20 Beatles Songs That Should Be Movies

The Song: A babbling baby-talk love song written by a loved up Lennon to describe the sense of mistrust surrounding what he considered a very straightforward relationship with Yoko Ono.

The Movie Version: A Cats And Dogs-style animal espionage kiddie blockbuster, in which a hero kid and his pet monkey tip-toe through a network of betrayals and double-crosses in a world of zoological spy work.

Starring: One or both of the kids from The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody.

Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola.

The Song: A Fats Domino-inspired bluesy romp that takes in a matriarchal domestic scene of scurrying children and endless chores.

The Movie Version: A solemn but soul-warming kitchen sink thinker, following the travails of a single mother stretched to snapping point by a breathless daily cycle of work and children.

Starring: Sally Hawkins as the durable Ma.

Directed By: Mike Leigh.

The Song: Lennon’s pacifism-inflected reflections on the demonstrations that swept the world in 1968, from American campuses to the streets of Paris.

The Movie Version: An historical account of the events which inspired the song, digging into the feeling of change and progression that powered uprisings all over the world, and the sense of empty bitterness that followed.

Starring: An international ensemble, featuring Audrey Tautou, Kieran Culkin, and some Polish dudes.

Directed By: Paul Greengrass.

The Song: From Abbey Road, this is a McCartney-heavy tune that swings from cold melancholy to sweeping, escapist optimism.

The Movie Version: A post-college coming of age dramedy about a young, ambitious couple making their way in the world. Their success is lopsided – she hits it big, he hits a brick wall – and life lessons are learned before the smiley ending.

Starring: Shia LaBeouf as the floundering fella, and Natalie Portman as his high-flying other half.

Directed By: Curtis Hanson.

The Song: John Lennon’s avant-garde nonsense poem inspired by Lewis Carroll and pieced together from three different songs he had been writing at the time.

The Movie Version: An abstract blast of surrealism taking its cue from Lennon’s coldly dystopic cut-and-shut lyrics, with fractured sequences of concrete estates and corporate architecture mixed with random images of gardens and flowers. It’ll be a big crowd-pleaser…

Starring: No stars – just collected documentary footage.

Directed By: Chris Cunningham.

The Song: From Rubber Soul, one of Lennon’s first philosophical songs and also one of his most cynical – a downbeat, almost mournful expression of his own lack of direction.

The Movie Version: A radical shift sees the adaptation as a spy thriller with a cynical intellectual edge. The hero is a Bourne-like black ops government agent with no identity and no outlook on life past knifing dudes when told. But! Then he begins to question his orders and to open his mind for the first time…

Starring: We’re going to make like the real Hollywood and cast Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy for everything.

Directed By: Luc Besson.

The Song: A pop-heavy piece of Lennon melancholia about a girl leaving an old lover behind.

The Movie Version: A deadline-centred farewell drama about the intense last few hours in a crumbling relationship. The tone is desolate and introverted – handheld cameras and dialogue-heavy interiors – as the couple remonstrate and remember before the fateful train arrives.

Starring: Clive Owen and Samantha Morton as the torn couple.

Directed By: Mike Nichols.

The Song: Lennon’s cosmic ballad is a transcendental tour of nature and space and everything, with a mantra-like chorus and floating harmonies.

The Movie Version: In contract to the existing film which already uses the name , our film will be a documentary of the universe filled with humblingly beautiful cosmic photography and explanations of nebula and star clusters than make everyone feel extra mortal.

Starring: Professory Brian Cox, unless we can find someone slightly less smug.

Directed By: Errol Morris.

The Song: A Lennon-led piece from Revolver with a dreamy feel inspired, not by any drugs references, but by the fact Lennon really did like to sleep a lot.

The Movie Version: Comic sequel to Romeo & Juliet in which Romeo wakes up again just as he’s being lowered into the ground and immediately coins a catchphrase, “I’m only sleeping!” From here on the film mostly involves him crying about Juliet and overcoming narcolepsy contracted as a result of his drugs use in the original.

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio to reprise his role as Romeo, with Rachel McAdams doing her best to pretty him out of his Juliet-inspired funk.

Directed By: Ken Branagh.

The Song: George Harrison’s moving, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel melody that featured on Abbey Road.

The Movie Version: All the lifting depression, breaking Spring stuff is ditched in favour of a big stupid sci-fi disaster B-movie in which THE SUN IS MOVING TOWARDS THE EARTH for reasons unknown, and can only be stopped by missiles and hope.

Starring: Will Smith as the solar body-punching hero, and Jaden Smith as his science genius/box-office genius kid.

Directed By: Michael Bay of course .

The Song: A rousing roadtrip jangle about a tour of the old Soviet Union and the virtues of its various women that opened The White Album.

The Movie Version: A raucous frat boy comedy about a pair of ruined oligarchs forced to move back to the homeland to resurrect their fortunes, hatching new business schemes in the barely regulated new republic and meeting a parade of glamorous women.

Starring: Will Ferrell and Hank Azaria as the ruined oligarchs, Olga Kurylenko as the girl with the brains to take them someplace.

Directed By: Adam McKay

The Song: A brash bang of love, sex and violence written by Lennon for The White Album during the early part of his relationship with Yoko Ono. Banned by the BBC.

The Movie Version: Just the title is used – originally seen by Lennon on the front cover of a gun magazine, its hardboiled Hammett punchiness makes it the perfect headline for a dark, misanthropic modern noir.

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a semi-reprise of his hard-bitten hero from Brick, Tom Hardy as his arch nemesis, and Ellen Page as his inconstant lady.

Directed By: Christopher Nolan.

The Song: A woozy trapeze act from Sgt. Pepper's, written by Lennon after seeing a poster for a 19th Century Circus.

The Movie Version: An earnest but visually Gilliamesque circus drama, set around the reformation of a disbanded circus to play a show in memory of a recently deceased colleague.

Starring: Real circus performers would fill out the minor roles, with Michael Caine providing the voice of a CG Henry The Horse and Tom Hardy playing the late, great Mr Kite in flashback.

Directed By: Terry Gilliam.

The Song: Early, bluesy love track with the catchy refrain sung, unusually, in the third person.

The Movie Version: Thunderously unsubtle rom-com in the mould of Love Actually or She’s The One, with a flashback structure inspired by the track’s lyrics. So while our hero talks to his friend (“I saw her yesterday…”) and hunts for his hurt girlfriend, the action is intercut with a look at what he did to hurt her in the first place, building to a heartwarming resolution. Aw.

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal as the heartbreaker/time-racer and Carey Mulligan as his wronged girlfriend.

Directed By: Richard Curtis.

The Song: McCartney’s yearning love song, which is the most covered track of all time and apparently came to him in a dream. The lucky sod.

The Movie Version: A sort of reverse Groundhog Day, in which a team of experimental physicists find themselves suspended in a bubble of time the day after the end of the world, with enough power every 24 hours to send one man back in time for a day to investigate the catastrophe.

Starring: George Clooney as the handsome science leader guy, with Sharlto Copley and Kate Winslet part of his characterful team.

Directed By: Danny Boyle.

The Song: A jaunty hit from 1966 about a struggling writer trying to get his work published. It was The Beatles’ first non-love song hit.

The Movie Version: Extrapolating on the song’s meta-textual lyrics (the pitched book is about a writer itself) the film is a Wonderboys-style coming of age story about a young author learning the realities of the publishing world while getting his autobiographical first novel signed.

Starring: Aaron Johnson as the young author, with Albert Finney as his would-be publisher and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as his love interest.

Directed By: Steven Soderbergh.

The Song: A detailed lament about a daughter leaving home, from the perspective of her parents who are struggling to come to terms with the loss.

The Movie Version: A Californication of the domestic drama that sees 19 year-old Caprice leave her middle class Burbank home to seek fame, fortune and fun (“The one thing that money can’t buy”) in Hollywood.

Starring: Ashley Tisdale as Caprice, Dennis Quaid and Susan Sarandon as her bereft (but now also comic relief) parents.

Directed By: Jay Roach.

The Song: Another George Harrison track, this one the opener to Revolver written after the guitarist realised new Labour legislation meant he was paying 95% tax on much of his earnings.

The Movie Version: A searing, satirical look at the state of government finance and regulation in light of the global economic crisis. It’s a financial Fight Club, focused on a savvy lobbyist anti-hero who leads the viewer through all the semi-legal loopholes and secrets deals done by the super-rich to avoid paying tax.

Starring: The movie pivots on Matthew Goode as the slick inside man, a Tyler Durden of the City.

Directed By: Oliver Stone.

The Song: A rising, falling tale of life and mundanity. It’s a real Lennon and McCartney collaboration, with a sequence by McCartney sandwiched between the work of Lennon

The Movie Version: A dizzying mix of sixties London and crumpled sports cars based on the life and death of Tara Browne, the playboy aristocrat and friend of the band whose death in 1966 in a car accident inspired Lennon’s section of the song (“He blew his mind out in a car…”).

Starring: Tara Browne to be played by fop-haired Brit up-and-comer Thomas Sangster.

Directed By: Michael Winterbottom.

The Song: A haunting cry of loneliness from Revolver, with a string octet juddering emotionally under McCartney’s simple lyrics.

The Movie Version: The skeleton of the (admittedly really depressing) story is already there – two lonely figures, Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie, crossing paths but never having the meeting that might save both of them until her funeral. It’s, um, arty. And downbeat.

Starring: Penelope Wilton as Eleanor Rigby, and a particularly defeated Jim Broadbent as Father McKenzie.

Directed By: Ken Loach.