A History of Violence

Well if we're going to graphic novels like 'History of Violence' and calling that a "book".

'Road to Perdition' was better than the GN too.

Looking over the thread, Jaws is a perfect example. I read that book years ago and the film definitely improved things by cutting out the affair between Hooper & Brody's wife and moving away from some of the more soap opera-ish aspects of the plot.

As much as I enjoy the Lord of the Rings films, no one will ever convince me they're superior to the books. I fell in love with those books when I was in middle school and they're just as incredible in my early 30's.

American Psycho could go either way. I liked the additional insight provided by the book, but the film really did a great job as well.

I can't believe anyone said To Kill A Mockingbird or Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'll hope those were jokes.

Dr Mabuse, good call on Of Mice and Men. A wonderful story and Sinese pretty much flawlessly brought it to life in the movie.

On The Silence of the Lambs, I read the book in middle school and didn't see the movie until 5 or 6 years later, so it's hard for me to compare. I did think that Hannibal sucked as a book and that Ridley Scott's version far exceeded the source.

Revenge of the Sith is so much better than the book, Star Wars: Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil. The movie would have been all over the place if they kept Darth Bane in it.

Neither were great, but I liked The Postman better than the book.

Fight Club
Thumbsucker
Up in the Air

Wikipedia has a decent write-up:

The book is a racist piece of crap.

You never cease to amaze me.

What did I do now?

Is implying a GN is different than a book sacrilege?

Bringing Out the Dead
Deliverance
Big Fish
The World According to Garp
Thank You for Smoking
The Exorcist
Body of Lies
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Wait, what?

I'd agree with SOTL as a good answer to the thread question because the film is fantastic. However, I thought the book was great as well. I can't speak for the sequels as I haven't read them.

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Pretty much anything Hitchcock directed that was originally based on a novel.

David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" based on Bari Wood's novel

I really love the Planet of the Apes by Boulle, but they did a great job in adapting this (though altering it somewhat) for the film and still relaying the underlying themes plus giving it that infamous visceral ending. The film better? Not necessarily, but I definitely go back to it more.

The Firm.
I preferred the movie's ending.

Jurassic Park: The Lost World. The movie was lousy, but the book was an abysmal piece of dinosaur shit.

Some random thoughts:

Thomas Harris's novels declined with each one ... which means, IMO, that Silence of the Lambs was not the best ... Red Dragon was. The drop-off in quality was slight from RD to SOTL; after SOTL the drop-off was epic.

The LOTR movies were not superior to the novels ... they were simply much more accessible. The novels are not easy reads by any stretch of the imagination. However, the novels did not feature

I saw Bram Stoker's Dracula before I read the book ... it amazed me how close the two actually were when it came to the erotic undertones.

Recently I thought The Prestige and Children of Men were both superior to the novels.

I liked The Last Temptation of Christ much more than the Bible.

I'd say "Frankenstein", only because the book is boring tripe.

Maybe if someone cut down the excessive wordiness and a couple hundred uses of the words "sublime" and "melancholy", it might be better.

Even King liked Darabont's ending better, saying he wished he had the guts to do something like it at the time.

The reason Shawshank, Green Mile and the Mist are so great is that they are short stories so all the meat is still there. Short stories always make the best movies.

Akira Kurosawa was pretty good with adaptations. I, for instance, prefer Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala over the book. Similarly, in an otherwise very faithful adaptation, Rashomon I think also introduces content that improve on Akutagawa's original work(s).

While I haven't read Shigoro Yamamoto's short story collection that was the basis of Red Beard, they say that Kurosawa improved on the book. Whether the same can be said of Dodesukaden (another Yamamoto adaptation) is another question (again, I haven't read the book).

If you consider Yojimbo to be a Dashiell Hammett adaptation (Red Harvest and all that), I think the film certainly rises above the source material (but then again I really don't like Hammett's style). Similarly, High and Low takes Ed McBain's King's Ransom onto a whole different level.

While it would be an exaggeration to insist that Kurosawa's two Shakespeare adaptations Throne of Blood (from Macbeth) and Ran (from King Lear) bettered the originals, I am ready to say that they are pretty much as good, which must be considered nothing less than a gigantic achievement, considering the originals.

One of Kurosawa's real strengths was collaborating with the story, whether it meant adapting an already existing work or co-authoring a new one with his regular group of scriptwriting collaborators.