15 Great Films Adapted From Equally Great Novels

Warn­er Bros.

How often does a film adap­ta­tion of a nov­el you love meet your expec­ta­tions? Cir­cle one: A) Always B) Often C) Rarely D) Nev­er.

I’m guess­ing most peo­ple choose C, with a few falling solid­ly in the peren­ni­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed D camp. There are, of course, those very few films that rise so far above their source mate­r­i­al that we needn’t speak of the nov­el at all. I can think of one off the top of my head, involv­ing a cer­tain well-dressed mob­ster fam­i­ly.

Then there are adap­ta­tions of books that depart so far from the source that any com­par­i­son seems like a wast­ed exer­cise. Spike Jonze’s Adap­ta­tion is one inten­tion­al exam­ple, one that glee­ful­ly rev­els in its meta-poet­ic license-tak­ing.

Per­haps no sin­gle author save Shake­speare, Jane Austen, or Stephen King has had as many of his works adapt­ed to the screen as sci-fi vision­ary Philip K. Dick. The results vary, but the force of Dick’s imag­i­na­tion seems to make every cin­e­ma ver­sion of his nov­els worth watch­ing, I’d argue.

But all this talk of adap­ta­tion brings us to the ques­tion that the inter­net must ask of every sub­ject under the sun: what are nth best films made from novels—list them, damn you! Okay, well, you won’t get just my hum­ble opin­ion, but the col­lec­tive votes of hun­dreds of Guardian read­ers, cir­ca 2006, when writ­ers Peter Brad­shaw and Xan Brooks took a poll, then post­ed the results as “The Big 50.”

The list includes those dap­per mafiosi, but, as I said, I’m not much inclined—nor was Fran­cis Ford Coppola—to Mario Puzo’s nov­el. But there are sev­er­al films on the list made from books I do like quite a bit. In the 15 picks below, I like the movies almost or just as much. These are films from The Guardian’s big 50 that I feel do their source nov­els jus­tice. Go ahead and quib­ble, rage, or even agree in the com­ments below—or, by all means, make your own sug­ges­tions of cas­es where film and book meet equal­ly high stan­dards, whether those exam­ples appear on “The Big 50” or not.

1. A Clock­work Orange (1971)

Stan­ley Kubrick’s take on Antho­ny Burgess’ 1962 dystopi­an fable repli­cates the high­ly dis­ori­ent­ing expe­ri­ence of tra­vers­ing a fic­tion­al world through the eyes of a Beethoven-lov­ing, Nad­sat-speak­ing, sociopath. Mal­colm McDow­ell gives the per­for­mance of his career (see above). So dis­tinc­tive is the set design, it inspired a chain of Koro­va Milk Bars. Burgess him­self had a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship with the film and its direc­tor. Prais­ing the adap­ta­tion as bril­liant, he also found its bleak, sar­don­ic end­ing, and omis­sion of the novel’s redemp­tive final chapter—also miss­ing from U.S. edi­tions of the book pri­or to 1986—troubling. The film’s relent­less ultra­vi­o­lence, so dis­turb­ing to many a view­er, and many a reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion, also dis­turbed the author who imag­ined it.

2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

A film adap­ta­tion with an even more brava­do ensem­ble cast (Dan­ny DeVi­to, Brad Dou­rif, Louise Fletch­er, Christo­pher Lloyd) and incred­i­bly charismatic—and dangerous—lead, Jack Nichol­son, Milos Forman’s Cuckoo’s Nest stands per­fect­ly well on its own. But lovers of Ken Kesey’s mad­cap nov­el have many rea­sons for favor­able com­par­i­son. One vast dif­fer­ence between the two, how­ev­er, lies in the nar­ra­tive point-of-view. The book is nar­rat­ed by will­ful­ly silent Chief Bromden—the film most­ly takes McMurphy’s point-of-view. With­out a voice-over, it would have been near-impos­si­ble to stay true to the source, but the result leaves the novel’s nar­ra­tor most­ly on the sidelines—along with many of his the­mat­ic con­cerns. Nonethe­less, actor Will Samp­son imbues the tow­er­ing Brom­den with deep pathos, empa­thy, and com­ic sto­icism. When he final­ly speaks, it’s almost like we’ve been hear­ing his voice all along (see above).

3. To Kill a Mock­ing­bird (1962)

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up! Your father’s pass­ing.” If this scene (above), doesn’t choke you up just a lit­tle, well… I don’t real­ly know what to say.… The sen­ti­men­tal adap­ta­tion of the reclu­sive Harp­er Lee’s only nov­el is flawed, right­eous, and love­able. Gre­go­ry Peck is Atti­cus Finch (and as far as adap­ta­tions go—despite the brave attempts of many a fine actor—is Ahab as well). And the young Mary Bad­ham is Scout. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut as kind­ly shut-in Boo Radley, audi­ences learn how to pro­nounce “chif­farobe”…. It’s as clas­sic a piece of work as the novel—seems almost impos­si­ble to sep­a­rate the two.

4. Apoc­a­lypse Now (1979)

Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la and screen­writer John Milius—the Hol­ly­wood char­ac­ter so well car­i­ca­tured by John Good­man in The Big Lebows­ki—trans­form Joseph Conrad’s lean 1899 colo­nial­ist novel­la Heart of Dark­ness into a grandiose, bare­ly coher­ent, psy­che­del­ic tour-de-force set in the steam­ing jun­gles of Viet­nam. Bran­do glow­ers in shad­ow, Robert Duvall strikes hilar­i­ous­ly macho pos­es, Mar­tin Sheen gen­uine­ly los­es his mind, and a coked-up, man­ic Den­nis Hop­per shows up, quotes T.S. Eliot, and near­ly upstages every­one (above). Roger Ebert loved the even longer, cra­zier Redux, released in 2001, say­ing it “shames mod­ern Hollywood’s timid­i­ty.” Nov­el­ist Jes­si­ca Hage­dorn fic­tion­al­ized the movie’s leg­endary mak­ing in the Philip­pines. How much is left of Con­rad? I would say, sur­pris­ing­ly, quite a bit of the spir­it of Heart of Dark­ness survives—maybe even more than in Nico­las Roeg’s straight­for­ward 1994 adap­ta­tion with John Malkovich as Kurtz and Tim Roth as Mar­low.

5. Trainspot­ting (1996)

Dan­ny Boyle’s adap­ta­tion of Irvine Welsh’s addic­tion-themed first novel—or rather col­lec­tion of inter­linked stories—about a scrap­py bunch of Scot­tish lowlifes may be very much a prod­uct of its moment, but its hard to imag­ine a more per­fect screen real­iza­tion of Welsh’s punk prose. Char­ac­ter-dri­ven in the best sense of the phrase, Boyle’s com­ic Trainspot­ting man­ages the estimable feat of telling a sto­ry about drug addicts and crim­i­nal types that doesn’t fea­ture any gold­en-heart­ed hook­ers, mourn­ful inter­ven­tions, self-right­eous, didac­tic pop soci­ol­o­gy, or oth­er Hol­ly­wood drug-movie sta­ples. A sequel—based on Welsh’s fol­low-up nov­el Porno—may be forth­com­ing.

And below are 10 more selec­tions from The Guardian’s top 50 in which—I’d say—film and book are both, if not equal­ly, great:

6. Blade Run­ner (1982)
7. Dr. Zhiva­go (1965)
8. Empire of the Sun (1987)
9. Catch-22 (1970)
10. Loli­ta (1962)
11. Tess (1979)
12. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
13. The Day of the Trif­fids (1962)
14. Alice (1988)
15. Lord of the Flies (1963)

So, there you have it—my top 15 from The Guardian’s list of 50 best adap­ta­tions. What are your favorites? Look over their oth­er 35—What glar­ing omis­sions deserve men­tion (The Shin­ing? Naked Lunch? Dr. Strangelove? Lawrence of Ara­bia? The Col­or Pur­ple?), which inclu­sions should be strick­en, for­got­ten, burned? (Why, oh, why was the Tim Bur­ton Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry remake picked over the orig­i­nal?) All of the films men­tioned are in English—what essen­tial adap­ta­tions in oth­er lan­guages should we attend to? And final­ly, what alter­nate ver­sions do you pre­fer to some of the most-seen adap­ta­tions of nov­els or sto­ries?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

44 Essen­tial Movies for the Stu­dent of Phi­los­o­phy

Stan­ley Kubrick’s List of Top 10 Films (The First and Only List He Ever Cre­at­ed)

700 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc. 

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness