"Better Than The Book Adaptation" Topic

On the cheery side, what movie does the best better than the book adaptation?

Here's a few to get started

Blade Runner
A Clockwork Orange
Doctor Strangelove
Forrest Gump
The Godfather
The Hunt for Red October
Jaws
Last of the Mohicans
The Princess Bride
The Warriors (1979)

Most are good marginally better choices, but The Godfather is heads above the book.
The book is trashy writing. The movie is one of the best ever made.

Go Tell the Spartans
Omega Man

I'll second Omega Man. I thought of it before I even clicked on the thread. The Howard/Oberon Scarlet Pimpernel is another contender, and arguably the Flynn Captain Blood. Maybe Kennel Murder Case, The Big Sleep and The Thin Man. Most versions of Hound of the Baskervilles, come to that. The plot's just better suited for film.

And--probably slightly outside the poll--the best version of Valley of Fear is a radio drama.

And I'll toss in a couple which defy the entire dichotomy--Major Dundee and El Cid. In both cases, I'd argue that the book was better than the movie--Markedly so with Major Dundee--but both books were "novelizations" based on the scripts of the movie. I think the answer is that El Cid just needed the additional room (and sex) and that the draft script for Major Dundee was more than Pekinpah had budget or maybe even technical expertise to carry out.

The Warriors movie is miles ahead of the pure crap novel by Sol Yurick that inspired it!

The Warriors movie is miles ahead of the pure crap novel by Sol Yurick that inspired it!

But maybe not better than the original that inspired that – the Anabasis!

Also "El Poema del Cid Mio" is better than the movie or the book.

For a lot of titles it depends on the version of the book and the version of the movie. Robin Hood comes to mind here.

Mary Poppins
Lives of a Bengal Lancer

War of the Worlds George Pal version is better than the book. The book has too much about the curate that is creepy and boring and stupid.

And to follow robert piepenbrink's lead, the Orson Wells radio play is better than the book, but not as good as the movie.
Bunkermeister

I'm a heretic, but I say Lord of the Rings. I find the books slow, overwrought, and not interesting. I like my fantasy characters to do something, not dawdle over scenery and sing songs.

Planet of the Apes (original)

I must admit that having Aragorn, Legolas and Gillis prepare Boromir for his funeral boat, and then taking far too many pages to sing for him… while "They're taking the hobbit to Usengard!"
Yeah. 🙄
Oh look! A hobbit dropped a brooch!

The Searchers. Novel is good. Movie in excellent. World War Z. The Last of the Mohicans. Northwest Passage.

Scaramouche for one.

Three Musketeers for another. The hero's are only interested in money in the book, except for D'Artagnan who betrays king ad country for a woman he maybe kisses once or twice???

Jackson ruins LotR. The films should have the phrase ‘vaguely based on..' at the start. Dialogue moved between characters, bits chopped out, Aragorn becoming unsure and generally having a hatchet job taken to the book.

War of the Worlds is a great book, fast better than any film/tv version. However, I can see why an American would prefer it to be set in America rather than Woking.

So far LotM is my worse book to best movie
And Jackson ruined LotR

Goldfinger

I agree with John the OFM: The Godfather movie vastly superior to the book.

I found the book and movie of A Clockwork Orange to be equally good, but in very different ways.

Goldfinger: Movie much better than book

Some Bond novels are better than the movies, and some the other way around.

Lost Horizon: Book (1933) is better than the (1937) movie.