The Turn of the Screw adaptations and reworkings in a variety of media, and these reworkings and adaptations have, themselves, been analysed in the academic literature on Henry James and neo-Victorian culture. It was adapted to an opera by Benjamin Britten, which premiered in 1954, and the opera has been filmed on numerous occasions. The novella was adapted as a ballet score (1980) by Luigi Zaninelli, and separately as a ballet (1999) by Will Tucket for the Royal Ballet. Harold Pinter directed "The Innocents" (1950), a Broadway play which was an adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw", and a subsequent eponymous stage play, adapted
The Turn of the Screw (2009 film) are explored. Gerard Gilbert, writing both for "The Independent" and The Arts Desk, felt that Ann's relationship to the Master was "unnecessarily sexed up", and that this element added nothing to the story, and, in fact, detracted from it. In his review of the American DVD release for the "Deseret Morning News", Chris Hicks said that he could not see why the changes had been made, and that the literalisation of the sex and violence detracted from the film. Whittaker suggested that "The Turn of the Screw" was "oddly sexually explicit", and that the changes were unnecessary for the plot.