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Since the early days of cinema, Hollywood has lured playwrights out West to bring class to the elliptical art of screenwriting. Back then, a film was perhaps less cinematic than it is today. Cameras were mostly still and audiences had attention spans. So, the playwrights (who were used to writing longer, deeper scenes) had more success than they have today, where cinema has gotten more "cinematic" and the theatre has gotten more "theatrical." Today, the playwrights are still lured out West—the most successful is probably David Mamet who has also established himself as a filmmaker of importance. But, most playwrights languish in the film world. They usually enter it when they've written a play that is "commercial" enough to be adapted. This is not as common a practice nowadays and most adaptations of plays appear on television. This list is meant to guide people to films which have been well adapted from plays. In some ways, this means the film differs greatly from the stage version. This is as necessary as cutting parts of a novel for it to come to the screen. This list will not include some of the excellent television films that have been made (Norman Jewison's Dinner with Friends is a good example), but it will point to some of the finer moments of stage-to-screen transfers.