Great Books made into Great Movies (1 Viewer)

[Patrick McCart]

I don't think Vertigo can really count. The story was written to be adapted into the movie's screenplay.


As for my picks...

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
by General Lew Wallace
1925 film directed by Fred Niblo
1959 film directed by William Wyler

The Invisible Man
by H.G. Wells
1933 film directed by James Whale

All Quiet On The Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
1930 film directed by Lewis Milestone

 

[JohnRice]

Amazing! 22 posts for someone to get around to 2001: A Space Odyssey
Last year, I read books several movies I like are based on, so I'll add...
A River Runs Through It
The Magnificent Ambersons
Starship Troopers (OK, very loosely based and some people hate the movie)
Bliss both a book and movie virtually nobody has heard of
The Tin Drum

 

[John Watson]

Where would Hollywood be without writers?

Just a few books that have been made into good movies

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (already mentioned)
Pride and Prejudice - The A&E broadcast mini-series based on the novel is available; I'm hoping the 1930's movie version eventually comes to DVD
Wuthering Heights - I have had upto 6 filmed versions of this movie based on the great novel.
Dracula - I just read this for the first time, and it was a treat, I'm looking for Frankenstein next. Of course, there is considerable variation in quality among the movies based on Dracula!

Question for JohnRice : is the novel BLISS that you referred to a novel on which an Australian film called Bliss was based? If so, I have hopes Anchor Bay may release that movie this coming year.

PS to the Good Book - Bad Movie idea, there's also the bad book good movie possibility.
Naked Lunch is more watchable than readable at this stage in my life
World According to Garp - I read the book much later than I saw the movie, and remember being very disappointed.

 

[JohnRice]

Yes, The book and screenplay were by Aussie Peter Carey (More well known for Oscar and Lucinda, which is also a movie) and is a personal little favorite. I hope I'm not jinxing things, but it appears it is this Bliss that AB plans to release next year. It sure would be neat if they included both versions with seamless branching.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Ladies and gentlemen, you will excuse me if I am a bit freaked out that no one mentioned...
The Grapes of Wrath
And I think Dr. Zhivago might have sold a copy or two before the classic Lean film was produced.
I would expect them to follow right after Mockingbird was mentioned, if we are talking classic literature that might be taught in high school and films that were of the level of Oscar winners.

 

[Jeff Pryor]

The Outsiders

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

 

[Brandt]

The Black Stallion was a book before it was a movie.

 

[Dalton]

The Body by Stephen King was made into a pretty good movie called Stand by Me

 

[chung_sotheby]

Four Seasons, the collection of four Steven King novellas, had three movies made out from its four stories (Stand by Me, Shawshank, and Apt Pupil)

As for Fight Club, I actually thought that the movie was better than the book, and I read the book before I saw the movie.
As for 2001: a Space Odyssey, it was written as a movie before it was written as a book.

Nobody has mentioned a couple of my favorites:

The World According to Garp (First high profile movies for Robin Williams, Glenn Close and an oscar nom for John Lithgow)
LA Confidential (Great novel by James Ellroy)
The Talented Mr Ripley/Blue Noon (Both versions of this book are great, but I prefer Blue Noon)
Tom Jones(Albert Phinney at his finest)
Lawrence of Arabia (Can't really call it a movie from a book, even though it was based heavily on a few Lawrence books)
Wonder Boys (Michael Chabon is one of the top 3 novelists today)
The Player (Great book)

 

[JohnRice]

Excuse me?


EDIT... I never even thought about it. Seems you are probably right. 2001 was adapted by Clarke from a story titled The Sentinal, not from the book.

 

[Francois Caron]

1984 is a good candidate. A few passages from the book were trimmed down or removed to make the movie flow properly, but all the key elements remained pretty much intact. The movie's portrayal of Room 101 still haunts me to this very day.

 

[Eric Lipp]

Ahem....
Battlefield Earth?
(Ok, ok. Just kidding)

Seriously....
October Sky (life story)
Spider-Man (kinda)
Gettysburg (The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara)

~Eric

 

[Jan Strnad]

The Graduate
On the Beach
The Time Machine
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Exorcist
Rosemary's Baby
The Man Who Would Be King

Yeah, you could go on and on.

Hollywood's output is definitely enriched enormously by the prose fiction that's come before. I don't know many cases where it's worked the other way around.

Jan

 

[James RD]

Deliverance.

 

[Ross Waite]

I rather enjoyed the latest version of The Count of Monte Cristo.
It may not have been an exact retelling of Dumas' masterpiece, but IMO was very well done. I found this adaptation very entertaining.
Just my $0.02 worth.

-Ross

 

[Kelly W]

We really love Angela's Ashes, both the book and the movie.
While I'll concede that the book is better, I think the movie does an amazing job of capturing the story. It is one of the best adaptations of a book to film that I can think of-- in the sense that they didn't arbitrarily change details or events in the translation.
Even Frank McCourt thinks so and is apparently very happy with the results of the film.
-Kelly

 

[Angelo.M]

I feel so existential at the moment...
I may be one of the only people on the planet to have seen the 1992 film version of Camus' classic La Peste (The Plague); it wasn't great, wasn't terrible. What we need is a film of The Stranger.
The film of Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a lot of fun. And speaking of great plays, Death of a Salesman, Raisin in the Sun and A Soldier's Story jump to my mind, as prime non-Shakesperean adaptations.
Ah, and now for something completely different: Remains of the Day was an incredible book; a modern classic.

 

[Yee-Ming]

not sure the book qualifies as "great", but the movie certainly does: The Godfather. I believe this is one example sometimes cited where a movie, artistically speaking, surpasses the book. apparently this is rare. but what do I know?

(funny Godfather hasn't come up yet in this thread. I'm usually the last guy to get to make any suggestions on this type of thread, partly because of time differences. or maybe no one considers Godfather a great book and everyone has discounted it from consideration?)

 

[Lew Crippen]

And in the non-Shakespeare play category, I would highly recommend Long Day’s Journey Into Night. I’ve seen the play many times and (at the suggestion of a forum member) watched the version directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Jason Robards, Ralph Richardson and Katharine Hepburn.

It doesn’t get better than this.

 

[DonMac]

I haven't noticed them mentioned, so I'll toss in The Maltese Falcon and A Clockwork Orange.