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This page lists adaptations and derivative works based on the seminal 17th century Spanish novel Don Quixote, about a Spanish nobleman living under the delusion that he's a medieval Knight in Shining Armor.
Original work
- The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha), often simply shortened to Don Quixote, written between 1605 and 1615 by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes.
Adaptations and derivative works
Anime & Manga- Zukkoke Knight - Don De La Mancha (1980)
Comic Books
- Don Quixote de la Mancha (1972-83), Spanish comic book in ten volumes. English translation by Wise Path Books in progress (digital version here
).
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999): Don Alonso Quixote was a member of Prospero's Men during the 17th century.
Films — Animation
- Donkey Xote (2007), Spanish CGI animated film. Notable for starring a donkey that looks far too similar to the one from Shrek, and as a result being repackaged as "Donkey X" at least once to raise the confusion.
- Las aventuras de Don Quijote (The Adventures of Don Quixote, 2010), Spanish CGI film.
- Storm Crashers, also known as Giants of la Mancha (2024), Spanish CGI film. A descendant of Don Quixote goes on a mission to save La Mancha from a storm.
Films — Live-Action
- Don Quixote (1933), German film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
- Don Quixote (1957), Soviet film directed by Grigori Kozintsev and starring Nikolay Cherkasov.
- Don Quixote (1957-1969), unfinished American-Spanish film by Orson Welles. Edited by Jess Franco in 1992.
- Man of La Mancha (1972), adaptation of the musical by Arthur Hiller.
- Don Quixote, Knight Errant (2002), Spanish film.
- Don Quixote (2010), Chinese/Hong Kong film directed by Ah Gan.
- The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), co-production film directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce. Not an adaptation of the story, but uses very similar delusion themes in a 21st century setting, with a character thinking he is Don Quixote.
- Lost in La Mancha (2002), documentary. Chronicles the infamously plagued attempt at filming the above work back in 2000.
- He Dreams of Giants (2019), documentary. Sequel to Lost in La Mancha, about how Gilliam finally managed to make the film.
- Segundo tomo del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha ("Second volume of the ingenious hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha"), better known as "Avellaneda's Quixote", is a 1614 unauthorized sequel written by "Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda", a pen name of unknown identity believed to have been a personal enemy of Cervantes, as he insults him in the book. Cervantes was so incensed with this book's existence that he wrote the official Part II to prevent it from becoming popular - and succeeded, to the point people only know of it today because it is disparaged in Cervantes's book.
- Moxia Zhuan ("The story of the Enchanted Knight"), the first version of Don Quixote published in China, is a 1922 remake of Part I by Lin Shu, who didn't speak Spanish or any western language, but transcribed the story as it was narrated to him by a friend reading from an English 18th century translation. The story is slightly different due to a mix of translation errors, broken telephone, Cultural Translation, and Author Appeal: Don Quixote is a more dignified character because he keeps true to older traditions and rejects the absurdities of modernity; Sancho is his disciple instead of his servant; and all references to Christianity are excised, so the curate is a doctor. It went out of print in 1934 until it was rediscovered by the Cervantes Institute and published in Mandarin and Spanish in 2021.
- Monsignor Quixote (1982) by Graham Greene (Author) is a pastiche that follows a priest who thinks he is a direct descendant of Don Quixote despite everyone else pointing that Don Quixote is fictional, as he rides an old Seat 600 through post-Franco Spain while in the company of a former Communist mayor (nicknamed Sancho, of course). Had a TV film adaptation starring Alec Guinness in 1985.
- Quichotte, a 2019 novel by Salman Rushdie that reimagines Don Quixote as an elderly Indian-American salesman who becomes infatuated with a Talk Show host and decides to reach her while accompanied by his imaginary son Sancho.
Live-Action Television
- Don Quijote von der Mancha, a 1965 German miniseries.
- Quantum Leap: The 1989 episode "Catch a Falling Star" has Sam leap into the understudy of an alcoholic actor starring in Man of La Mancha. True to form, Sam compares his endless leaps to Don Quixote's quests, and Al to Sancho.
- El Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes, a 1992 Spanish miniseries.
- Don Quixote, a 2000 Hallmark television movie starring John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins.
- "The Impawssible Dream," a 1995 episode of Wishbone, adapts Don Quixote with Wishbone playing Sancho Panza, and the real-world story parallels the tale with Joe trying to set the record for most consecutive free-throws.
Music
- "Don Quixote: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character," a 1898 symphonic poem by Richard Strauss.
Radio
- The BBC adapted the novel during the 1980s, adapted by John Arden, and which starred Bob Grant as Don Quixote and Bernard Cribbins as Sancho Panza.
Theatre
- Life of the Great Don Quixote and the Fat Sancho Panza, a 1733 stage play by António José da Silva.
- Don Quixote: A three-act ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa, first shown in 1869.
- Don Quichotte, a 1910 opera by Jules Massenet.
- Man of La Mancha, a musical created in 1964 about a fictionalized making of Don Quixote, which is treated as the Show Within a Show.
- Quixote Nuevo, a 2020 stage play adapting the story onto modern problems in the Texas/Mexican border. In this version, "Joe" is explicitly suffering from late stage dementia, and El Muerte is a prominent character throughout.
Video Games
- Super Don Quixote (1984)
- Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt (2015): Don Quixote as a Lancer Servant and a young horse-eared woman named Sancho who serves as a Composite Character gestalt of Sancho, Rocinante, Dulcinea, and Altisidora (she can transform into a horse for him to ride on) show up as supporting characters, having arrived in the Traum Singularity to pretend to be Karl the Great as he forms his own kingdom. Unlike most depictions of the character, in this game, he is a short stocky old dwarf. As part of his madness, he is constantly looking for Dulcinea and doesn't notice she is there in Sancho. His famous feat of trying to joust at a windmill is referenced in his main Noble Phantasm "Valiente Asalto Dedicado a la Princesa: Ah! My Dear Princess, I Shall Dedicate My Spear to You!" as it deals more damage to enemies classified as "Giant" in their internal data. His second Noble Phantasm "Triste Suave Alonso Quijano: Ah, This Cruel Yet Kind Reality" creates an Anti-Magic field where nothing supernatural can exist and the world reverts to the mundane one, referencing the end of the book where Quixote was cured of his delusions.
- Limbus Company (2023): One of the 12 Sinners (aka main characters) is a tomboyish female version of Don Quixote (really Sancho) with the same name and a similar obsession with noble heroes and grand deeds. The 7th Canto (chapter) of the game is focussed on her and basically serves as an adaptation of the story but with vampires.
Western Animation
- Don Quijote de la Mancha, 1979-1980 Spanish series directed by Cruz Delgado and José Romagosa. Remarkably Truer to the Text than most adaptations.
- The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda, 1990-1991 Hanna-Barbera animated series. This is set in a World of Funny Animals, and stars a delusional coyote who tries to be a knight to the exasperation of his panda sidekick. Don Coyote constantly hallucinates that everyday objects are monsters and that ordinary people, usually males, are damsels in distress. However, the duo sometimes had victories over real evildoers.
- A different Don Coyote turns up in a Danger Mouse episode around the same season. This version enlists Penfold as his Sancho Panza as they tilt at a windmill where Baron Greenback is holed up.