Name a movie that was almost as good or as good as the book...

[one_voice]

I'll start..usually the movie version of the book sucks..but I thought

The Pelican Brief, A Time to Kill and The Client were pretty close to the book.

[Tobin S.]

1. The Green Mile was good both as a book and as a movie

[one_voice]

6. Oh yeah

I forgot about that one. I enjoyed the movie as much as the book.

[Richard Steele]

2. The Silence of the Lambs.

I also thought they did a great job with "Catch 22", way back when.

[Richard Steele]

3. Also, "Blade Runner" was much better than the book it was based on, IMHO. nm

[paulsby]

15. have you seen the director's cut

btw.

and fwiw, i recognize that sometimes director cuts are either gimmicks or very indulgent

but the DC of blade runner is really good. it cuts out the voice over narration

myunderstanding is that the studio insisted on a voice over narration, because they thought the movie would be too hard to follow w/o it.

that MAY be true. since i've seen it (several dozen times), i can't watch the movie w.o knowing it so well

be itneresting to know for somebody who saw the movie for the first time, if the DC worked well for them

regardless, what a GREAT GREAT movie

[bikebloke]

37. I saw it completely as the director's cut.

Over the years, I caught segments of it in various hostels as I was travelling - it might have been dubbed into other languages a couple times. Recently, I finally picked up the director's cut through Netflix. It was fine with me.

[Duer 157099]

4. Kubrick's The Shining outdid the King novel by lightyears n/t

[XemaSab]

8. The book was good

The movie cut a lot of stuff out of the book, and to good effect.

The book was small picture, and the book was big picture. Both were scary.

[Swede]

5. Bourne movies I thought were as good as the books.

If not better.

[one_voice]

7. I loved the books..

The movies were good.

[bigwillq]

52. Hated the movie

Loved the books. Only watched the first movie and I hated it.

[LibDemAlways]

9. The Godfather n/t

[donheld]

10. Misery

Kathy Bates was fabulous by the way.

[BlooInBloo]

11. I'm sure 1001 dorks will quickly whine, but Lord of the Rings was a damn good set of flicks.

[Lindsey]

12. To Kill A Mockingbird. n/t

[tblue]

25. That's what I was gonna say. Also Rosemary's Baby. nt

[BrklynLiberal]

46. Ditto

[Dr Morbius]

22. LotR was better than the books.

Recall the trilogy had the climax of the story some 150 pages before the end. The whole "scouring of the Shire" bit was unnecessary. I didn't like the fact that they left out Tom Bombadil, but every other change made was pretty smart. I really believe the movies were better than the books. I still recommend the books, though.

Did someone mention Kubrick's The Shining? How about Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange?

The original book Carrie was OK, but the Sissy Spacek movie was excellent. The Russian film version of Tolstoy's War and Peace was very good, as I recall; the book is agonizingly long. Also Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago; the book is interminal but the movie moves along fairly well (and Lara's pretty, of course). Sometimes I think Russian writers want the reader to suffer to appreciate what it feels like to be Russian.

There are many others but I can't think of any at the moment.

[nickinSTL]

24. completely agree

but then, I never read the books.

Ok, I've listened to the 1st and 2nd on CD while driving to Florida and back...was completely unimpressed. Maybe it'd be different if I actually read them, but...I enjoyed the movies a lot more.

And I'd expect hard core LOTR fans to consider that sacrilege.

[PurityOfEssence]

13. On the Beach, The Man Who Would Be King

The first is VERY close to the book, and when such a thing is possible, it often works out fairly well.

The second one proves the point that short stories can be GREAT sources for movies; the original story is only 36 pages long, or at least that's the length in the edition I read.

Some books make better movies than the originals, with The Godfather being a classic example.

[paulsby]

14. the godfather I/II movies

arguably, they are better than the book

also...

the exorcist.

great book, but incredible movie (imo)

full metal jacket (book was called "the short timers" iirc.)

[one_voice]

33. I didn't know

Full Metal Jacket was based on a book.

I went to see a movie called The Believers..and I knew what was gonna happen next,how it was going to end etc..it was weird. Till the end of the movie where it said it was based on the book The Religion...which I'd read a while before I'd seen the movie.

It was a decent movie, but the book was better.

[jobycom]

38. The Name of the Rose.

The book was brilliant, even though it was a little dense for most people. The movie chopped out all the density and instead focused on the characters and their absurdities. Very different from the book, but very good in its own way.

The density of the book was in trying to recreate the intellectual and theological background of the monastery and of medieveal life, so the reader would understand the conflicts between the characters, and their interpretations of events. It was brilliantly handled--one of the very few times I've seen a book or movie really compare the different mentalities of the Middle Ages and ours without resorting to time travel.

It's even more rare for a movie to do that, but the movie used visual oddities to replace all the complicated theology of the book. Instead of trying to recreate the book, it made a movie using the basic plot of the book while freeing itself enough to make an understandable movie.

In case anyone cares. :)

[Orrex]

56. Whoa--is it possible that we agree on a film?!?

Loved the movie from the very first time I saw it and loved the excellent book when I read it many years later.

In fact, I liked the film even more after having read the book because by then I'd gained an appreciation for Eco's style and was able to "get" certain of his jokes that I'd missed on first viewing the film.

Fantastic casting and brilliantly filmed. Terrific from start to finish!

[jobycom]

64. You can't possibly read Eco.

I mean, you like all that bad stuff... You just can't...

:wow:

Next you'll tell me you liked "Brick."

[Orrex]

66. Are you kidding? I've read Foucault's Pendulum four times!

Most recently in an effort to cleanse my brain after having accidentally watched The Da Vinci Code.

I've read all of Eco's novels but very few of his scholarly essays. After Foucault and Rose, I'd say that The Island of the Day Before is probably my next favorite.


And Brick was awesome!

[jobycom]

68. I... uh...

:scared:

[Orrex]

69. That's right, baby.

:evilgrin:

[myrna minx]

93. Eco is one of my favorite writers and I have to agree with you about the Name of the Rose.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the film.

[Orrex]

16. Jaws the film was better than Jaws the book

[taterguy]

17. Most of the James Bond movies

[Phentex]

18. The Harry Potter movies...

Difficult to make but I thought they translated to the big screen very well.

[joeybee12]

19. Gone with the Wind, of course...I didn't care for the book, and still don't,

but the movie is a textbook case of how to adapt a book into a movie.

[alphafemale]

20. To Kill A Mockingbird - The Grapes of Wrath - Psycho - Jaws

[Paladin]

21. "Lonesome Dove"

OK, it was a TV movie, but cut me a little slack. Virtually a word-for-word, scene-for-scene treatment of McMurtry's classic Western novel, with a top-notch cast. Favorite scene: the old rangers' treatment of that snotty bartender.......

[jobycom]

36. It transcended the average Made for TV anything.

One of the best westerns ever, I think. Robert Duvall's Gus McCrae was perfect and just as complicated as McMurtry's character.

Of course, with a miniseries they had a lot of time to develop the character. One reason a lot of movies fall short of the books is just the amount of time they have to show the book.

[Paladin]

40. And The Emmys Totally Ignored It.

Haven't watched an Emmy presentation in all the years since......

[Happyhippychick]

41. +1 and a big ol' "Hell Yes!". My favorite part is that the characters looked EXACTLY as I pictured

them.

[pokerfan]

90. Favorite scene

Woodrow's fight with the Army Scout...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEwADbas7L0

And from the novel:

       It was the squeal that caught Call's attention. After loading the heavy oak water barrel, he and Augustus had stepped back into the store a minute. Augustus was contemplating buying a lighter pistol to replace the big Colt he carried, but he decided against it. He carried out some of the things he had bought for Lorena, and Call took a sack of flour. They heard the horse squeal while they were still in the store, and came out to see Dixon quirting Newt, as Dish Boggett's mare turned round and round. Two cowboys lay on the ground, one of them Dish.
       "I thought that son of a bitch was a bad one," Augustus said. He pitched the goods in the wagon and drew his pistol.
       Call dropped the sack of flour onto the tailgate and quickly swung onto the Hell Bitch.
       "Don't shoot him," he said. "Just watch the soldiers."
       He saw Dixon again savagely quirt the boy across the back of the neck, and anger flooded him, of a kind he had not felt in many years. He put spurs to the Hell Bitch and she raced down the street and burst through the surprised soldiers. Dixon, intent on his quirting, was the last to see Call, who made no attempt to check the Hell Bitch. Dixon tried to jerk his mount out of the way at the last minute, but his nervous mount merely turned into the charge and the two horses collided. Call kept his seat and the Hell Bitch kept her feet, but Dixon's horse went down, throwing him hard in the process. Sugar nearly trampled Newt, trying to get out of the melee. Dixon's horse struggled to its feet practically underneath Sugar. There was dust everywhere.
       Dixon sprang up, not hurt by the fall, but disoriented. When he turned, Call had dismounted and was running at him. He didn't look large, and Dixon was puzzled that the man would charge him that way. He reached for his pistol, not realizing he still had the quirt looped around his wrist. The quirt interfered with his draw and Call ran right into him, just as his horse had run into Dixon's horse. Dixon was knocked down again, and when he turned his head to look up he saw a boot coming at his eye.
       "You wouldn't," he said, meaning to tell the man not to kick, but the boot hit his face before he could get his words out.
       The six soldiers, watching, were too astonished to move. The smallseeming cowman kicked Dixon so hard in the face that it seemed his head would fly off. Then the man stood over Dixon, who spat out blood and teeth. When Dixon struggled to his feet, the smaller man immediately knocked him down again and then ground his face into the dirt with a boot.
       "He's gonna kill him," one soldier said, his face going white. "He's gonna kill Dixon."
       Newt thought so too. He had never seen such a look of fury as was on the Captain's face when he attacked the big scout. It was clear that Dixon, though larger, had no chance. Dixon never landed a blow, or even tried one. Newt felt he might get sick just seeing the way the Captain punished the man.
       Dish Boggett sat up, holding his head, and saw Captain Call dragging the big scout by his buckskin shirt. The fight had carried a few yards down the street to a blacksmith shop with a big anvil sitting in front of it. To Dish's astonishment, the Captain straddled Dixon and started banging his head against the anvil.
       "He'll kill him," he said out loud, forgetting that a few moments before he too had wanted to kill the scout.

[Alexander]

23. Fight Club. In fact, the movie was better than the book.

Author Chuck Palahniuk said so himself, so you know it's true.

[tblue]

26. Fried Green Tomatoes and The Joy Luck Club. nt

[mainstreetonce]

27. Love Story

Love Story better than the book

[orion007]

28. A Beautiful Mind.......John Nash

I saw the movie first then read the book.
The movie didn't address his homosexual encounters, belief in aliens and spaceships, and his obsession with Isreal.
Both were well done.

[Flaxbee]

29. Emma Thompson's Pride and Prejudice adaptation

was wonderful... she did an excellent job adapting the book, a well-deserved Oscar for her, I thought.

[Common Sense Party]

65. Wasn't that Sense and Sensibility?

I thought the A&E miniseries version of Pride & Prejudice was excellent; better than the book.

(The Keira Knightley version was an atrocity.)

[Flaxbee]

84. You're absolutely right. And I'm half brain-dead

:D

It was Sense and Sensibility!

[Common Sense Party]

86. And Emma Thompson was wonderful in that.

But I'm so challenged that I always want to say that Emma Thompson starred in "Emma," not Sense & Sensibility.

[nuxvomica]

30. "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer"

I loved the book and never expected anyone would try to make a movie out of it because so much of the description in the novel revolved around the sense of smell. But the movie was awesome. I recommend both.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396171/

[BrklynLiberal]

47. Wow! I never knew they made it into a film!!

[IcyPeas]

31. Girl With the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

[Liberal Veteran]

32. Contact.

Not quite as deep or rich as the book, but I loved the adaptation to the big screen.

[BethCA66]

34. Battlefield Earth n/t

[pinboy3niner]

35. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

ED.: AND King Rat

[Dystopian]

42. Yes....

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the one and only movie that comes to mind...
I don't watch many movies...

I've read The Grapes of Wrath 3X....when I saw it on TV, I had to turn it off...


peace~

[BrklynLiberal]

48. I agree with both choices

[pinboy3niner]

72. I admire your good taste :) nt

[begin_within]

62. In my opinion, the movie isn't even in the same league as the book.

Ken Kesey hated the movie version and I have to agree. The movie is completely missing some important aspects of the book (the allegorical nature of it, for one, and the narrator character, for another). The movie is a bastardization of the book and the only good thing about the movie is that it may lead some people to read the book.

[pinboy3niner]

70. I respect your opinion

Movies necessarily omit some portions of a book's narrative, and the omissions are guaranteed to offend SOMEONE. Usually that someone is ME, because what I want to see on the screen is the great book that I read. C'est la vie.

I don't know that we really have much of a disagreement. Compared to the book, the movie is certainly flawed. At the same time, I'm impressed that the movie was able to capture as much from the book as it did. I wouldn't rely much on Kesey's opinion, as he could be both brilliant and flaky (a bus named "Further"--c'mon:) ). I think one plus is that the movie had a great cast, with wonderful performances.

And if a movie inspires people to read the book, all the more power to it . . .

[Tikki]

39. I believe "Charly" was a fine adaptation of...

Daniel Keyes..."Flowers For Algernon".



Tikki

[BrklynLiberal]

50. Yes. It caught the sadness.....Charly's realization

It was done on TV first. I saw it then too. In 1961 it was on "The United States Steel Hour". It was called "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon" and also starred Cliff Robertson

[pinboy3niner]

71. Absolutely--thanks for reminding me

I read the story in a HS lit class around the time the movie came out. It was a wonderful adaptation, and Cliff Robertson was great in it.

The real shame is that this movie, for whatever reason, has not been more available. I've never seen it aired on TV, though it should be. It may not be "Lawrence of Arabia," but in my book, it's a classic.

[Pharlo]

43. Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' - film version with Cirian Hand.

There was a "Masterpiece Theatre" version of Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" that I thought was better than the book, but it was several episodes long, so I don't know if that makes a difference because it wasn't necessarily 'a film'.

I enjoyed the film version of the Bernard Cornwell "Sharpe" with Sean Bean over the book versions.

I actually liked the film version of Grisham's "A Time to Kill" more than I liked the book.

And, Oscar Wilde's 'Portrait of Dorian Gray'. Film was definitely better than the book.

[Arugula Latte]

44. "The Hours"

It was very faithful to the book, and both were great.

[fishwax]

45. No Country for Old Men

[Orrex]

57. As much as I hate to say it, the film is indeed more effective than the book

I don't say that lightly, either, because I'm a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy. The Coen brothers made some excellent choices when adapting the book, and they all improved upon what was already a very well-written story.


And casting Bardem as Chigurh as nightmarishly perfect!

[fishwax]

63. I love the book as well

It's a really cinematic book anyway, and while it certainly could have been a bad movie in the wrong hands, the Coens sculpted it perfectly--refining with deft hands where necessary but also smart enough to know what not to mess with.

As a result, having watched the film actually enriches the book, which I'll be rereading here in a couple of days :)

"And casting Bardem as Chigurh as nightmarishly perfect!"

Indeed!

[Inspired]

49. The Exorcist. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

51. Read the book and was so terrified that I would never go to see the movie.

[Inspired]

76. I know!

I saw the movie during its first run at the theaters. I waited in line for hours. Many people left early because they couldn't take it! To this day, whenever I hear the song Tubular Bells, I get chills.

[BrklynLiberal]

82. I slept with a light on for months..

[krispos42]

53. "The Hunt for Red October" I thought was done very well. n/t

[Common Sense Party]

67. It was pretty good, though Alec Baldwin isn't a great Jack Ryan.

I thought the book was more suspenseful, even despite wading through Clancy's exhaustive submarine descriptions.

[JTG of the PRB]

54. With the exception of two things, the Lord of the Rings movies were exceptionally good.

I love the books, and I love the movies just as much.

[Orrex]

55. Which two things?

:popcorn:

[JTG of the PRB]

58. 1) The absence of Tom Bombadil (understandable but disappointing)...

and 2), the way Frodo sent Sam away when Gollum was leading them up the path to the Morgul Pass. Completely out of character for Frodo to send Sam away AND for Sam to go along with it, and it nearly broke my focus on the movie.

Other than that, very very good!

[Orrex]

59. Valid complaints, I'd say.

If Jackson had kept Bombadil, then everyone who hadn't read the books would be wondering what the heck this super-powerful character was doing during all of those battles! Even Gandalf's argument that Bombadil "might lose track of the Ring" (or whatever) would have seemed contrived and disappointing onscreen, I think. Tolkien can get away with it because he's Tolkien, and because he has the entire Silmarillion to back him up!

Friends of mine also complained that Glorfindel was cut out, but again the audience would have wondered where this might character had gone after sluicing the Nazgul downstream.

[JTG of the PRB]

60. I was okay with the loss of Glorfindel, and I agree that it would have been confusing to some.

The only other thing that I can think of was how the elves of Lothlórien marched to join the battle at Helm's Deep, which definitely did not happen in the books, as the elves had problems of their own to deal with. But that addition made sense, since a lot of people would have been very skeptical about a force of several hundred men from Rohan holding off thousands of Uruk-hai through the night.

[appal_jack]

89. Agreed, plus Faramir's revisions

The contrast between Faramir and Boromir was much less poignant in the movies than in the books. I could see no reason to have muted this powerful statement about how all humans, even brothers, can be so different.

But Peter Jackson did a fine job overall...

-app

[JTG of the PRB]

92. Agreed, that was another one I had to think about to decide if I liked it or not.

In the end, I think it wound up working out, with both brothers displaying weakness in their own ways before atoning for it - Boromir when it was too late, Faramir before it was. I would have liked to see a bit more of Faramir in the movies, particularly RotK, but I'm willing to accept his lessened role just because that movie was so, so good.

[MiddleFingerMom]

61. John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row"...

.
...with Nick Nolte and Debra Winger (it was actually based on that book
and its sequel, "Sweet Thursday").
.
Both the book AND the movie would reach my list of top 5-10 favorites.
.

[SKKY]

73. I thought Forrest Gump was pretty good...

...and kept the general theme of the book.

[wickerwoman]

74. The Butcher Boy

[pepperbear]

75. "How Green Was My Valley", "Psycho", and "A Clockwork Orange" n/t

[cleveramerican]

77. The Shawshank Redemption

Great book/great movie
hard to say which was better

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

78. History of the World, Part 1

I read the textbook in high school. The movie was probably more accurate.

:hi:

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

79. Children of Men was absolutely amazing

also Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

[pitohui]

80. wow two great choices

these are the two picks i would make -- a clockwork orange was actually a good book but a better movie

children of men was a meh book by a suspense writer w. NO knowledge of sf -- the movie was just plain beautiful compared to the book which was quite dry and had the atmosphere of something being told to you by an old boring old dude

i like james mystery books don't get me wrong but she's no SF writer

another book and i hate to admit it, because i'm an SF fan is BLADE RUNNER, the worst of pkd's novels that became a beautiful and memorable movie

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

91. oh my I forgot about Blade Runner, that is a great choice

[Mike 03]

81. The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

To my surprise, No Country For Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy

The World According to Garp was a very nice try. Kudos to George Roy Hill.

[Lionel Mandrake]

83. The African Queen

IMO the 1951 movie was better than the book.

[Riftaxe]

85. "The Princess Bride"

I had read Goldman's book a few years before the movie, but found the movie much more funny.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

87. I absolutely hated The Client

Sure, it was great to have Susan Sarandon in The Client and she did a good job but the movie itself was absolutely awful. They transformed one of the shady characters into a good guy, they botched the ending and Mary Louise Parker was woeful as Mark's mother. The book was perhaps my favorite of John Grisham's novels but the movie just stripped away all its charm and appeal for me. One of the worst movies I've seen in my life

A Time To Kill was quite well done but Sandra Bullock was horribly miscast in this movie -I loved the character of Ellen in the book but they destroyed her in the movie by choosing to have Sandra Bullock in the role. She was absolutely breathtakingly appalling

Can't remember enough about the Pelican Brief -though I remember liking it when it came out and thinking Denzel Washington did a good job

I think the Rainmaker was probably the best movie adaptation of all the John Grisham novels -all the actors seemed perfectly casted for their characters and the movie actually captured much of the charm and humor of the book

Other than that, I'd have to go with "To Kill A Mockingbird". Gregory Peck was the definitive Atticus and everything about that movie seemed done to perfection

[RFKHumphreyObama]

88. Also Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Hamlet was great

OK...not really a book but it was probably the best adaptation of that play I've seen and very well-casted.

The BBC version of I Claudius also deserves an honorable mention

[bif]

94. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape"