Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.

This weekend, Kenneth Branagh adapts his second Agatha Christie novel for the big screen. Death on the Nile was originally adapted in 1978 by John Guillerman. It was the first major adaptation of a Christie work after her death in 1976. While it didn’t have quite the cast of the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express, it still had a rather stacked lineup that includes Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, George Kennedy, David Niven, Maggie Smith, and Mia Farrow. The film was nominated for and won the Oscar for Best Costume Design. And if you’ve seen the outfits Salome Otterbourne (Lansbury) wore, you would understand why.

In this cast, Branagh has assembled a couple of notable actors, but the wattage of this affair is decidedly less than the original as well as his preceding effort, Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie is one of the most popular novelists in history, translated into 44 languages and is the best-selling fiction author in history, having moved more than 2 billion copies of her books. She is one of only six authors to have a single title sell more than 100 million copies. And Then There Were None shares that distinction with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, and Cao Xueqin’s Dream of the Red Chamber.

So, in celebration of a major new Christie adaptation, I thought I’d look back at my five favorite adaptations of her novels, novellas, and short stories.

And Then There Were None (1945)

Christie’s most popular novel has been adapted in several forms over the years. Films like Identity and April Fool’s Day play at the concepts in the novel while creating individual adventures. As for straight adaptations of the novel? It’s never happened in an English-language adaptation on the big screen . All of these films have been adapted from her play based on the novel. In that play, there’s a happy ending that I won’t reveal in this article. The book is a much more bleak ending and that ending is what makes the novel so great.

French filmmaker René Clair took the first English-language stab at adapting the novel with this 1945 picture starring Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Mischa Auer, Judith Anderson, and Richard Haydn. There are others, but these were the most notable names. It’s the closest of all of the adaptations to the source. The tale is that of ten strangers summoned by a mysterious acquaintance for a weekend getaway on a remote island off the coast of Devon. There, they are confronted with their pasts as one by one each house guest and servant are murdered. The tension is always palpable as everyone suspects someone else of committing the crime with no one escaping blame until their deaths. While it isn’t my personal favorite of the adaptations, it gets most of the details right and is ultimately my second favorite of the adaptations I’ve seen.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

The only Agatha Christie adaptation ever nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Billy Wilder adapted Christie’s popular short story (and also play) to the big screen with Charles Laughton in the lead role of a barrister (a British lawyer given permission to try cases at the highest court) tasked with unraveling a mysterious murder that puts his client (Tyrone Power) in the cross hairs. Filmed like a film noir, Marlene Dietrich plays the role of femme fatale in a story that has countless twists and turns. Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s wife, and noted actress in her own right, plays an original role written just for her and the film.

Atmospheric, labyrinthine, and a great deal of fun, this is one of the absolute best adaptations of any of Christie’s novels. It’s a cracker jack whodunnit where everyone except Power is giving their absolute best. It was nominated for six Oscars including two in acting for Lanchester and Laughton. It went home empty-handed, but there’s no denying its importance, especially when it remains a definitive film of the 1957 release slate and remains engaging and entertaining more than 60 years later.

Ten Little Indians (1965)

As I mentioned before, And Then There Were None was one of the most popular novels Christie ever wrote. It is also noted for how many titles it’s gone under Ten Little Indians is one of many and this is probably the least offensive such title. Most of the adaptations following Clair’s retained this more familiar title (it was the one under which the novel was originally released in the United States). Another peculiarity of future adaptations is the attempt to shift the events of the film to different locales to spice up the events. This has caused some rather questionable decisions to be made: the 1974 version was transplanted into the Iranian desert while the 1989 rendition was set on safari in Africa (this also happens to be the absolute worst one, which should be evident from the fact that Sylvester Stallone’s brother Frank is in the cast.

The best of these relocated adaptations is probably 1965’s rendition directed by George Pollock. Featuring a less familiar cast to the original, Hugh O’Brien, Shirley Eaton, Fabian, Leo Genn, Stanley Holloway, and Wilfred Hyde-White are the best known names, the events are set in a remote mountaintop mansion where the only means of entry is a large cable car that, as expected, careens into the mountains below at one point. All of the tension and twists and turns of the original novel are still here even if some of the deaths are revised to the new locale. Perhaps it’s the terrific black-and-white photography that sells the film, but it’s still a grand time with the characteristic stunning reveal, which is unfortunately kept from the stage play.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

I’ve talked at length about Sidney Lumet’s sumptuous adaptation of Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and its all-star cast featuring the likes of Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave and others of note. The film takes place predominantly onboard the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, a luxurious transcontinental train that takes the audience through Istanbul and into the mountains of Yugsolavia where a snowdrift stops the train and legendary detective Hercule Poirot investigates a crime that has a most fascinating twist.

The entire cast is superb, as one would expect from these likes, and Lumet’s direction keeps the energy flowing in spite of the confined spaces in which it’s set. All of the interviews and events of the film, barring a handful set early in the film, take place within the train itself. It’s a glorious, glamorous affair with a beautiful and unforgettable score by Richard Rodney Bennett. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards and although it was thought to be a contender for a Best Picture nomination, it missed out. Finney, who plays Poirot, and Bergman were the film’s sole acting nominees, a certifiably tough decision no doubt. Bergman won her third and final Academy Award for the role.

Death on the Nile (1978)

The final film on this list happens to be the original adaptation of the novel upon which this week’s release is based. This time, Poirot is played by two-time Oscar winner Peter Ustinov. Ustinov is too physically large (height and weight) for the diminutive detective, but he plays the part well, putting out all the characteristic inflections and idioms Poirot is famous for using. Ustinov would spend much of the rest of his career playing the character through a handful of big screen adaptations and eventually some television movies as well. This was his best film in the role.

The events of the film take place in the heart of Egypt where a tour boat sails up the Nile river taking the guests to numerous archaeologically significant locales including Abu Simbel, the Great Pyramid of Cheops and more. However, the core of the story takes place on the ship where a passenger is shot, another is murdered, and a web of intrigue is laid bear. For tension, adventure, and action, this is the most eventful of the Poirot adaptations. There are no fewer than two deaths and enough twists and turns to keep you enthralled. The best performance in the film comes from Angela Lansbury who plays the eccentric Salome Otterbourne with flair and exuberance. She, Maggie Smith, and Peter Ustinov were also nominated for BAFTA while Lansbury won the Supporting Actress award from the National Board of Review. She should have been nominated for the Oscar, but that’s history for you.