Not long ago, I was having a conversation with a friend
about favorite movies, and we were talking about The Princess Bride. I don’t think I know anybody who doesn’t love
that movie. It’s almost perfect. Anyway, I mentioned that William Goldman and I
happened to attend the same high school and summer camp (albeit about 37 years
apart).
“William Goldman,” I said. “You know, the guy who wrote the
book.”
My friend replied, “It was a book?”
Yes, it seems that mainstream films sometimes erase memories
of literature. So I’m going to remedy that by ranking the 84 best movies that
were books first. It’s a bit of a challenge, mostly due to an embarrassment of
riches. From 12 Angry Men to Apollo 13, from The Graduate to The Player to
The Firm, Hollywood has been poaching
literature for decades.
But it doesn’t always work. John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row is classic reading. The
movie starring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger? Not classic watching. Roger Ebert
wrote that it seemed “scripted out of old country songs and lonely hearts
columns.” Same with 1984. One of the
finest books ever written, but it doesn’t always translate to film.
Rather, this is a list of the best films that happen
to be based on books or short stories. I’m not even going to select any movie
series options. No Harry Potter, no Twilight, no Hunger Games, no Bourne
this-and-that. Not even The Lord of the Rings trilogy, though I do love those
movies.
Still, it’s a tough call—and a very personal one. In fact,
here are two-dozen films I didn’t
choose: Les Miserables, Leaving Las
Vegas, Mystic River, Mommie Dearest, First Blood, There Will Be Blood, Fight
Club, Brokeback Mountain, Cold Mountain, Cocoon, Cape Fear, Doctor Zhivago, Total
Recall, Invictus, Out of Africa, The Perfect Storm, The Help, The Outsiders,
The English Patient, The Devil Wears Prada, The Father of the Bride, The Da
Vinci Code, The Blind Side, and The
Witches of Eastwick.
And here are the films I did select, starting with my
personal choices for the best of the best:
1. Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King)
2. The Princess Bride (William Goldman)
3. Dances
With Wolves (Michael Blake)
4. Goodfellas
(Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi)
5. Schindler’s
List (Thomas Keneally)
6. 12
Angry Men (Reginald Rose)
7. The
Godfather (Mario Puzo)
8. One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey)
9. To
Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
10. The
Untouchables (Eliot Ness)
11. Forrest
Gump (Winston Groom)
12. Stand
By Me (The Body by Stephen King)
13. Searching
for Bobby Fischer (Fred Waitzkin)
14. The
Player (Michael Tolkin)
15. The
Shining (Stephen King)
16. Field
of Dreams (Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella)
17. Gone
with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
18. The
Silence of the Lambs (Thomas Harris)
19. A
Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar)
20. Glory
(One Gallant Rush by Richard Burchard)
22. Jaws
(Peter Benchley)
23. Election
(Tom Perrotta)
24. Hugo
(The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick)
25. The
Graduate (Charles Webb)
26. The
Firm (John Grisham)
27. No
Way Out (Kenneth Fearing)
28. October
Sky (Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam)
29. Apollo
13 (Lost Moon by Jim Lovell)
30. 2001:
A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke)
32. L.A.
Confidential (James Ellroy)
33. A
Midnight Clear (William Wharton)
34. A
River Runs Through It (Norman MacLean)
35. Scent
of a Woman (Giovanni Arpino)
36. The
French Connection (Robin Moore)
37. Taps
(Father Sky by Devery Freeman)
38. Fletch
(Gregory McDonald)
39. Wag
the Dog (American Hero by Larry Beinhart)
40. Big
Fish (Daniel Wallace)
42. Life
of Pi (Yann Martel)
43. The
Color Purple (Alice Walker)
44. Ordinary
People (Judith Guest)
45. About
Schmidt (Louis Begley)
46. Die
Hard (Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp)
47. Dead
Man Walking (Helen Prejean)
48. Cool
Hand Luke (Donn Pearce)
49. Awakenings
(Oliver Sachs)
50. The
Ice Storm (Rick Moody)
51. Who
Framed Roger Rabbit? (Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary Wolf)
52. Jurassic
Park (Michael Chrichton)
53. 12
Years a Slave (Solomon Northup)
54. Postcards
from the Edge (Carrie Fisher)
55. 3:10
to Yuma (Elmore Leonard)
56. Contact
(Carl Sagan)
57. The
Hunt for Red October (Tom Clancy)
58. What’s
Eating Gilbert Grape (Peter Hedges)
59. Blade
Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick)
60. Get
Shorty (Elmore Leonard)
61. Charly
(Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes)
62. Sophie’s
Choice (William Styron)
63. Fast
Times at Ridgemont High (Cameron Crowe)
64. Adaptation
(The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean)
65. No
Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
66. Born
on the Fourth of July (Ron Kovic)
67. A
Christmas Story (In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd)
68. Alive
(Piers Read)
69. Terms
of Endearment (Larry McMurtry)
70. The
Cider House Rules (John Irving)
71. The
World According to Garp (John Irving)
72. Quiz
Show (Remembering America by Richard N. Goodwin)
73. The
Curious Case of Benjamin Button (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
74. Into
the Wild (Jon Krakauer)
76. Pay
it Forward (Catherine Ryan Hyde)
77. Seabiscuit
(Laura Hillenbrand)
78. Reversal
of Fortune (Alan Dershowitz)
79. True
Grit (Charles Portis)
80. Marathon
Man (William Goldman)
81. High
Fidelity (Nick Hornby)
82. Romancing
the Stone (Diane Thomas)
83. Shrek
(William Steig)
84. Private
Parts (Howard Stern)
Yes lots of books or novels are converted into good movies now a days which is very cool
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