What are the 25 Best Book to Film Adaptations?

September 10, 2009

By Brad Brevet

The Telegraph has posted a nice little list of what they consider to be the 25 best book to film adaptations and while most of the titles will likely not surprise you, perhaps the order in which they are placed will.

Considering this is the Internet, the most discussed placement is sure to be The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 25th spot while the Harry Potter filmed franchise comes in three spots earlier at 22.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read many of the books from this list, but I have seen all but a few of the films. I will say I am far more partial to Stephen King’s “The Shining” than I was to Kubrick’s adaptation and I hardly remember the Harry Potter books well enough to even say if I think they are great adaptations as much as I have simply enjoyed both the films and the books. I never read Thomas Harris’s “Silence of the Lambs” although I did read “Red Dragon,” “Hannibal” and “Hannibal Rising”. My reasoning there was the fact The Silence of the Lambs was so good I didn’t need any additional information or description.

I would say I actually enjoyed David Lean’s Great Expectations more than the book, but Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a personal favorite of mine, and no matter how much I enjoy Legosi as Dracula the book will always come in #1 for me.

Of course, there is one thing I want to point out, before offering her list, Telegraph’s Melissa Katsoulis points out these are the “25 films that made it from the book shelf to the box office with credibility intact,” which tells me she made a list of what she deemed to be the best adaptations and then ranked the films in order not based on how good the adaptation was, but based on how good the films were. This is to say she could believe Trainspotting was the best adaptation of a book for the screen, but the film (with all factors considered) comes in at #17 on the list. So before you go getting all upset in the comments, keep that in mind.

With all that said, check out the list and leave your thoughts in the comment section below. If nothing else this is a great list of films you should add to your Netflix queues if you haven’t seen them already.