TOP 7 Book to Film Adaptations

5 Comments

1. Rusty

   Posted on July 25, 2009 at 1:38 pm

   Fight Club was a great movie but I don’t think it even compared to the book.

   You forgot The Iron Giant also.

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2. David

   Posted on August 6, 2009 at 10:25 am

   A Clockwork Orange (different and better ending), Wonder Boys (even though its so different from the book, its similar in style and theme) and Pride and Prejudice (with keira knightley) should be considered.

   The Kubrick Lolita deserves to be on here instead of the Adrian Lyne one. Kubrick’s version not only had Nabakov’s approval, he also made it at a time when he was so limited on what he could show. So he made a movie that was faithful to the book without being able to show/say the obvious. He basically had to make a film about a perverse situation without being allowed to be perverse.

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3. j kilgore

   Posted on August 20, 2009 at 1:14 pm

   The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Perfect pitch novel. Movie the same. Restraint is a word not often used these days and unfortunately, practiced even less. But it’s the muted emotions of LeCarre’s writing and somber setting of the film that seem to blend
   marvelously in this reader’s (and this viewers) mind.

   Richard Burton was never better.

   Reply
4. Prateek

   Posted on November 1, 2009 at 8:48 am

   What about Charlie Kaufmann’s and Spike Jonze’s “Adaptation”.One doesnt have to read Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief”..to realize what an original and brilliant writer Kaufmann is.

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5. Megan

   Posted on November 1, 2009 at 5:28 pm

   Adaptation is a great movie, but the problems is that I haven’t read the book (though I’ve had a copy sitting on my shelf for a few years now). The problem with this list is I haven’t read everything. Also, I found that I preferred books that I read after seeing the film to those I read before seeing the film.

   Also I have a problem with the Kubrick Lolita, in that his vision of Lolita is as a seductress, which is not only creepy but not in line with the novel. Dolores in the book is a normal girl with a precocious, if naive sexuality. She has a crush on Humbert but is too much of a child to understand the ramifications of this. The book (and Adrian Lyne’s film) deal with how his choices severely damage Dolores. I don’t feel like the Kubrick version really got this, he makes Dolores too old for her age.

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