# Movies That Are Better Than Their Books



## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

Personally, I hate hearing the phrase "it's not as good as the book" after I've enjoyed a movie. They are two different art forms, with two different storytelling needs.

So, in spite of myself, I want to turn the argument on its head.

Which movies do you think are better than their source material?

I'll start with Jurassic Park, which is a fantastic movie and fairly good book.

Remember, this isn't about comparing the book to the movie per se, but about saying if the movie is a better movie than the book is a book. So to speak.

All Hitchcock movies are automatically added to the list.


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## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

_Ordinary People_, IMHO. I enjoyed both, but the film was more emotionally powerful.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

"The Lord of the Rings" didn't put me to sleep, unlike the novel.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

LOTR: terrible books, terrible films.

Has anyone read Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp? Is it a good book? Because Die Hard is obviously a fantastic movie.


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## thejosh86 (Mar 1, 2011)

I'm curious to hear what people think of the James Bond movies. I, for one, haven't read any of Ian Flemings stories, but I know that the movies, for the most part, are only loosely based on them.


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

Fried Green Tomatoes.


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## Maurice X. Alvarez (Feb 20, 2011)

Christine by Stephen King.  The movie was well done, but the book was better.


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## Stephen T. Harper (Dec 20, 2010)

Jaws.  They started shooting without a complete script, rewrote on the fly when the shark didn't work, and the movie was still 10 times better than the book.  The book is good on page 1, with a cool description of the shark.  It goes downhill fast after that, culminating in a scene completely ripped from Moby Dick, which, surprisingly, the movie people had the good sense to ignore.  Oh, and Spielberg also brought in John Milius for a day or so to write the awesome "USS Indianappolis" monologue for Robert Shaw which was also not in the book.

Definitely Jaws.  Great movie made by mostly ignoring a fairly lousy book.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

See the Good Book, BETTER Movie thread.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

Blade Runner (based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"). That's one awesome movie.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow. The book stands out in my mind as one of the most tedious things I ever read, but the movie was pretty good.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

Jaws is a perfect example.

I recommend The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb for some excellent behind the scenes info and trivia about the making of it.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

American Psycho. Great movie that captured the book without going over the top like the book.


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## SidneyW (Aug 6, 2010)

sighdone said:


> ...Has anyone read Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp? Is it a good book? Because Die Hard is obviously a fantastic movie.


I read it a while back. As I recall, it's pretty good but darker than the movie. It's a cop and daughter if I'm remembering correctly. I think it's the same cop from "The Detective," the Sinatra film also based on a Thorpe book. 55 Minutes, the book Die Hard 2 is based on is pretty good and different than the film.

On another note, Shoeless Joe is a good book, but Field of Dreams does a nice job of compressing some of the storyline.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

I forgot the second one was based on a book too.


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## Cheryl Shireman (Feb 11, 2011)

I thought Misery was MUCH better as a movie, but then again I am not a big Stephen King fan.

Before you King fans throw rotten eggs at me - my husband IS a Stephen King fan and I buy King's books for him.  

And - I bought On Writing by King and enjoyed it.


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## mooshie78 (Jul 15, 2010)

The Road.  Movie is a great adaptation.  Liked the story in the book, but hated the writing style.

The Godfather.  Maybe the best movie ever, book is mediocre at best and bogged down with useless crap like the oversized vagina sub-plot etc.


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## Joseph Robert Lewis (Oct 31, 2010)

Fight Club. Books are great for talking about ideas, but films are better for shock value and timing and impact.


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## Leigh Reynolds (Mar 2, 2011)

Jaws, for sure.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

Just to derail the thread slightly ...

Have you ever been reading a fairly average book, but realised it would make a good movie?


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## Jack Wallen (Feb 9, 2011)

Here's a few in my opinion:

Let The Right One In.
Daywatch.
Needful Things.
Dexter (the series).

That's all I have off the top of my head.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

The Dexter books are on my wishlist.

Will I be disappointed then, considering I think the show is excellent?


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## Randy Kadish (Feb 24, 2010)

A River Runs Through It.
Randy


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

Forrest Gump.  I thought the movie was pretty lame and figured the book had to be better.  I was less than thrilled to see it was worse.

+1 on LOTR.

Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince.  They cut a lot of the painful whinyness out.  I haven't seen DH I yet to see if it's better.  But, with as much as DH lent itself to grand visuals I assume DH I & II will be better.


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## Averydebow (Jan 20, 2011)

Christopher Bunn said:


> Blade Runner (based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"). That's one awesome movie.


I agree wholeheartedly. The novella was rather anticlimactic, if I recall.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

Nobody's mentioned _How to Train Your Dragon_? I'm shocked!


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## hs (Feb 15, 2011)

I like the Disney animated feature adaptations of many books better than the books themselves. Bambi and Little Mermaid are two that come to mind, but it probably applies to other Disney classics.


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## SeanPB (Feb 23, 2011)

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.  I enjoyed the graphic novel, but I thought the screenwriters did a much better job with the basic premise.


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## WestofMars (Sep 16, 2009)

Joyce Maynard's To Die For.

Say all you want about the cast -- Matt Dillon and Nicole Kidman -- but the visual at the end was  SO much better than the written word. Packed WAY more of a punch.


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## Blanche (Jan 4, 2010)

"The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper.  I have had to read this classic twice over the years and I just get bogged down in the writing style and can never finish.  However I have enjoyed the movies -- and not just because of Daniel Day Lewis.  .


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## caseyf6 (Mar 28, 2010)

Shrek, hands down. Has anyone ever SEEN the book it's based off?



Pure awfulness.


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## RhondaRN (Dec 27, 2009)

Though I loved these books, the movies were better:  Lord of the Rings and Fried Green Tomatoes

I saw Last of the Mohican's and LOVED the movie.  I tried to read the book several times last year and gave up.  I just hated it.


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## Averydebow (Jan 20, 2011)

Practical Magic is another.  The book was far different.  Not bad, but I liked the movie much better.  Might have had something to do with Stockard Channing and Diane Weist, though.


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## Christine Kersey (Feb 13, 2011)

Almost without fail I find the book version of a story better than the movie version. The one exception was Lord of the Rings. I would have preferred in the books if he would have cut back and forth between the different characters rather than do such a long section on one then switch to the other. Of course, writing styles were different back then.


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## JimJ (Mar 3, 2009)

sighdone said:


> The Dexter books are on my wishlist.
> 
> Will I be disappointed then, considering I think the show is excellent?


Maybe. The characters aren't nearly as well devloped as in the show. The first book is the basis for the first season (though the show changed a lot) but after that the show came up with original stories. I really enjoyed the second book, since I didn't really have anything to compare it to. Not that I didn't like the first but I liked the second much more. Haven't gotten around to the others yet. The third book seems to be pretty hated because it introduces a supernatural element to the story, which sounds like a horrible idea to me.


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## CegAbq (Mar 17, 2009)

The Firm (John Grisham)


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2011)

The Mist -the movie outdid the book. Even Stephen King said that the director made a great job and he himself would have liked that kind of ending for his book.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

I think I will try the Dexter books though.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

I've recently read a couple of graphic novels that were made into movies, Red and The Losers. Both the movies were great, but the comics were pretty ordinary and lacked the humour and depth I assumed the novels would have. Red was especially good and rose far above the pretty small concept of the comic.


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## DavidMacinnisGill (Mar 4, 2011)

Averydebow said:


> I agree wholeheartedly. The novella was rather anticlimactic, if I recall.


Blade Runner--especially the cut without the annoying voice-over--is one of my favorite films. I didn't enjoy the novella nearly as much.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

How about good tie-in novels?

I seem to remember the Back To The Future novel being a good read.


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

Fight Club,  The Time Machine (1960's version)


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

The Swedish films of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy are superior to the books on which they're based. 

By miles. It remains to be seen what the big-star big-money Hollywood remakes will be like, but I'm not holding my breath.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Almost anything by Philip K. Dick that has been filmed has made a better movie than the novella or short story on which it was based. The prime example is Blade Runner, already mentioned; the movie leaves the novella for dead in richness of texture and tone.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

Daniel Arenson said:


> _Ordinary People_, IMHO. I enjoyed both, but the film was more emotionally powerful.


Good one. The acting in that movie is incredible--brings me to tears every time I see it. Mary Tyler Moore makes me want to shake some sense into her character.

I love _A Room with a View _ the movie better than the book version. Merchant-Ivory does such a lovely job with the filming--I feel like I've taken a time machine back to 19th century England and Italy whenever I watch that movie.


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## Brandon514 (Mar 5, 2011)

I would say the "Harry Potter" series of novels is definitely better than the string of movies that they inspired; only because the books contain far greater detail.


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## ciscokid (Oct 10, 2010)

Forrest Gump.  That was absolutely the worst book I have ever read.  How someone took that book and made it into one of the best movies ever is a mystery to me.


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