Is the Movie Ever Better Than the Book?
For Oscars month, we asked readers Is the movie EVER better than the book? More than sixty respondents were eager to share some strong opinions!
You may be surprised to hear that the breakdown between The book is always better and Sometimes the book and movie are different but equally good was just about 50-50. Clearly Library folks love their books, but there's a lot of love for the cinema here too.
Among movies considered to improve on their source material, a whopping 6 people (almost 10% of respondents) mentioned The Godfather. (One person qualified "except III.")
- Left: The Godfather by Mario Puzo, 1969
- Right: The Godfather, 1972, dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Three people preferred the 1939 film of Gone with the Wind over Margaret Mitchell's 1936 bestseller:
- Left: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1936
- Right: Gone with the Wind, 1939, dir. Victor Fleming (etc.)
Two people cited Jaws as one they'd rather watch than read - "because of the visuals," someone mentioned:
- Left: Jaws by Peter Benchley, 1974
- Right: Jaws, 1975, dir. Stephen Spielberg
And two people said the same of another visually arresting film, The English Patient:
- Left: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, 1992
- Right: The English Patient, 1996, dir. Anthony Minghella
The rest of the film-vs-book submissions follow. Agree? Disagree? Have another to add? Get in touch on Twitter or Facebook. Happy reading and/or viewing!
- Left: Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, 2000
- Right: Angels & Demons, 2009, dir. Ron Howard
- Left: The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, 1954
- Right: The Bridge On the River Kwai, 1957, dir. David Lean
- Left: The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller, 1992
- Right: The Bridges of Madison County, 1995, dir. Clint Eastwood
- Left: Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, 1998
- Right: Bridget Jones's Diary, 2001, dir. Sharon Maguire
- Left: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, 2009
- Right: Brooklyn, 2015, dir. John Crowley
- Left: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, 1962
- Right: A Clockwork Orange, 1971, dir. Stanley Kubrick
- Left: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, 1997
- Right: Cold Mountain, 2003, dir. Anthony Minghella
- Left: The Conformist by Alberto Moravia, 1951. (The contributor remarks that perhaps the translation they read wasn't ideal.)
- Right: The Conformist, 1971, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
- Left: The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, 2003
- Right: The Devil Wears Prada, 2006, dir. David Frankel
- Left: Forrest Gump by Winston Groom, 1986
- Right: Forrest Gump, 1994, dir. Robert Zemeckis
- Left: The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, 1969
- Right: The French Lieutenant's Woman, 1981, dir. Karel Reisz
- Left: Howards End by E.M. Forster, 1910
- Right: Howards End, 1992, dir. James Ivory
- Left: The Leopard by Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1958
- Right: The Leopard, 1963, dir. Luchino Visconti
- Left: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014
- Right: Station Eleven, 2021, created for television by Patrick Somerville
- Left: To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han, 2014
- Right: To All the Boys I've Loved Before, 2018, dir. Susan Johnson
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