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98. The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, the 1952 adaptation of the crime thriller by Georges Simenon, follows the plot faithfully but doesn’t have the novel’s queasy atmosphere. Claude Rains, whom we regard as a model of urbanity (He is our favorite character in Casablanca. “I’m shocked, shocked that there’s gambling on the premises.” “Your winnings, Sir.” “Oh yes, thank you.”), stars as Kees Popinga, a model citizen who suddenly snaps and goes on a crime spree. Everyone is so polite, especially Marius Goring from The Red Shoes as the detective in pursuit, so we don’t believe anything bad really happened.

99. The Physician (2013). Based on Noah Gordon’s historical novel about an English orphan in the 11th century who travels to Persia to learn medicine. At the time, Europe was in the Dark Ages and the sick were tended to by traveling barbers. The real physicians were Jews trained in Persia. So the English boy pretends to be Jewish (He circumcises himself, that’s how serious he was about becoming a doctor) and travels to Isfahan to train with the great Ibn Sina (Avicenna). There he helps battle an outbreak of the plague, which is not as lethal as religious fundamentalism. Stars Tom Payne and Emma Rigby are the cutest couple we’ve seen in movies this year.

100. The Double. Richard Ayoade’s adaptation of Dostoevsky’s short novel is a very black comedy reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as both the nebbish and the popular new guy whom no one notices looks exactly like him.

101. The Two Faces of January. Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, whose better-known books have been adapted for film by Wim Wenders, Liliana Cavani, Rene Clement, Anthony Minghella, Alfred Hitchcock. In an interview Viggo Mortensen disparaged the source novel, and we thought, “Ang taray naman ni Viggo”, but he’s right. How dare we doubt Viggo. (No, there is no scene in a Turkish bath, or battles with orcs.) The material’s quite thin, but it’s elevated by the acting and director Hossein Amini doesn’t stint on the nastiness. Why are the characters in movies based on Highsmith novels so well-dressed?