Welcome back, Books on Screen lovers! We find ourselves together in this very October-y October, when the leaves are starting to turn and pumpkin spice once again resumes its delicious reign of terror! For those of you who aren’t exclusively watching scary movies or The Rocky Horror Picture Show on repeat this month, here are some great entertainment alternatives.

Paula Hawkins’ THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN was a huge hit when it hit the stands back in 2015; accolades went as far as calling it the new GONE GIRL. Barely a year has gone by, and the film adaptation is already in theaters --- gotta give them credit for that quick turnaround time, if nothing else! Emily Blunt is pitch-perfect as a woman slowly losing her grip on reality. I wonder if the people who cut the trailer were maybe a bit too inspired by her hot mess performance.

Operating Thetan Tom Cruise is back as the titular hero in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (the subtitle was reportedly suggested by Katie Holmes), adapted from Lee Child’s indefatigable series. And Ewan McGregor makes his directorial debut later this month with American Pastoral to the relief of thousands of high schoolers who can now skip reading the Philip Roth classic and go straight to the reel.

Just in time for Halloween --- and probably by no small coincidence --- our masked friends over at the CW return with “The Flash” and “Arrow.” Come for Stephen Amell’s…everything…stay for Greg Berlanti’s A+ world-building and the cast’s infectious chemistry. Still going strong is “Queen Sugar” on OWN, “Poldark” on PBS, and, if you’ve tuned out everything else I’ve said because you have that 31-days-of-October bloodlust, “The Exorcist” on FOX.

See below for a full list of all the tricks and treats coming out this month. As they say, “When black cats prowl / and pumpkins gleam, / may luck be yours / when choosing your Books on Screen!”

--- Written and compiled by Emily Hoenig

In Theaters:

The Girl on the Train
Cast: Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Luke Evans, Justin Theroux, Rebecca Ferguson, Edgar Ramirez, Allison Janney, Lisa Kudrow
Director: Tate Taylor
Distributor: Universal Studios
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: October 7th
Based on: THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins

Rachel, devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.

The Great Gilly Hopkins
Cast: Sophie Nélisse, Kathy Bates, Glenn Close
Director: Stephen Herek
Distributor: Lionsgate Premier
MPAA Rating: PG
Release Date: October 7th
Based on: THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS by Katherine Paterson

A feisty foster kid's outrageous scheme to be reunited with her birth mother has unintended consequences in The Great Gilly Hopkins, an entertaining film for the entire family. Gilly Hopkins has seen more than her share of foster homes and has outwitted every family she has lived with. In an effort to escape her new foster mother Mamie Trotter's endless loving care, Gilly concocts a plan that she believes will bring her mother running to her rescue. But when the ploy blows up in Gilly's face it threatens to ruin the only chance she's ever had to be part of a real family.

The King's Daughter
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, William Hurt, Benjamin Walker, Kaya Scodelario, Pablo Schreiber and Fan Bingbing
Director: Sean McNamara
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: NR
Release Date: October 7th
Based on: THE MOON AND THE SUN by Vonda N. McIntyre

King Louis XIV's quest for immortality leads him to capture and steal a mermaid's life force, a move that is further complicated by his illegitimate daughter's discovery of the creature.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life
Cast: Lauren Graham, Rob Riggle, Jacob Hopkins
Director: Steve Carr
Distributor: CBS Films, Lionsgate Films
MPAA Rating: PG
Release Date: October 21st
Based on: MIDDLE SCHOOL: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson

Rafe has an epic imagination...and a slight problem with authority. Both collide when he transfers to an oppressive, rule-crazy middle school. Drowning in do's and don'ts, Rafe and his scheming best friend Leo hatch a plan to break every rule in the school's Code of Conduct. It's Ferris Bueller meets Home Alone as their battle with Principal Dwight explodes into chaos both real and imagined. But Dwight displays his own fiendish creativity, striking back at the rule-breakers. Meanwhile, Rafe struggles to hide his misbehavior from Jeanne, the straight-A, overachieving girl of his dreams, and at home, his mother's boyfriend --- a moochy, jack-of-no-trades named Bear --- threatens to become his stepfather.

Certain Women
Cast: Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Distributor: IFC Films
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: October 14th
Based on: BOTH WAYS IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT by Maile Meloy

Certain Women drops us into a handful of intersecting lives across Montana. A lawyer tries to diffuse a hostage situation and calm her disgruntled client, who feels slighted by a workers' compensation settlement. A married couple breaks ground on a new home but exposes marital fissures when they try to persuade an elderly man to sell his stockpile of sandstone. A ranch hand forms an attachment to a young lawyer, who inadvertently finds herself teaching a twice-weekly adult education class, four hours from her home.

American Pastoral
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, Molly Parker, Uzo Aduba
Director: Ewan McGregor 
Distributor: Lionsgate Films
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: October 21st
Based on: AMERICAN PASTORAL by Philip Roth

American Pastoral follows Seymour "Swede" Levov, a legendary high school athlete, who grows up to marry a former beauty queen and inherits his father's business. Swede's seemingly perfect life shatters when his daughter rebels by becoming a revolutionary and committing a deadly act of political terrorism during the Vietnam War.

The Handmaiden
Cast: Min-hee Kim, Jung-woo Ha, Kim Tae-ri
Director: Chan-wook Park
Distributor: CJ E&M Film Division
MPAA Rating: NR
Release Date: October 21st
Based on: FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters

Having transposed the story to 1930s-era colonial Korea and Japan, Chan-wook Park presents a gripping and sensual tale of a young Japanese Lady living on a secluded estate, and a Korean woman who is hired to serve as her new handmaiden, but who is secretly involved in a conman's plot to defraud her of her large inheritance.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Cast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Robert Knepper, Danika Yarosh, Aldis Hodge
Director: Edward Zwick
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: October 21st
Based on: NEVER GO BACK: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

Tom Cruise returns as Jack Reacher in this sequel based on Lee Child's bestselling novel NEVER GO BACK, which finds the itinerant problem-solver accused of murder, and learning that he may have a child he has never met.

Inferno
Cast: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan
Director: Ron Howard
Distributor: Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Release Date: October 28th
Based on: INFERNO by Dan Brown

Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon in director Ron Howard and screenwriter David Koepp's adaptation of author Dan Brown's bestselling novel INFERNO, which finds Langdon using Dante's The Divine Comedy as a tool in the race to prevent a devastating global pandemic.
 

On TV:

The Julius House: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery (TV movie)
Cast: Stephanie Bennett, Peter Benson, Yannick Bisson
Director: Terry Ingram
Network: Hallmark
Airdate: October 16th
Based on: THE JULIUS HOUSE: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery by Charlaine Harris

Aurora Teagarden is a beautiful young librarian with a passion for solving murders. After an exhaustive search for the perfect home, Aurora finally purchases her dream house, unaware of its murky history. As she prepares to move in, Aurora discovers that the family who once lived there mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

"Killing Reagan" (TV movie)
Cast: Tim Matheson, Cynthia Nixon, Joe Chrest, Joel Murray, Kyle S. More
Director: Rod Lurie
Network: National Geographic
Airdate: October 16th
Based On: KILLING REAGAN: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency by Bill O'Reilly

"Killing Reagan" explores the events surrounding the assassination attempt on president Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. Based on the bestselling book, the film begins in the final months leading up to the 1980 presidential election, and explores the challenges Reagan faced to define himself as a leader. Meanwhile, an aimless and deranged Hinckley is unraveling, leading to the fateful day in March 1981 when these disparate figures collided.

"The Durrells in Corfu" (limited series)
Cast: Keeley Hawes, Josh O'Connor, Callum Woodhouse, Daisy Waterstone, Milo Parker 
Director: Steve Barron and Simon Nye
Network: PBS
Airdate: October 16th—November 20th; Sundays at 8pm ET
Based on: MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS by Gerald Durrell

A tight budget and desperation drive the Durrells to sink their meager savings into boat fare to Corfu, where they hope to find a refuge more welcoming for their bohemian ways than the stuffy UK they leave behind. They arrive on an island with no beach resorts, night clubs, tourist shops or even electricity --- for this is 1935. What Corfu does have is endless opportunity for living, loving, shooting and animal collecting.

"Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" (limited series)
Cast: Elijah Wood, Samuel Barnett, Christian Bako, 
Director: Robert Cooper
Network: BBC America
Airdate: Premieres October 22nd; Saturdays at 9pm ET
Based on: DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY by Douglas Adams

"Queen Sugar"
Cast: Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Kofi Siriboe, Tina Lifford
Director: Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey
Network: OWN
Airdate: Wednesdays at 10pm ET
Based on: QUEEN SUGAR by Natalie Baszile

The series follows the life of two sisters, Nova Bordelon, the formidable journalist and activist from New Orleans, and Charley Bordelon, a modern woman, who, with her teenage son Micah, leaves her upscale apartment in Los Angeles and moves to the heart of Louisiana to claim an inheritance from her recently departed father --- an 800-acre sugarcane farm.

"Quarry"
Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Jodi Balfour, Peter Mullan
Director: Greg Yaitanes
Network: Cinemax
Airdate: Fridays at 10pm ET
Based on: The Quarry series by Max Allan Collins

A Marine returns home from Vietnam in 1972, only to find himself being shunned by those he loves and demonized by the public.

"The Exorcist"
Cast: Alfonso Herrera, Ben Daniels, Geena Davis
Director: Jeremy Slater
Network: Fox
Airdate: Fridays at 9pm ET
Based on: THE EXORCIST by William Peter Blatty

Two very different men tackle a family's horrifying case of demonic possession.

"Poldark"
Cast: Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, Heida Reed
Director: Edward Bazalgette, William McGregor
Network: PBS
Airdate: Sundays at 9pm ET 
Based on: The Cornwall series by Winston Graham

In 18th century Cornwall, times are as tough as the rocky shoreline: unemployment, hunger, and sickness are widespread among the working class, while the wealthy landowners prosper. Only one man dares to defy the status quo, and he is behind bars. After a new generation of viewers fell in love with adventurer Ross Poldark, season one's tragic cliffhanger left fans everywhere reeling. What will become of our swashbuckling hero? Can the ever-resilient Demelza find a way to save him?