Best Movies Based On A Book

All these movie threads - and a discussion about memoirs Of A Geisha - got me thinking about movies based on books. Most such movies don't do the original book justice, but a few do.

The Godfather - Have to list I and II.
Lord Of The Rings - No, it wasn't perfect, but it did a darned good job of the books.

Any others?

Sin City was extremely faithful to the original graphic novels.
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was also sympathetically done.

I missed a discussion on Memoirs of a Geisha? When? Where? That was a nice adaptation.

LOTR is on top there.

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe was good, but the kids lacked charm.

Spiderman movies aren't bad at all. Ok, they got some stuff wrong & moved around, but overall good.

The Harry Potter movies are good.

I still think Davic Lynch was the only man on the planet that could have brought Dune to the big screen. Amazing was of translating a future that no one dares write about these days.

The year 10,191 is very hard to have people understand.

Heading a little off topic here as there are no great book adaptations hitting me between the eyes but as far as bad adaptations go...

Captain Corelli's Mandolin was a travesty !!

Stephen King's The Shining. Jack Nicholson is one scary dude
Most of the movies based upon Stephen King novels stay true. Note I said most! I know The Stand and Cats Eye were bad.

On neil_r off-topic direction, I Robot was a horrible treatment!

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- Hunter S Thompson
The Stand -- Stephen King (made for TV, so it was a tad "hoaky"...but I really liked it for some reason...6 hours long! (I think))

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Alive by Piers Read
The Body by Stephen King (one story in Different Seasons) became Stand by Me.

The Ten Commandments?

More seriously, Field of Dreams based on Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella.

I'm a sucker for sentimental movies. My all time favourite is It's A Wonderful Life which isn't based on a book.

We Were Soldiers, Jarhead and Black Hawk Down pretty much stayed true to the books.

I just hope that they don't butch Tom Clancy's Rainbox Six.

Going back a few decades:
From Here to Eternity - James Jones

Going back a century or so (the book, not the movie):
Ben Hur - Lew Wallace

Best Movie based on a short story:
Memento

Cheers!

Gone With The Wind.. if you hadn't read the book you wouldn't have missed the extra husband and two other children.. and to be honest didn't anyway...

2001 a Space Oddessy has to get a mention, it was certainly better in movie form than it was as a book.


The LOTR trilogy has to be in the top ten, while not a perfect rendition of the books, the movies stayed true to the ideals and themes presented by Tolkien.

BladeRunner,. did not stay true to the Book, (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) and despite being a huge fan of the Author, the Movie was MUCH BETTER! (very rare indeed)

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest Some who've read it hate the movie, to me this is nonsense, yes a movie is a different genre, it has to be, and this movie is wonderful.
The Shining (weird, both with Jack)
Some more good King adaptations,
Stand By Me
Shawshank Redemption
Green Mile

The Fifth Element
O-Kay, NOT based on a Book, but in fact based on the entire run of issues of "Heavy Metal" Magazines with all of there myriad authors and artists over the decades.
It's simply an amazing visual and atmospheric homage that very accurately portrays the whole flavor of the magazine.


Hmmm.. this is a surprisingly short list,. I'm glad the question wasn't which adaptations to film "sucked" I'd be typing fro hours.