I am a firm believer in the idea that reading a book is better than watching a film, because it allows your own imagination to make marvelous worlds and characters. Nevertheless, I concede that on a number of occasions, a film director has managed to take a great book and make it an even greater movie – sometimes it is better for us to watch the creations of someone else’s imagination. This is a list of ten such movies.
Original Story By: Alan Le May
Ethan Edwards, an ex-Confederate soldier from the Indian Wars, finds that his family has been massacred and his niece captured by the Comanches and vows to bring her back and kill everyone of the Indians who did this to him. He travels for five years in order to find her and when he does realizes even though she has been found she has become one of them. The Searchers was ranked #1 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 10 greatest films in the genre “Western” in June 2008.
Interesting Fact: Lana Wood played young Debbie Edwards and Natalie Wood, who was Lana’s older sister by eight years, played teenaged Debbie Edwards.
Original Story By: Robert Bloch
Phoenix officeworker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam’s California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel… This is a film that no one will dispute deserves a place on this list. It is perhaps the greatest horror movie across all generations.
Interesting Fact: When the cast and crew began work on the first day they had to raise their right hands and promise not to divulge one word of the story. Hitchcock also withheld the ending part of the script from his cast until he needed to shoot it.
Original Story By: Peter Benchley
A Great White shark decides to make the small beach resort town of Amity his private feeding grounds. This greatly frustrates the town police chief who wants to close the beaches to chase the shark away. He is thwarted in his efforts by the town’s mayor who finally relents when nothing else seems to work and the chief, a scientist, and an old fisherman with revenge on his mind take to the sea to kill the beast. Jaws was a bestselling book for Peter Benchley, but it took the force of a movie to frighten generations away from the beaches!
Interesting Fact: After the shark was built, it was never tested in the water, and when it was put in the water at Martha’s Vineyard, it sank straight to the ocean floor. It took a team of divers to retrieve it.
Original Story By: Lew Wallace
When Prince Judah Ben-Hur hears that his childhood friend Messala has been named to command the Roman garrison of Jerusalem, he is thrilled. He soon finds however that his friend has changed and has become an arrogant conqueror, full of the grandeur of Rome. When Judah refuses to divulge the names of Jews who oppose Roman rule, Messala decides to make an example of him and sends him off as a galley slave. Through fate and good fortune, Judah survives the galleys and manages to return to Jerusalem in the hopes of finding his mother and sister, who were also imprisoned, and to seek revenge against his one-time friend.
Interesting Fact: Initially there were queries over whether William Wyler was the right director for the job, as he’d never tackled a film of this scale before. One of the doubters was Wyler himself.
Original Story By: Thomas Harris
Clarice Starling, a young intelligent FBI trainee, has been sent to the Baltimore state hospital for the criminally insane to interview an inmate Dr. Hannibal-the cannibal- Lecter. A brilliant renowned psychiatrist turned infamous psychopathic serial killer. She must match wits with Lecter -who has the darkest of all minds- and trust him to give her clues in the search for “Buffalo Bill”. This is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest psychological thrillers ever put to screen. The success of this film contributed largely to the success of Harris as a writer.
Interesting Fact: Anthony Hopkins studied videotapes of serial killers as part of his research for the film. After noticing that Charles Manson hardly ever blinked when he spoke, he did the same for Hannibal Lecter.
Original Story By: Margaret Mitchell
The epic tale of a woman’s life during one of the most tumultuous periods in America’s history. From her young, innocent days on a feudalistic plantation to the war-torn streets of Atlanta; from her first love whom she has always desired to three husbands; from the utmost luxury to absolute starvation and poverty; from her innocence to her understanding and comprehension of life. This one hit wonder book by Margaret Mitchell not only worked out brilliantly for her publishers, it also became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and received a record-breaking number of Academy Awards.
Interesting Fact: The movie’s line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” was voted as the #1 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
Original Story By: Stephen King (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, a short story from Different Seasons)
After the murder of his wife, hotshot banker Andrew Dufresne is sent to Shawshank Prison, where the usual unpleasantness occurs. Over the years, he retains hope and eventually gains the respect of his fellow inmates, especially longtime convict “Red” Redding, a black marketeer, and becomes influential within the prison. Eventually, Andrew achieves his ends on his own terms. This film has become so popular it now ranks as the IMDB number 1 film – knocking the Godfather in to the number 2 spot. There is no doubt that the film is excellent, but I do not believe it deserves the number 1 spot on this list.
Interesting Fact: The mugshots of a young-looking Morgan Freeman that are attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan’s younger son, Alfonso Freeman.
Original Story By: Mario Puzo
Vito Corleone is the aging don (head) of the Corleone Mafia Family. His youngest son Michael has returned from WWII just in time to see the wedding of Connie Corleone (Michael’s sister) to Carlo Rizzi. All of Michael’s family is involved with the Mafia, but Michael just wants to live a normal life. Drug dealer Virgil Sollozzo is looking for Mafia families to offer him protection in exchange for a profit of the drug money. Puzo is a good writer, but Coppola is a better director and consequently this film rocketed Puzo to fame he would never have achieved alone.
Interesting Fact: During rehearsals, a false horse’s head was used for the bedroom scene. For the actual shot, a real horse’s head was used. The head was acquired from a dog-food factory.
Original Story By: Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
In a cyberpunk vision of the future, Man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when six replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth.
Interesting Fact: Philip K. Dick claimed that footage of the film was exactly what he had envisioned when he wrote the book. However, Ridley Scott, who was notorious for having gotten exactly the visual look he wanted, claimed to have never read Dick’s source novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”
Original Story By: Stephen King (The Body, a short story in the book Different Seasons)
Based on Stephen King’s short story “The Body”, “Stand By Me” tells the tale of Gordie Lachance, a writer who looks back on his preteen days when he and three close friends went on their own adventure to find the body of a kid their age who had gone missing and presumed dead. The stakes are upped when the bad kids in town are closely tailing – and it becomes a race to see who’ll be able to recover the body first. That such a great film can be made from a mere short story says a lot about Reiner’s excellent directing skills. Both this, and Shawshank Redemption (also by Stephen King) rate in the IMDB top 250. Considering that Different Seasons was a rather mediocre book compared to some of King’s great books (such as The Stand), make these two films clear winners for this list.
Interesting Fact: At the insistence of director Rob Reiner (an avid non-smoker who campaigned for anti-smoking laws in California), the cigarettes smoked by the boys were made from cabbage leaves.
Concept Contributor: Yogi Barrister
Synopses courtesy of IMDB, the Internet Movie Database
Interesting list. Any speculations from anyone as to why these movies are better than their respective books?
Sure.
The Godfather is like a book by Sidney Sheldon or Harold Robbins. It’s got a few facts, a little history and a lot of ***** and violence and is basically written to make a buck. Which it did. Sometimes it’s slow and it has too many storylines but otherwise it’s a potboiler.
The Godfather movie is the King Lear of the American art landscape.
Almost the exact same can be said of Jaws. Spielberg pretty much dispensed with everything that wasn’t important (like the affair between Hooper and Brodie’s wife) and streamlined the story to all the good parts and created one of the scariest, most exciting movies of all time.
Psycho is actually a very good book. Robert Bloch, unlike Benchley and Puzo, is a very good writer, possibly great. But in literature the ground he covered had been traipsed before by everyone from Dostoevsky to Jim Thompson. Psycho the movie blew everyone away at the time. By making Marion the focal point of the story (as opposed to Norman as he is in the book) Hitch*****set the audience up for a whammy unprecedented in movie history. Plus, frankly, it’s Hitchcock. He was one of the greatest movie makers of all time and Bloch’s story gave him room to utilize all of his technique and ingenuity.
The Searches I hate and have never read the book. Likewise Gone With the Wind.
Never read Ben Hur.
Silence of the Lambs is interesting because the movie follows the book pretty exactly. What the book lacks is the on-screen charisma and chemistry of the two stars, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Blade Runner. I’m not sure that I agree that the movie is better than the book. It’s a more immediate experience, after all, it’s a movie. But the book is pretty brilliant.
I’ve read a lot of Stephen King but not too much of his stuff that’s not horror. I go to other writer’s for that. Same here.
great list
Interesting list indeed, all good choices. This list should spark some interesting discussions.
Wow, one massive omission from this list is “The Iron Giant”. One of the greatest family animated films I’ve seen (thanks to Brad Bird’s genius), (loosely) based on one of the stupidest stories, by Ted Hughes.
Nice list. The only others i would add would be Pretty much every movie made from an Allen Moore graphic novel. V for Vendetta and From Hell respectively. The Movies are MUCH better than the book. We will have to see if Watchmen can continue the trend, or be the first to break it. I would also like to see a “Great Book/Terrible Movie” list. And if so Stardust by Niel Gaiman needs to be on there. One of my favorite books ever made into a travesty of a movie!
Brilliant List – though I’m ot so certain about Ben Hur or The Godfather. They were both incredibly good reads – I think maybe these were films that “brought the book to life more completely.
As for Blade Runner, it wouldn’t be at all hard for the movie to be better than the book – I think I got about 20 or 30 pages into the book and about halfway through the film before I lost inerest: IN truth, I have seen all of the Blade Runner movie by watching snippets of it and “connecting the dots” – but I have never gone back to the book!
What?! No Fight club or American Psycho?!
well I guess the books of these ones are better than the movie,speacially AP
What no A Clockwork Orange
Yogi, you broke my heart with two Stephen King stories. Oh well, I think you’re right. Unless you’d like to replace them with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”….
What’s the American count, does anybody know? I wouldn’t want Yogi to be accosted by the Anti-American List Police.
Interesting list. I've seen almost every movie on this list (Shawshank is the only exception) but I've never read any of these books.
I would add The Lord of the Rings series. I read The Fellowship prior to the films release and liked the book well enough. But I started reading The Two Towers after seeing the movie and gave up a little more than halfway through and never even bothered with The Return of the King. The movies were great but the books were just dense and dull. It felt like reading a history textbook.
I also think the Harry Potter movies are better than the books.
i agree with the lord of the rings bit.. but how could you say that about harry potter??? daniel radcliffe’s acting is rubbish and he ruins the films, so i don’t know here you got that from.
I’d have to include “The Exorcist” on this list.
Aimee!
i think i much prefer the american psycho novel to the film.
even though it has such a great cast, i think the book really has the in-depth level that the film lacks.
Harris is a great writer. I would not say Silence is better than his novel.
Also, Blade Runner is loosely taken from Do Androids…
(and Dick was pure genius)
The interesting thing about The Silence of the Lambs is that apparently, everyone who reads the book first and then watches the film will swear on their mother’s grave that the book is better, and vice versa.
It makes me wonder how many other books-to-films this is true of.
On another note, I would like to mention Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ Stone (being careful not to group all the Harry Potter books together and irritate an unhealthily large fan-base). I’m assured the author’s writing style does improve in later books, but I couldn’t get past Chapter 1 of the first book.
However, I will say I find all of the films really entertaining and well done.
I read the novel after seeing the film…and enjoyed the novel more. But that is just me
Blade runner? lol..geeze me. And stand by me as #1..never heard of it. Something to watch sometime.
Great list.
Interesting Fact: At the insistence of director Rob Reiner (an avid non-smoker who campaigned for anti-smoking laws in California), the cigarettes smoked by the boys were made from cabbage leaves.
Out of curiosity…anyone know why smoking cabbage leaves is any better than smoking tobacco leaves? Maybe doesn’t kill lung cells?
Astraya-They are good movies. As far as the Stephen King movies, they are based on short stories and become good 90-120 minute movies whereas his normal (too long) books become 6-8 hours TV mini-series which become boring 1/3 of the way in.
Interesting list.
to Rosantohof:
There is no nicotine in cabbage leafs, and there is in tobacco leafs, and nicotine is actually very toxic.
That is why tobacco leafs produce nicotine, to kill the bugs that eat from the leafs.
So that’s why smoking cabbage leafs is better than tobacco leafs. But I still don’t think it is that good for you
This is really weird, I was just thinking in the shower this morning (TMI?) that some one should make a list of movies that are better than books!
Get out of my head, list universe!!!!
P.S I have to say I agree with most things on this list, however it seems I have read all the books but only seen 8 out of 10 of the films!
That really shouldn’t allow me to have an opinion.
I’m of to Blockbuster. Away!
I would quibble a bit about “Silence of the Lambs”, but not much. A HUGE nod to the inclusion of “Ben-Hur”. Loren D. Estelman once put it quite well: “As far as being a great writer, General Wallace was a great General.”
To Kill a Mockingbird
Barry Lyndon
2001: A Space Odyssey
Rebecca
The Magnificent Ambersons
Any Kubrick film based on a book fits,almost by definition,in this list. “A clockwork orange” comes to mind.
I haven´t read “The shining” by Stephen King, but I am pretty sure the film is superior. Kubrick vs King isn´t even remotely fair.
Altough a clockwork orange is a good movie, it is not better then the Book. Actually, any Kubrick book to movie should not be on this list. As for stephen King, never read his books so will not comment although some of the movies are great like the 2 in this list.
Two by King, huh? Actually, I agree with every one of these which I’ve seen/read. Did any of you get a chance to compare “The Crow” in both its versions? I did, and I thought the movie version was better as well, I thought the graphic novel was tremendously slow and unnecessarily dense. Nice list, have a good day, all.
Very cool list, and excellent choices. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t know that some of these movies were originally books, like Ben-Hur and Stand by Me. I would’ve put Shawshank Redemption and Godfather as the top 2 without a doubt, but okay…
@SoCalJeff: Pretty much smoking anything is bad for you – but cabbage leaves are not addictive (no nicotene). Plus they don’t have added tar and other chemicals that go into normal cigarettes.
@ZenPoet: I disagree. While I liked the V for Vendetta movie a lot, I don’t think it was as good as the graphic novel. And IMHO, From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen both sucked as movies. Moore’s work is so dense and is created to suit the medium so well that I don’t think movies can capture it. I don’t have high hopes for Watchmen. Especially since I hated 300.
If you read Jaws or The Exorcist in the right setting they are much better/scarier than the movies.
I also think Stand By Me is way overrated.
But I like the list anyway. Good job Yogi.
I have to disagree with the Gone with the Wind entry, the movie was excellent, but it is far surpassed by the detail and story of the book.
My sentiments exactly
Having read “Ben-Hur” and “Jaws” and seen both of those movies, I would have to agree with their inclusion on this list. I think movie images are more real and immediate than print (which requires a little time to conjure up a similar image). You can read the description of a shark attack (or a chariot race) but actually viewing one is far more intense (in my opinion).
wow. nothing against you, Yogi, but did you actually read the books prior to seeing these movies? I can see how that may have biased you in your choices for this list… I , too, saw many of these prior to reading the book…
and…
the Puzo book, “The Godfather”, which I read in jr. high, was far more engrossing and powerful than the film (although it is an epic movie)
All of the Harrison “Hannibal” books are amazing and although TSOTL is excellent, the books eclipse the movie each time!
and finally, well, shame on you. really. shame shame! Stephen King’s works are always best enjoyed in print, at night, alone…with a window slightly ajar and only one light on in the entire house…
(too bad King hasn’t had a decent anthology out in over a decade now… some of his works are wearing a little thin and nowhere near as satisfying as his earlier works…i thoght it was just because I was getting older that King seemed to be loosing his gripping edge on his readers… but after reading “Dura Key”, it is clear to me he is just churning out repeat storylines and his ‘shocks’ are less diabolical and more predictable. *sigh*)although, I believe a new anthology was just released last week, and I have yet to get it.
not a bad list-just one I completely disagree with, which has never happened before to me on LV.
rtr
“What Dreams May Come”… the movie was exceptionally better than the book. Great list!
Even though it is not a movie, but the Showtime series “Dexter”, is much better than the book series. The writers on the show are just better than the author of the books.
Interesting! Reminds me of how bad the Eragon and Golden Compass movies sucked.
Only read two books on this list(The Godfather & Silence of the Lambs)and I’ve gotta disagree,although The Godfather(especialy II)and Silence of the Lambs are two of my favourite films, I still think the books are better.
Interesting list though!
:):)
I don’t understand why the Searchers and Psycho are said to be so good. The Searchers was so boring, there are way better westrns than that. And I don’t understand why Psycho is one of the scariest movies to some people. I never get scared by horror movies but this one was not even close to scary. Every scene where someone was killed just seemed funny to me, like when the guy fell down the stairs. I loved Jaws, The Silence of the Lambs, The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, and Stand By Me. Blade Runner was okay. I hated Gone With the Wind, I was forced to watch it at school, except no one was even watching, we all had our ipods and phones out. I never saw Ben Hur but it looks good.
To Kill a Mockingbird, better than the book? NO WAY. It’s actually one of the very few instances where the movie treatment is every bit the equal of a magnificent novel.
elartistamadridista, Yogi was very correct in not including “A Clockwork Orange” on this list. Although the movie is spectacular, it does not in any way eclipse the outstanding and ground-breaking Burgess novel.
Alfonos Cuaron’s take on Children of Men was awesome..Fight Club film too…all I got to say is that Stephen King has come up with excellent fim material ( Carrie, The Shinning, etc..)
Good list and I agree with most of your picks but I have to take issue with the comment “compared to SK’s great books, such as The Stand”. The Stand is SK’s masterpiece; unfair to use that as a comparison. Frankly SK does some of his best work in his short stories and novellas. It prevents him from being too pleased with the sound of his own voice, makes him more concise and are generally better written. I would say applies to both The Shawshank Redemption and The Body. Have you actually read these stories? Apt pupil, also from Different Seasons was one of only two SK books I had to put down. Too disturbing. (Also made into a movie btw). Not that those movies weren’t wonderful, Shawshank Redemption is a family favorite and likely does deserve to be somewhere near the top of IMDB and Stand by Me was great as well. But better than the stories? I dunno about that. Reach a larger audience? Yes. More popular? Yes. But they are among his best works. Length does not equal quality.
what is the other book you had to put down?
excellent list. The only would i would argue with is Gone With the Wind. I loved the book, but hated the movie.
Someone mentioned 2001 A Space Odyssey up there. You can’t have read the book – it’s absolutely excellent and considered one of Arthur C. Clarke’s most brilliant works (and that’s saying something because Clarke has a large collection of top notch books). The movie was good for its time – original but vague and many parts of it are tedious. The book, however, is a real page turner. In fact – you need to read it or the movie is impossible to figure out.
On the topic of Blade Runner – this is one of my all time favorite movies, but, hey, the book was pretty darn good also. In reality – the story in the movie version is so different from the book it’s hard to make a comparison.
-C
Great list but what was a horse’s head doing in a dog food factory.Is dog food made from horse’s meat…?
Bladerunner is certainly better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but the movie is so loosely based on the book that its not really a fair comparison. It would be kind of like saying The Last Temptation of Christ is a movie based on the Bible, it is but only slightly so.
How about A Clockwork Orange instead? I found that book completely unreadable.
# 33 – I grew up on westerns and John Wayne, an influence from my father. I have to say the reason people believe ‘The Searchers’ to have been so good wasn’t because of the gunfights or action. It was a portrayal of racism and a study of obsession, family, and what ties family together. The ending scene in this movie is just beautiful, and in one shot it captures the essence of what the movie is about. It may have been boring in the sense there weren’t the type of shootouts most westerns are famous for, but I always thought it was deeply moving.
Good list, by the way!
I disagree with Blade Runner. I actually prefered eletric sheep a lot more. I think most Stephen King books translate better to the screen. Carrie is far better than the book.
I agree with Dread about A Clockwork Orange, the film far out does the book
Great list,
I salute Ben Hur and Gone with the wind.
Good list but how in the world can you forget A CLOCKWORK ORANGE!!!!???
Hey, warreagl it looks like you are quite alone in defending the book “A Clockwork Orange” over the film.
To be fair, I didn´t read it in English so maybe I´m not in a good position to judge.
Two minor disagreements regarding the list:
I thought the ending in the book version of “Jaws” was much more suspenseful than the silly contrived exploding air tank in the movie.
I thought the book “The Godfather” was far better than the movie. I could not put it down. If memory serves me right, Sonny is killed in 1946 at the toll booth, while the attendant’s radio is playing the audio from the 1951 Dodgers/Giants playoff game just prior to Bobby Thompson’s “Shot heard ’round the world”.
I’d like to submit one for the list:
“Mobey Dick”, with Gregory Peck. It is one of my personal favorites, whereas the book is insufferably tedious. I never finished it.
I would have to risk my life by saying that all the Harry Potter movies were better than the books. That woman should be edited with a light saber.
I think this list is very well done, everyone picking on Yogi should please note that he was the concept contributor and not the list writer.
The only one I would have added was Forrest Gump. The movie far outdoes the book imho.
Not knocking Shawshank Redemption in any way (haven’t seen it), but part of the reason it’s #1 in IMDB is because back in the summer when the Dark Knight came out, many people were voting 1/10 to the Godfather (then the current #1) so the Dark Knight could take over.
God that’s funny! I was just going to compliment the list maker for the idea. I honestly don’t remember submitting it. Actually the entire top ten should have been movies that were made from John Grisham novels. Phillip Dick is another one whose ideas play out better on a screen. Although Jamie wrote this entire list himself, I’m pleasantly surprised that he put one of my all-time favorite movies(and song) at the top. Thanks Jamie!
You know what I like abour movies as opposed to books?
NO READING.
Two hours, and I’m finished, free to do whatever I please.
The movie is ALWAYS better.
hey! what about jurassic park?
Nic, Creighton novels can go either way as far as movies are concerned. You’ve got Jurassic Park but then there is Congo.
Let me be the first to introduce Mr. Bond, James Bond.
It’s not a movie but I might as well throw out Showtime’s most excellent show, Dexter.
i feel like i am the only one who goes to this website that did not think blade runner was that cool
The Godfather was an amazing movie and I do not think that FFC could have made it any better, however, it is still not better than the book in my opinion. Trainspotting is much the same way. Probably mentioned already but what about Fight Club that had to make the list. It would be No. 1 for me without doubt.
elartistamadridista (22)I saw The Shining when it first came out. Really scared me. Didn’t read the book for a long time after because I also thought it couldn’t be better than the movie. Was I wrong!! The book scared the hell out of me. Much better than the movie. And I still really like the movie. Indeed I own it.