The Da Vinci Code, Illuminati and Inferno: Dan Brown's best-selling novels in film

The film adaptations of Dan Brown's stories offer exciting scavenger hunts through catacombs, libraries, crypts and churches - along with pretty young women accompanying Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks). In the latest blockbuster, "Inferno," Felicity Jones depicts the smart doctor Sienna Brooks. The two of them have to prevent a deadly plague from decimating humanity.

The first film featuring Robert Langdon, "Sacrilege - The Da Vinci Code" (2006), was the adaptation of Dan Brown's second novel of the series. The Harvard professor of symbology heads to the Louvre in Paris, where the curator of the museum is found dead. Hidden clues suggest that the murder has something to do with the works of Leonardo da Vinci and a dark conspiracy.

In the "Da Vinci Code" case, Langdon is accompanied by the granddaughter of the murdered curator. Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) is a cryptologist. In Paris and London, they try to solve the "cryptex," the key to the Holy Grail, and are prosecuted and threatened not only by a traitor, but also by members of the Opus Dei order.

Dan Brown's novels didn't make him popular with Church authorities. Catholics did not want to hear that Jesus Christ had a child with Mary Magdalene or that the "Holy Grail" could be the most precious relic of Catholicism. Brown's claims that the sect-like order Opus Dei was an elitist branch of the Vatican were also deemed unacceptable.

Langdon's second case, "Illuminati": In the Swiss particle accelerator CERN, physicists have managed to produce antimatter for the first time. The container is then stolen as the election of the new Pope is taking place in the Vatican. Meanwhile, the Illuminati, a secret and forbidden order, has kidnapped four cardinals, threatening the destruction of Vatican.

Together with the CERN physicist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), Langdon is on the trail of the Illuminati. The two of them race through secret corridors under the Vatican and run through Rome to save the Cardinals and decipher coded messages, while the antimatter container hides under St. Peter's Basilica - a ticking time bomb.

"Illuminati" was released in 2009 in theaters. The Church was portrayed more positively in this second film. Yet the Vatican didn't want to be associated in any way with Dan Brown's name, and prohibited all filming in the entire Roman diocese. The locations of the book all had to be reproduced in studio.

This time the key to the case is in the Boticelli painting "Dante's Inferno," which depicts the various stages of hell. This is where a mad billionaire wants to send humanity. The Inferno is said to be a deadly virus. Langdon and his partner only have 48 hours to prevent the plague. But Langdon has a problem: he suffers from memory loss.

Here too, the two main characters spend most of their time running away from the bad guys, trying to prevent a catastrophe before it's too late. This time, the production team had less problems obtaining permits for film locations: All scenes were shot in Venice, Florence, Istanbul and Budapest. This drone hunt takes place in the Boboli Gardens in Florence.