
“Five Favorite” is a feature on thewasofshall where I lay out my five favorite “x”. Sometimes they’re relevant to a season or holiday, mostly they’re not. It’s an all-around fun excuse to give my 100% amazingly awesome opinion. To see previous topics, click here.
More often than not, the book is better than the film from which it’s adapted, due to its ability to offer WAY more room for intricate plots, characterization, and world-building, details that just don’t fit in a format which has time constraints and focuses on visual story-telling. Sometimes, though, a movie does its source material justice, by faithfully adapting the book into a screenplay without losing too much of what makes the book so good.
Then there are the times when a film is actually better than the source from which it came. Here are five of my favorite.
- Fight Club, based on Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy, based on The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Moneyball, based on Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
- Pride & Prejudice, based on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Have your own five favorite adaptations? Let me know!