Updated January 24, 2022 69.3K votes 12.6K voters 417.6K views
Voting Rules
Vote for the movies that turned out to be even better than the books they were based on
Sometimes, the book isn't better than the movie. With film's added benefits of visuals, music, sounds, and a more confined, focused narrative, it creates the opportunity to tell a more compact and captivating story. Here are just a few instances where cinema trumped the novel.
Do you agree with these selections, or was the book ultimately the better version of these stories? Vote up the movie adaptations that you thought were better than the book, and vote down the ones where the book just may have been better after all.Â
Rob Reiner took the best elements of Stephen King's novella The Body and created one of the greatest coming-of-age movies ever. King even went so far to say that the film was the first successful translation of any of his works to film.
Author Winston Groom commented the film version of his book "took some of the rough edges" off of Forrest. As a result, the movie version featured a more genuine and warmer title character, which was executed with Oscar-winning excellence by Tom Hanks.
This simple, charming story by author Anne Fine became a comedy classic, thanks to the whirlwind of energy breathed into the story by the late Robin Williams.
Bruce Willis' big break came in this adaptation of Roderick Thorpe's novel, Nothing Lasts Forever. The book is grittier than the movie and primarily tells the story from the detective's point of view. The movie adds the two arrogant FBI agents, and Alan Rickman's performance helps flesh out the villain's character.
Steven Spielberg streamlined Peter Benchley's novel about a great white shark that terrorizes a seaside town. The director dropped the side-story love affair between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper, and it was a smart move — the film became an all-time classic and launched Spielberg's now legendary career.
There's no denying that Thomas Harris's novel is tense, well plotted, and horrifying, but Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of Hannibal Lecter transformed a fascinating character into an iconic big-screen menace.
