Any movies that are better than the book?

The Shining

The Jaws film is far superior to the book.

And even though it’s borrows very little from it’s book, the Who Framed Roger Rabbit book is horrible compared to the movie.

Well, if we’re including comic books, I’d add Flashpoint to that list too.

Sure, there’s lots of ’em:

• The Godfather
• Jurassic Park
• Princess Bride
• Fight Club
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Bladerunner
• Clockwork Orange
• American Psycho
• Forrest Gump
• Full Metal Jacket/The Short-Timers
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (though I think screenplay and novel were written at the same time?)

I’m not a huge Harry Potter guy, but I liked The Goblet of Fire movie, so I’d add that as well.

I could probably think of more, given time. There’s a bunch of awful YA novels adopted into slightly less awful movies, but I’ll pass on them. Even though they technically meet OP’s criteria.

MMM Jurassic Park was a pretty damn good novel, especially for what, 1992?  Groundbreaking idea.  Spielberg was the ONLY one that could do this novel justice.

Ooh, pretty good list but I’m gonna have to agree with @Clearmoon22 and say that while JP is a great film, it’s arguably a poor adaptation of its source material. Now again, it’s a great film, my fave film easily growing up, so this isn’t a hipster/contrarian take.

The novel presents its characters much differently than the film does, with perhaps the biggest example being John Hammond’s portrayal. In the film, he’s a kindly old grandfather who got swept up in his dream, but he’s much more cynical and clueless in the novel. His character deserves the fate that Crichton wrote for him.

As cliche as it sounds, the novel is much darker and more violent. I will never give up hope that one day HBO will decide to re-adapt the story as a television miniseries so that we can see a more accurate presentation of the source material. (it’ll never happen though lol)

For the record, these are the same reasons why Peter Benchley’s Jaws wouldn’t make my list of ‘better than the novel’ adaptations. That one has a much different tone, and has a shocking subplot (Hooper and the wife etc) that the film decided not to tackle. Again like JP, certain characters die in the novel that don’t die in the films, but the reasons the respective authors killed these characters makes sense in context and is fairly well deserved in both cases. Of course they’re both also Spielberg adaptations, so these things are hardly surprising.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by RedRanger. Reason: Jaws!

Yes this, although, I only like it slightly more. The main story part with Wesley, Buttercup, and all, I’d say I like the book better. But the stuff around the story, (because it’s presented as a translation of a classic story) I like the way it was done in the movie better: Columbo reading to Kevin Arnold instead of this translator trying to get people to like his work. Much more endearing.