I thought it would be fun to have a section of books that were adapted for the silver screen. It’s a good talking point because even if your guests haven’t read the books, there’s a good chance they’ve seen the movie. I’ve got a few already (I’m sure we all do), and I was thinking of getting these:
Bridge Over the River Kwai
Wiseguy (Goodfellas)
Schindlers List
Jaws
Are those decent? Any other suggestions?
Also, I think it would be interesting to get some where the book has a different title to the movie.
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by pomegranate2012
8 Comments
The Lovely Bones
The 13th Warrior (movie) is Eaters of the Dead (book)
Talking it over (movie Love etc)
Brokeback Mountain
Death in.Venice
L.A. Confidential
The talented Mr. Ripley
The Leopard
The old Gringo
The movie from Carl Sagan’s **Contact** was reasonably faithful to the book. The movie emphasized the romance aspect and the endings differed (I preferred the ending in the book.)
The Martian
The Silence of the Lambs
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Little Women
The Remains of the Day
Harry Potter (obviously)
Shogun
Ready Player One
These are some of the books I’ve read that were made into movies – and more importantly – I loved both the book and the movie!
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffry Eugenides
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
French Exit by Patrick deWitt
The Running Man, much better book than film, although I still loved the film
In terms of movies with different names in the books that are based on — Apocalypse Now is based (kinda) on Heart of Darkness, Cabaret is from Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, and Blade Runner is from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
As far as your list goes – Jaws is famously terrible but compared to the movie for what it’s worth. Fun fact about River Kwai – the screenplay was written by someone on the Hollywood blacklist, so there is no screenwriter on the film itself. When it won the Oscar, they credited the author of the book, even though he didn’t read or write English. It helped bring down the blacklist, because for three years in a row the Oscars went to blacklisted writers & it got ridiculous.