What film has best represented a book you have read?

Answer 1

Sin City! Okay, I know Sin City was originally a comic book, but if you look at most comic-to-film adaptations, they just rip the original off and change everything. Sin City is the only film from a comic I've seen thus far which actually tried to bring the art and the exact storyline from the original to the screen, and it did it well, camera angles mimicked the frames of art in the original, no plot diversions, spot on really!

Answer 2

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Film Starring John Mills and Audrey Hepburn
Director David Lean

Wuthering Heights by Bronte
Starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon

Both really old films so perhaps they did not have as much spfx that todays films have and therefore were as one imagined when reading the novels. Both though absolutely caught the essence of the times that they portrayed.

Very interesting question.
I have sturggled but I really can not think of a more up-to-date book that I have read that was made into a film succesfully.
Tuesdays with Maury?
Perhaps Trainspotting?
Or Vera Drake?
Inherit the wind?
Pharlap?


Again - none of them very new.
Does that mean that I don't read decent books or are the films falling short?!

Answer 3

I read "The Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris a few months before the film was released. I never liked thrillers and had to be bullied into reading it. After I'd finished it I did nothing but rant about it for weeks. Not only did the film closely parallel the book, but it outdid it and turned the book into a multi million seller.

Answer 4

Strangely enough, Midnight Cowboy. When I read this by James Herlihy(think that's the right spelling) I couldn't imagine it being made in to a film but as you know it was and won the first Oscar for a X rated film. Another, which followed the book pretty well, was Deliverance by James Dickey, he did a "Hitchcock" and appeared in it-as the sheriff at the end.

Answer 5

The Green Mile by Stephen King probably came closest in the film version to the book, but King's Dolores Claiborne and (Rita Hayworth and )The Shawshank Redemption were also quite well done. Generally though, no film can convey all the complexity and nuance of a book. )0(

Answer 6

I usually prefer the book to the film but I think the best adaptation was the BBC's 'War and Peace' with Anthony Hopkins and Alan Dobie. 'I thought that 'The Lord of the Rings' was true to the book, although Frodo came over as very annoying in the film.

Answer 7

The BBC television movie version of "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth.

It is an amazing classic novel.

I've seen most of the movies they've made based on the book, including the 1940's version with Lawrence Olivier and the more recent film with Keira Knightly.

But the BBC version is the only one that captured the novel perfectly.

Answer 8

I'm always a bit warey of watching films about books that I've read I think most times its disappointing!

But the best film I have watched after reading the book is Angela's Ashes. The film really did the book justice and I was not disappointed at all. Fab Film...Fab Book!

Answer 9

The closest one that I've read was "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck. The film version had Gary Sinise in it, and for the most part it followed the book. We had to read the book in language arts and we watched the movie afterwards.

Answer 10

Girl With a Pearl Earring. The movie really picked up the atmosphere of the book. Loved both.