Film history is littered with bad adaptations of good books. Think of Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot in Netflix’s Persuasion, a film that boldly asks: “What if a Jane Austen heroine was possessed by Fleabag?” Or of The Hobbit franchise’s rapidly diminishing returns. Or even the plodding movie version of The Girl on the Train, which pointlessly transplanted the action to the US and tried to trick viewers into believing that Emily Blunt was a washed-up alcoholic by making her skin look a bit red.
It’s case studies like these ones that can lead readers to declare that the novel is always, always better than the movie. There’s space for characters to be properly sketched out, and for us to fully get to grips with their foibles and motivations; often, they have a distinctive inner voice that just doesn’t work on the big screen.
But then there are a handful of films that manage to turn this trend on its head, whether that’s by building on already impressive source material, or simply taking something that’s, well, a bit naff, stripping it for parts and then reconfiguring the story, adding better characters, or playing around with the setting. Here are 13 movies that are arguably way more enjoyable than the original book.
The Godfather
Even author Mario Puzo admitted that his 1969 mafia epic The Godfather wasn’t his master work. “The Godfather is not as good as the preceding two novels,” he said. “I wrote it to make money.” He had debts that he needed to pay off, and writing a pulpy thriller full of intrigue seemed like a better way to do so than to spend years chipping away at another novel that would be praised by critics but ultimately sell poorly. Expectations were so low that he sold the film option to Paramount for just $12,500 while he was still writing.
When the book came out, it became a bestseller, and Puzo could pay off those debts. Producers at Paramount planned to churn out a run-of-the-mill gangster movie, but director Francis Ford Coppola battled to make it into something better. He insisted on filming it on location, keeping the novel’s period setting, cutting back some subplots and honing in on the relationship between Don Vito Corleone, the ageing head of the family played by Marlon Brando, and his young successor Michael (Al Pacino). His creative decisions paid off: his Godfather trilogy is considered one of cinema’s greatest achievements.
Forrest Gump
Yes, it’s a bit (OK, very) cheesy. It hasn’t aged particularly well. And maybe didn’t deserve to win Best Picture in such a stacked category back in 1995 (Pulp Fiction! The Shawshank Redemption! And my personal choice, Four Weddings and a Funeral!) But for all its hokiness, Forrest Gump is still a heartwarming crowd pleaser, if you squint a bit. The book on which it was based? Not so much. In this erratic tale by Winston Groom, Forrest is a much less lovable, saccharine character, his beloved Jenny (played in the film by Robin Wright) is barely sketched out and there’s plenty of not-so-veiled racism when our hero gets captured by a cannibal tribe in New Guinea. And there’s even a bizarre side plot where Forrest goes into space with an ape named Sue. Even Tom Hanks would have struggled to make that work on screen.
Blade Runner
The sci-fi author Philip K Dick was suspicious when he learnt that Ridley Scott was making a film based on his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; he was apparently so dismissive of the whole endeavour that he would refer to it as “Road Runner” rather than use the adaptation’s actual title, Blade Runner. But Scott’s project, starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a former police officer now tasked with hunting down “replicants” or artifically engineered humans, would vastly surpass his expectations, expanding the novel’s world into a harrowing dystopia with an instantly iconic aesthetic.
Sadly Dick never got to see the completed film, but he did watch some early footage. “I did not know that a work of mine or a set of ideas of mine could be escalated into such stunning dimensions,” he wrote in a letter to movie marketer Jeff Walker. “My life and creative work are justified by Blade Runner.” As far as seals of approval go, it’s hard to get better than that.
The Devil Wears Prada
Lauren Weisberger’s novel, based on the author’s stint as a PA to Vogue editor Anna Wintour, became a publishing sensation upon its release in 2003; its white cover adorned with a huge red shoe was a fixture on poolside loungers in the early Noughties. It’s a gossipy good read, with the added piquancy of its real-life parallels – but it’s since been surpassed in the collective pop cultural memory by the brilliant 2006 film adaptation. That’s largely thanks to Meryl Streep’s unforgettable portrayal of Runway magazine’s icy Wintour-alike editor-in-chief Miranda Priestley, a woman who can turn a simple phrase like “that’s all!” into the stuff of nightmares. She has excellent back-up from Emily Blunt as her top-dog assistant and Anne Hathaway as naive newcomer Andie.
Casino Royale
Apologies in advance to all Ian Fleming diehards, but Casino Royale, the first of the author’s James Bond novels, has not aged particularly well. His short sentences are an acquired taste. The spycraft isn’t all that dramatic. Many characters are flat and the women are even more one-dimensional. And yet half a decade later, the book ended up providing the blueprint for one of the very best 007 films (it also inspired a bizarre “comedy” version in 1967 starring David Niven, but that’s probably better left undiscussed).
Daniel Craig made his Bond debut in the 2006 adaptation, which takes a few liberties with side plots and locations but retains the dramatic heart of Fleming’s story: a card game showdown between Bond and the villainous Le Chiffre (played by Mads Mikkelsen). The stakes feel higher and there’s more emotional heft too, largely thanks to Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd. For many fans, it’s still Craig’s greatest entry in the franchise.
Mary Poppins
Yes, PL Travers’ book series about a magical Edwardian nanny is a classic of kids’ fiction. But it’s the 1964 film version that really lives on in our hearts. That’s thanks to a dazzling lead performance from a never-better Julie Andrews and a gorgeous array of songs from the Sherman Brothers, ranging from musical tongue-twisters (“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”) to tearjerkers (“Feed the Birds”) to a feminist rallying cry in “Sister Suffragette”. It’s a film so joyful that even Dick van Dyke’s cock-er-nee accent couldn’t dim its shine, which says a lot, but the original Poppins magic is near-impossible to replicate: the 2018 sequel just couldn’t compete.
Shrek
