Someone once told me that in order to be able to enjoy both the movie and the book it was based on, you just have to treat them as two completely unrelated pieces of art. This sounds like a great piece of advice, but it also seems like most of us still haven’t reached that level of zen where the whole “books vs movies” thing can be ignored.
The conventional belief is that movies based on books are never as good as the books themselves. “The book did it better!” has become an iconic, albeit slightly ironic, phrase for comparing things. Even the biggest franchises — you know, the ones with all the wizards or powerful rings — did not escape criticism for not getting it quite right.
It may look like books made into movies don’t stand a chance, but in fact, that’s not entirely true. Some books to movie adaptations are at the very least as captivating as the source material they were based on. Of course, a lot of things have to come together for this to happen, but the point is history knows such cases, so it is not completely impossible.
And then there is a whole other category of book-to-movie adaptations where the film turns out to be more developed, more interesting, more relatable, and just in every way better than the book. How does this happen? That’s probably a question for the directors and the crew to answer, but it definitely shows that comparing books with movies doesn’t always have to be negative for the latter.
For this article, we collected some of the best movies based on books that according to the audiences turned out better than the source material. Do you agree with this selection? You can vote for your favorite ones and also add in the comments other movies that did it better than the books they were based on.
#1 Dogma
“Felt the Bible wasn’t as funny and where was Alan Rickman?”
Image source: amazon.com, Mayo_For_Sanity
#2 The Shawshank Redemption
“It was part of a four-part novella release by Stephen King. The story was very short but very well written. I just feel like the movie really captured the spirit of the story and gave some depth to the characters. Plus, the acting was great.”
Image source: amazon.com, jonny_walkman
#3 Jurassic Park
“John Hammond from Jurassic Park was much better in the movie. In the book, he was kind of your standard greedy businessman. In the movie was a dreamy idealist with good intentions, which made it so much more heartbreaking when the park inevitably failed.”
blazedblueberry comments: “I actually also noticed they switched the little boy and girl characters in the book and movie. In the book, the little girl is basically useless and whines and complains the whole time, while the boy saves the day almost exclusively. I thought it was cooler for the movie to split up the character traits more evenly between the two.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#4 Might Be Unpopular But I Think The Princess Bride
“I found Buttercup’s character way worse in the book, even to a point where I was like okay dude cut ties you’re better off without her, and in the movie I never feel that really.”
reconjsh comments: “For fans of the movie, there’s a book called “As You Wish” by Cary Elwes about the behind-the-scenes stories of making the movie. It’s a great and funny read. There’s crazy stuff like Andre the Giant’s 16-second farts and him passing out in a hotel lobby because he drinks alcohol by the barrel. Or Mandy Patinkin slapping Andre because he wasn’t saying his lines fast enough.”
Image source: amazon.com, AlkalineSoul
#5 Shrek!
“They took a 36-page book and turned it into the greatest movie of all time.”
Image source: amazon.com, krakrocks
#6 Jaws
“Jaws, because everyone in the novel is a terrible person, and a lot of the tension in the film is removed because the guys hunting the shark just get to go home every night in the book.”
Podlubnyi comments: “Steven Spielberg said when he read the novel he found himself rooting for the shark because the human characters were so unlikeable. The movie got rid of unnecessary subplots like the Mayor’s involvement with the Mafia and Ellen Brody having an affair with Hooper.”
cooscoos3 replied: “The movie got rid of the unnecessary subplots like the Mayor’s involvement with the Mafia and Ellen Brody having an affair with Hooper. Sounds like there was so much subplot, if they made it today it would be a trilogy.”
Image source: amazon.com, MysteryGirlWhite
#7 The Mist
” Even Steven King agreed.”
User replied: ” The ending really went the darkest freaking route possible and that took a lot of guts from the filmmakers.”
Image source: amazon.com, nuclear_lobster
#8 Forest Gump
“Forest Gump was way better that the book it was based on.”
CandyAppleSauce replied: “Came here for this. Read the book in high school because I loved the movie (the soundtrack for the movie was my favorite album for most of my junior year), but that was just…it was something, anyway. That being said, Groom did get the right ‘flavors’ of the Deep South and especially Alabama into that book. Still, the movie was better.”
Image source: amazon.com, pmichel
#9 Fight Club
“The book had a better ending, but it was written in such bizarre style it was a chore to read. And it’s a short book too.”
“This just in, did you guys know that the author Chuck Palahniuk also liked the movie better than the book?”
Image source: amazon.com, Driver_goon
#10 Fantastic Mr. Fox
“It’s my favorite book of all time, but goddamn that movie is incredible. Wes Anderson just made it his own thing. The movie has so much more characters. Mr. Fox in the movie is so charming and intelligent, but also 10 times more arrogant than he was in the books. But he makes up for it in the end. Also, his backstory with the wolf is amazing. Mr. Fox is also so much goddamn better. In the book, she literally did nothing except cook the huge meal at the end. The scene in the movie where she fights Rat with a chain still gets me pumped up. And don’t even get me started on Ash and Kristofferson. Oh my god, what a goddamn improvement from the three small foxes from the books. Ash is so goddamn relatable, and Kristofferson is so lovable. Their parts in the movie were my favorites.”
Image source: amazon.com, oh-lawd-hes-coming
#11 12 Angry Men
“I found the book boring but the film resonates even decades after I watched it.”
Image source: amazon.com, empressofglasgow
#12 Who Framed Rodger Rabbit
“The book was supposed to be written as film-noir, but it ends up as a disjointed mess. The characters are there, but they have none of the charms of the movie. Eddie isn’t a good man, who’s ruining his life with booze after the loss of his brother; he’s a drunk asshole, just because. Roger is dead. Etc…The plot is also different; the movie took the idea of humans and Toons interacting, and went in a completely different direction.” res30stupid replied: “The book was called ‘Who Censored Roger Rabbit’ with the censoring being akin to murder. The sequel stories are sequels to the film, not the original book.”
Image source: amazon.com, Yakb0
#13 How To Train Your Dragon
“In the books the dragons are little and caught to fish and do other chores.”
catwizard727 replied: “To be fair, the only things that the books and movies share are some names and other things like that.”
Image source: amazon.com, KingdomComeNarnia
#14 The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
“Sets it up really well for the dad to save the boy at the last minute, and then he doesn’t get there in time. Much more hard-hitting than the book, where they don’t realize what happened till much later.”
Shintoho replied: “See I always thought the book worked better because it presented things from the kid’s perspective, who doesn’t really understand what’s going on, so it takes half the book before you realize that they’re living at a death camp and his father is the commandant.”
Image source: amazon.com, BertieTheDoggo
#15 Howl’s Moving Castle
“While the book explained the characters better, the movie was so beautifully done and tells a story about compassion and life that the book doesn’t.”
Image source: amazon.com, okayrinne
#16 Battleship
The book was just a bunch of rules.”
Image source: amazon.com, GulliverJoe
#17 Stardust
“Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Neil Gaiman, and the Stardust book was really good, but the movie was absolutely enchanting. I mean, seeing Robert DeNiro as Captain Shakespeare? Life-changing. Not to mention a much better ending.”
Image source: amazon.com, twilighttruth
#18 The Devil Wears Prada
“I have admiration for the people who made the story for the screen because the book is nothing similar. Amazing movie that came out of a very meh book.”
Image source: amazon.com, mattywadley
#19 Dances With Wolves
“In the book, Dunbar stays with the natives and I felt it was out of character with what had happened before. In the book, he is even packing his things to leave, but it’s then convinced to stay. I feel the movie was a better ending. Plus the sheer epic scope of the landscapes and the buffalo hunt were even more incredible than I pictured in the book. That movie is one of the greatest westerns ever made.”
beets_bears_bubblegm replied: “Also, the soundtrack brings me to tears, without watching the movie. It was incredible.”
Image source: amazon.com, Krinks1
#20 Gone Girl
“I keep telling people they should be considered two different narratives, book and movie, but man David Fincher blew it out of the park with his adaptation.”
Image source: amazon.com, wellguesswhatpumpkin
#21 Schindler’s List
“The book was almost unreadable.”
MrSlipperyFist replied: “The book is written without a particular protagonist in mind, and reads like it’s being observed by a fly on the wall for the most part. I enjoyed the book as an observation piece – like a documentary, perhaps – while the movie was, well, a movie. They’re both excellent, in my opinion. The same subject matter, the same events, same “feel”, but is presented differently because of the mediums and the perspective, i.e. the movie is largely through the eyes of Schindler, Stern, Goeth, and occasionally other characters for brief times; whereas the book is almost through the eyes of someone who both is and isn’t there if that makes sense.”
Image source: amazon.com, Bucktown_Riot
#22 The Last Unicorn
” It was one of my favorite movie as a kid, I didn’t even know it was a book until I was in college. Now, the book is amazing, and the movie is extremely true to the book, more so than any other book-to-screen movie I’ve ever seen. BUT, the book is not intended for little children, and the cartoon movie adaption is completely fine for little kids. I love that I can introduce my toddler girls to some of my favorite literature so early on, and they absolutely love it.”
Image source: amazon.com, Squirrelgirl25
#23 Last Of The Mohicans
“Boring slog of a book, epic period-piece action movie.”
Hedwigbug comments: “Thank you! I read the book because I loved the movie and it was brutal. I told this to my AMERICAN LITERATURE PROFESSOR and she said, ‘oh you poor thing. Nobody likes that book.'”
Image source: amazon.com, Nythoren
#24 Diary Of A Wimpy Kid
“They rearranged a lot, pulled things from multiple books for 1 movie, and made it so the main character actually has some growth. In the books, he remains the same unchanged sociopath who learns nothing.”
Image source: amazon.com, Dawpps
#25 Big Fish
“The movie explores the wondrous world of the father’s outrageous stories, but the book lacks all that lavish imagery. Instead, it’s just a bitter retelling from a spoiled child who thought his daddy didn’t love him enough.”
Image source: amazon.com, cavaliereternally
#26 American Psycho
“The movie did a fine job portraying how insane he was. There were passages in the book that almost made me put it down and stop reading it, just too much. Pure shock value.”
Image source: amazon.com, xArbilx
#27 The Secret Garden
“Actually seeing the garden was amazing, and the acting was incredible.”
GenXSabbaticle comments: “It really matters which one. The 1993 film with Kate Mabry is a MASTERPIECE of resonant imagery and storytelling. I used it to teach archetypal analysis and quest stories to high-school seniors for years. Then I finally read the book and I was like, ‘Where is all the awesome STUFF?? This is so shallow!'”
Image source: amazon.com, armaedes
#28 Blade Runner
“The novel was good but the movie perfected the tone and quite honestly I thought Deckard was written better for the film.”
res30stupid replied: “Yeah. The replicants in the books were just bastards (Rachel murders one of the few surviving animals to get back at Deckard) and the setting was just weird, with cults forming around animals. The film helps by humanizing the replicants and cutting the animal worship out.”
Image source: amazon.com, mindfeces
#29 The Martian
“Mainly because the visuals were amazing and it made the story so much better to be able to see everything.”
starcraftre replied: “The Martian is one of my favorite sci-fi books, and one of my favorite sci-fi movies. For completely different reasons. The movie got everything just right and picked the perfect actor for Watney.”
Image source: amazon.com, DrVerryBerry
#30 A Little Princess
” The book was OK but it was definitely a children’s book. The movie was absolutely beautiful. Alfonso Cuaron is an amazing director.”
Image source: amazon.com, NicoNicoWryyy
#31 The Godfather
“I like the book, but the film is phenomenal.”
FrysItchyButt comments: “This is immediately what came to mind for me. I don’t need chapters about Sonny’s massive dong and Bridesmaid’s wide set cervix.”
Image source: amazon.com, TerryGAdkinson
#32 La Confidential
“The book was based around three detectives with different motives and it was really good but it involving like thirty different conspiracies and ended in a massive prison escape that didn’t have to do that much with the rest of the plot. The movie took that, simplified the villainous conspiracy, kept the same awesome characters, and made it a very worthwhile experience. The one thing I wish they put in was Ed’s backstory during WWII, it made his character way more fascinating.”
Image source: amazon.com, JohnsonHardwood
#33 Jojo Rabbit Was Better Than Caging Skies Book
“The book was so goddamn bleak that it probably wouldn’t have been adapted otherwise.”
TheOrangeNights replied: “Taika Watiti stated that he never even finished the book, and stopped reading halfway. Which is why the movie only shows a short part of the book and ends so differently.”
Image source: amazon.com, THACC
#34 Where The Heart Is
“There is some indigenous spirit walking in the middle of it that makes no sense with the rest of the storyline of a poor white trash girl having a baby in Wal-Mart. They cut all that out for the movie and the movie works much better in terms of plot.”
Image source: amazon.com, Long-Wishbone
#35 Horton Hears A Who
“There’s a lot more character put into all the people in Whoville and Jim Carrey killls it as Horton, the story is accomplished in an effective way that still retains the moral and overall feel of the original, and the movie is allowed to flesh out the world in a way that Dr. Seuss didn’t. To those of you who say “But it’s so short and would’ve been really hard to mess up improving on a book like that!” I submit any of the other adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ work made in the last 25 years.”
Image source: amazon.com, maleorderbride
#36 Starship Troopers
“The movie is nothing like the book. Which I think is a good thing. The movie was fun and had a ton of action. The book to me was dull and hard to finish. I felt like half the book was just covering his military training. This was one of the first times I thought the movie was far better than the book.”
Image source: amazon.com, NebRGR4354
#37 The Silence Of The Lambs
“It was incredibly drawn out at times and they were right to cut a lot of it out of the movie. The author also feels the need to describe the hell out of everything and it gets tedious to read.”
Image source: amazon.com, dcbluestar
#38 Call Me By Your Name
“The movie was a beautiful study of silences. In the book, you experienced every thought going through a 17-year-old boy’s head. It was manic. In the movie, you had to rely on Chalamet’s performance to understand what was going on in his head.”
Image source: amazon.com, pjo1966
#39 Wanted
“And you may be asking yourself, ‘But, isn’t that movie not very good?’ And you’d be correct! It’s not. The comic that it’s based on, however, is god-awful. The movie changes so much about the book that it’s hardly the same story, but it removes the weirdo rape fantasies present throughout the comic that seem more like punchlines than character-building. It’s a great concept squandered by Mark Millar’s juvenile, edge lord writing.”
Image source: amazon.com, drewxdeficit
#40 The Entire LOTR Series
“I’m not sure why since it’s been well over a decade since I read the LOTR books, but I found reading through them to be a chore. As opposed to the movies, which in my opinion, are some of the greatest films ever made.”
Image source: amazon.com, Discipulus-Satanas
#41 Slumdog Millionaire
“I feel that it’s somewhat cheating (in regards to this question) for films like Slumdog Millionaire, Forrest Gump, and Jojo Rabbit because they aren’t even trying to be faithful adaptations. They take a lot of liberties and go in a lot of different directions than the source material. So whether it’s even the same story as the book Q&A on which it’s based is debatable. But I certainly enjoyed it more.”
Image source: amazon.com, Musketeer85
#42 Les Miserables
“Because Val Jean’s inner debate lasts about 100 pages and the opening number is about a third of the book. It just goes on and on.”
Image source: amazon.com, IdiotWelshCabbage
#43 Into The Wild
“The book had too many coordinates and directions. The movie felt more like a story.”
smileyeiley agreed: “The visuals of the landscape add so much in the movie too.”
Image source: amazon.com, worldtrvlz
#44 My Sister’s Keeper
“The ending of the book was so freaking stupid it almost made me not watch the movie. It was like the author wanted to just have a shocking ending instead of an ending that actually makes sense in the narrative.”
Image source: amazon.com, Gaelfling
#45 Arrival
“I think Arrival was better, and that’s coming from someone who really liked the short story. The movie is just better at telling that story overall.”
Brenkin comments: “I tend to agree because the film really brings out the story and makes it more digestible. That being said, Ted Chiang is easily one of the greatest science fiction authors of all time.”
Image source: amazon.com, GreatTragedy
#46 Ready Player One
“It was worse because the movie’s puzzle plot made little sense (you’re telling me no one in the history of the billion-dollar puzzle thought to go backward, movie?). But it was better because it cut out a lot of the neckbeard stuff in the book. Like how the protagonist spends 3 pages explaining differences in Atari games to someone, and then everyone claps because of how awesome it was.”
Fluff_E replied: “I often use this book as an example of something that would’ve made a killer 6 episode series. After listening to the audiobook, then watching the movie, I sorely missed a lot of the nerdy details and some of the character building that got me extremely immersed in the audiobook.”
Image source: amazon.com, Hickspy
#47 The Notebook
“Rachel McAdams brought flair and charisma that wasn’t in the book.”
Tabak5 replied: “Frankly I’d say that about any Nicholas Sparks book. I’m not a fan of his writing style at all. I got so bored trying to read The Last Song but found the movie pretty cute.”
Image source: amazon.com, cleo1844
#48 50 Shades Of Grey
“Just because it couldn’t possibly have been any worse.”
big_ringer comments: “Take away the abusive and stalker-ish aspects of the story and you’re still left with characters with zero chemistry with each other, a plot that goes nowhere, and a writing style reminiscent of an adolescent girl who figured out what happens when she wears tight jeans and crosses her legs just right.”
Image source: amazon.com, DiMono
#49 To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before
“I watched the movie and loved it so much that I bought the book trilogy. The movie is beautiful but reading the book made me realize that it’s the cinematography and acting that makes the movie so good – the actual plotline is really cheesy. The books are also written in a really simple way, for a much younger audience.”
Image source: amazon.com, JingJitSu ·
#50 No Country For Old Men
“The book is great but McCarthy’s style of writing makes it pretty difficult to read and follow the flow of what’s going on. Meanwhile, the movie has you on the edge of your seat, has a very eerie feel to it and the casting is very spot on.”
Image source: amazon.com, TwoSnapsMack
#51 The Graduate
“The book that this movie is based off of was critically panned, but director Mike Nichols took interest in the absurd source material and directed one of the highest-grossing films of all time.”
Image source: amazon.com, reddit.com
#52 Children Of Men
“The book had no scope.”
Image source: amazon.com, gargelbum
#53 Matilda
“Matilda (the character), was a hell of a lot more likable in the film than in the book.”
Image source: amazon.com, Bethlizardbreath
#54 The Ritual
“The film only depicted the first half of the book, which is great because the book devolves into stupid, incoherent drivel after that. Seriously, the author had a good thing going for the first 220 or so pages, some really good characterisation and chills, but then it got dumb. The novel should’ve stopped where the film did, instead of basically adding a half-assed, nonsensical sequel that nobody asked for as the second act. Netflix actually did a fantastic adaptation of the book, and the film is far superior to Adam Neville’s novel.”
Image source: amazon.com, Azryhael
#55 Requiem For A Dream
“The book isn’t bad, but the movie makes you feel for all the characters. I saw the movie before reading the book, so I may have expected too much from the book”.
Image source: amazon.com, wrstlr3232
#56 A Clockwork Orange
“A very hard read with the given vernacular. The movie makes everything a lot better offering a visual to match all of the nonsense/slang words.”
Image source: amazon.com, kaizokugaming
#57 Captain America: Civil War
“The comic event that it is based on doesn’t make a ton of sense, it misses out on a lot of opportunites, and Tony Stark is strawmanned. The movie makes all the character motivations clear and presents both sides equally. This is a great example of improving the execution of an interesting idea with a second crack. Batman: Under The Red Hood is another example of this.”
Image source: amazon.com, ArugulaGazebo
#58 Annihilation
“The book had a slow pace that didn’t create the same atmosphere as the movie.”
DrPilkington comments: “I think the only thing I liked better in the movie was that terrifying bear thing. Otherwise, they’re too different, the director even said he read the book once, and never went back to it so he could go off his impression of the book. But that book would have been near impossible to adapt accurately. The way the indescribable is described could never be filmed.”
Image source: amazon.com, The_Height_of_Folly
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