmable is perfectly decent (albeit simplified) sci-fi.
—Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2024
That’s one reason the material had long been deemed unfilmable.
—Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Feb. 2024
At the same time, the novel, with its shifting narrators and dreamlike structure that resists pat interpretations, was long considered all-but unfilmable.
—Mark Schilling, Variety, 15 Feb. 2024
Many books have been called unfilmable, but in the case of Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 best-seller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, that label would hardly be an exaggeration.
—Rebecca Sun, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Jan. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Unfilmable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unfilmable. Accessed 14 Jun. 2025.
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