5 Bret Easton Ellis adaptations, ranked from worst to best

Bret Easton Ellis's novels—dense with designer labels, violence, and sun-baked California excess—seem tailor-made for the screen. Yet adapting them has proved surprisingly difficult, per the Conversation's cultural analysis. Ellis's trademark is emotional flatness: characters describe horrific acts with the same detached precision they reserve for skincare routines, a quality nearly impossible to capture on film. Add Hollywood's struggle with his explicit content, and adaptations have been spotty. The outlet ranks recent ones: The Informers and Less Than Zero sanitize the source material; The Rules of Attraction stays faithful but lacks satirical force; The Shards, newly streaming, succeeds by leaning into mood and dread rather than copying every literary layer; and American Psycho, nearly a quarter-century old, remains the gold standard—because director Mary Harron understood that Ellis is fundamentally a satirist of excess, not a purveyor of depravity.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton