Are there any film adaptations of books that you thought were better than the source material? One that comes to mind for me is "The Princess Bride". The film presents the story at a better pace than the original novel by removing subplots that would have slowed down the movie if they had been included.
shareStardust, Matilda, Jurassic Park, and Howl's Moving Castle. Also Big Fish (thought it's been a long time since I've read the book and can't really remember it all that well).
And I guess I like the Muppet's Christmas Carol more than the classic book, too.
It is pure superstition that the book is always better than the movie. Note carefully that there is a psychological explanation as to how this mistake emerged.
(a) Many people have read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”. When they learn that this book has been filmed, they will think, “I must see this movie”. And they will often be disappointed.
(b) “War and Peace” might have been selected by the sales promotion department because of the expectation about the general population. It may not have been selected by the director or the script-writer, and not on the ground that they felt that this book was suitable for a movie.
(c) Only a minority will see another movie, discover that it is a filmed novel (or short-story), and decide to read the book. But this minority [to which I belong] will be disappointed by the book just as often as the others by the movie. Moreover, most spectators will not even detect that a movie is based on a novel, if the novel is not well-known.
(d) If a director or a script-writer select a novel for a movie, and this novel is little known, the odds are that they realised that this book could yield a good movie (whether or not the novel itself was good or bad).
And now to my list. Movies are always presented first. Sometimes it is impossible to translate a title into English, and I had no choice except to apply acrobatic twisting.
(1) Marianne de ma jeunesse (Marianne of my Youth) (Julien Duvivier, 1955) & Peter de Mendelsohn: Schmerzliches Arkadien (Grievous Archadia)
(2) The Lady with the Dog (Yossif Kheifits, 1959) & Anton Tchekov: [same title]
(3) With Beauty and Sorrow (Masahiro Shinoda, 1965) & Yasunari Kawabata: [same title]
(4) Wild Birds (Alf Sjöberg, 1954) & Bengt Anderberg: Nisse Bortom [a name]
(5) Carrie (William Wyler, 1952) & Theodore Dreyser: Sister Carrie
(6) Something Wild (Jack Garfein, 1961) & Alex Karmel: Mary-Ann
(7) The Hibiscus Town (Jin, Xie, 1987) & Gu Hua: [same title]
(8) Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958) & Jerzy Andrzejewski: [same title]
(9) Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) & Stefan Zweig: [same title]
(10) These are the Damned (Joseph Losey, 1961) & H. L. Lawrence: The Children of Light
(11) The End of the Affair (Neil Jordan, 1998) & Graham Greene: [same title]
(12) Confused Feelings (Étienne Périer, 1979) & Stefan Zweig: [same title]
(13) Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955) & Fumiko Hayashi: [same title]
(14) Jean de Florette, I + II (Berri, Claude, 1986?1987) & Marcel Pagnol: [same title]
(15) Death in Venice (Luigi Visconti, 1971) & Thomas Mann: [same title]
(16) Deadly Through the Heart (Doris Dörrie, 1983) & Doris Dörrie: [same title]
(17) Men (Doris Dörrie, 1985) & Doris Dörrie: [same title]
(18) Dear John (Lars Magnus Lindgren, 1964) & Olle Länsberg: [same title]
(19) The Four Horsemen of the Apocalyse (Vincente Minelli, 1962) & Vicente Blasco-Ibanez: [same title]
(20) A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989) & André Brink : [same title]
(21) Pettersson & Bendel (Hasse Alfredsson, 1983) & Waldemar Hammenhög: [same title]
(22) The Booty (Roger Vadim, 1966) & Émile Zola: [same title]
(23) The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996) & Michael Ondaatje: [same title]
(24) The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995) & Robert James Waller: [same title]
(25) Man Hunt (Fritz Lang, 1941) & Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male
(26) The Cardinal (Otto Preminger, 1963) & Henry Morton Robinson: [same title]
(27) Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1973) & Joe David Brown: [same title]
(28) The Eighth Day (Anders Grönros, 1978) & Rose Lagercrantz: A Little Saving Girl
(29) Bo Ba Bu (Ali Khamraev, Uzbekistan, 1998) & Jorge Luis Borges: [A Short-story, just now I do not recall its name. I think it is found in the same collection as "The Gospel According to St. Marcus"]
(30) The King’s Mountain Path (Kungsleden) (Gunnar Höglund) & Bosse Gustafsson: [same title]
(31) Katharina Blum’s Lost Honour (Volker Schlöndorff, 1975) & Heinrich Böll: [same title]
(32) Troubled Wedding (Bröllopsbesvär) (Åke Falck, 1964) & Stig Dagerman: [same title] [Twenty years ago I thought that the movie and book had the same value. Presently I appreciate the movie more. But my present view is not necessarily better]
(33) La petite chartreuse (Jean-Pierre Denis, 2005) & Pierre Péju: [same title] [I, at least, like this movie much better than the book.]
(34) Housekeeping (Bill Forsyth, 1987) & Marilyne Robinson: [same title] [this last example only partially belongs here, because I think that the movie and the book have exactly the same value.]
I don't think the original post was asking for a list of every book to movie adaptation ever.
(Just had to get that last one in before the board shut down!!)
I'd be curious if someone who read the book could confirm what I suspect:
Last week I watched The Witches of Eastwick.
John Updike, must be pretty good, right? I did a little reading online about the novel and it seemed really misogynistic and grim. I strongly suspect I like the film version better than I would the book.
Full Metal Jacket is vastly superior to Gustav Hasford's The Short Timers.
Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show is a very jaded look at a small Texas town. Most characters are not very likable. Bogdanovich's film gives a warmer look.
I liked 'The Short Timers', but agree that the movie is more enjoyable.
Adding to the list, 'Jaws' was a good book, but the movie was very good.
I liked the film 'The Quiet Earth', the book: not so much.
'The Beast of War' fleshed out the William Mastrosimone play 'Nanawati' pretty well, with some of the character dynamics altered to fit hollywood expectations.
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distan..."
General John Sedgwick, battle of Spotsylvania.
While Atonement (2007) should have had more character development, it was FAR better than the novel by Ian McEwan.
We try but we didn't have long
We try but we don't belong...
-Hot Chip (Boy from School)
Not counting "title only" adaptations:
Planet of the Apes (1968)
The Shining (1980)
Goldfinger
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Jurassic Park
The Godfather
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 & 1978)
The Thing (1982)
Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein (1931/1935)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The 39 Steps (1935 & 1978)
Psycho (1960)
I'm probably forgetting some too.