On 5 November 2019, the BBC published a list of novels selected by a panel of six writers and critics, who had been asked to choose 100 English language novels "that have had an impact on their lives". The resulting list of "100 novels that shaped our world", called the "100 'most inspiring' novels" by BBC News, was published by the BBC to kick off a year of celebrating literature.

• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
• Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Small Island by Andrea Levy
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith

• 1984 by George Orwell
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
• The Art of Fiction by Henry James
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Babe by Dick King-Smith
• Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi

• Ilíada - Homero
• Odisseia - Homero
• Hamlet - William Shakespeare
• O Engenhoso Fidalgo Dom Quixote de la Mancha - Miguel de Cervantes
• A Divina Comédia - Dante Alighieri
• Em Busca do Tempo Perdido - Marcel Proust
• Ulisses - James Joyce
• Guerra e Paz - Tolstói
• Crime e Castigo - Dostoiévski
• Os Ensaios - Michel de Montaigne
• Édipo Rei - Sófocles
• Otelo - Shakespeare
• Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
• Fausto - Goethe
• O Processo - Kafka
• Doutor Fausto - Thomas Mann
• As Flores do Mal - Charles Baudelaire
• O Som e a Fúria - William Faulkner
• A Terra Desolada - T. S. Eliot

Lista só vai até 2009, mas é uma referência para clássicos

• Viagem à Lua (Le Voyage Dans La Lune) | Georges Méliès (1902)
• O Grande Roubo do Trem (The Great Train Robbery) | Edwin S. Porter (1903)
• O Nascimento de uma Nação (The Birth of a Nation) | D. W. Griffith (1915)
• Os Vampiros (Les Vampires) | Louis Feuillade (1915)
• Intolerância (Intolerance) | D. W. Griffith (1916)
• O Gabinete do Dr. Caligari (Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari) | Robert Weine (1919)
• Lírio Partido (Broken Blossoms) | D. W. Griffith (1919)
• Inocente Pecadora (Way Down East) | D. W. Griffith (1920)
• Dentro de Nossos Portões (Within Our Gates) | Oscar Micheaux (1920)