Every Nick Hornby Movie & TV Adaptation - Ranked From Worst To Best
1. About A Boy (2002)
About a Boy is one of the best British films of the past 20 years: it captures everything that Nick Hornby does best, life in the turn of the millenium and an absolutely timeless loveable story of what makes a family.
The film features Hugh Grant as Will Freeman, a bachelor and man of luxury with absolutely no responsibility. Freeman begins to pretend he has a child in order to pick up women however instead captures the attention of a young boy called Marcus (Nick Hoult) who, despite being bright and caring, lacks the social skills that would allow him to be in any way cool. What makes About A Boy so special is that it does everything that every film and TV show on this list does, but so much better.
The writing on About a Boy is fantastic, it marries Hornby’s witty, sarcastic flair with tragedy and captures British life for all the terribleness and affirming fun that it can bring. Above all it’s a story of two complete opposites coming together and discovering that they’re everything that the other needed to grow.