The Most Accurate Film Adaptations of All Time
I’m one of those people who insists on reading the book before seeing the movie. Then I obnoxiously compare the two as I’m leaving the theatre. (I know. I’m working on it.)
Liberties must be taken when adapting a novel to the big screen. A film has limitations that a novel doesn’t, yet it can also accomplish things that novels can’t.
But this list isn’t about whether a book-to-film adaptation was good or not. After all, Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie, was a fairly loyal adaptation of the book… not that I would know, or anything.
No- this list is about analyzing how faithful the film version is to its source material. So, which film adaptations are most true to how the story played out on the pages? Read on.
- To Kill A Mockingbird
“Compare and contrast the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, with the film,” was probably one of your most dreaded high-school essay questions. In a perfect world, a film adaptation complements the book. It upholds the basic plot, main characters and overarching themes. In this respect, To Kill a Mockingbird (the movie) succeeds with flying colours. The novel may be more of a coming-of-age tale, while the film focuses heavily on courtroom drama (and cuts out Atticus’ sister, Aunt Alexandra, entirely), but the themes of racism, prejudice and justice prevail.
2. Gone With the Wind
Running almost four hours long, the movie adaptation of Gone With the Wind is remarkably faithful to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of more than 1,000 pages. With a few minor tweaks here and there, the themes, characters and sweeping visuals stay true to the original story. The book is one of the best-selling novels to date and the film remains one of the most successful films at the box office of all time, which proves that a good love story is a good love story — no matter the medium.
3. The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption was written and directed by Frank Darabont for the big screen from Stephen King’s prison novella. Several minor characters were altered, expanded, or combined with other characters for clarity and timing. Other than that, the story follows King’s book pretty much scene by scene. Oddly enough, the movie-version ending was actually grimmer than King’s original, which had the Warden resign after his escape. In the film, the Warden shoots himself in the head.
4. The Green Mile
In the book, Paul is writing memoirs instead of telling his story to someone else, plus they took out a very minor character called “the president.” Otherwise, Stephen King’s The Green Mile — once again transformed for the big screen by Frank Darabont — is pretty spot on. Not to mention the genius casting of Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan. Though King admitted the film was, “a little soft in some ways” compared to the original, the author was ultimately delighted with the film’s feel-good, “praise-the-human-condition” message. Who knew a story about death row could be so sweet?
5. 300
Love or hate 300, you’ve got to admit it’s extremely faithful to Frank Miller’s original graphic novel of the same name. That’s because Miller served as executive producer, ensuring his vision was on-point for the big screen. Using green-screen technology to capture the comic-book feel, both film and novel were panned for their historical inaccuracies and over-the-top dialogue — but that didn’t stop 300 from earning $456 million worldwide.
6. Mystic River
Directed by Clint Eastwood, this drama was adapted from a novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. Readers and critics alike thought Sean Penn’s Oscar-winning performance conveyed troubled ex-con Jimmy perfectly. The screen version nails the characters and the plot, but also does an excellent job of portraying the foreboding Boston setting and atmosphere of the book, capturing both the style and substance of the original work.
7. No Country For Old Men
Directed by the Coen brothers, the Oscar-winning 2007 film follows two men: one with a briefcase full of money, and another, who is tasked with finding it. Bolstered by powerful performances from Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Tommy Lee Jones, the film version follows the plot of the novel to a tee. Much of the menacing dialogue is lifted directly from the book verbatim, including the famous “coin toss” gas-station scene. And the frustrating ending? That’s exactly how it played out in the novel version, too.
8. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Transforming Hunter S. Thompson’s, shall we say, colourful stream-of-consciousness into a pseudo-psychedelic film must have been no easy feat for director Terry Gilliam. It plays out very similarly to the book in terms of pacing, scene selection and drug-induced surrealism. Roger Ebert, however, was less-than-enthused by the film, giving it a one-star out of four. “Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a funny book by a gifted writer, who seems gifted and funny no longer,” he wrote, bemoaning that the lack of perspective they have of themselves in the film that he claims was present in the book. I rarely disagree with Ebert, but Thompson was no Shakespeare. Yes, there are a few additional scenes in the book, which are able to dive deeper into themes like drug-induced paranoia, but ultimately, the film does well to keep things light.
9. The Godfather Part I
With a film this epic, it’s not hard to conceive that The Godfather was pretty true to its original material. In fact, the differences between the Oscar-winning film and New York Times-best-selling crime novel are so minor — a few bodyguards and minor characters actually survive (or die), depending on the scene — they hardly bear mentioning. The largest omission is the backstory of Vito Corleone’s earlier life, including his emigrating to America, his murder of Don Fanucci, and his rise in the Mafia, which are all discussed in flashbacks in the book. Thankfully, we were given The Godfather II to fill in the blanks. The book also had a more upbeat ending, in which Kay Corleone happily accepts husband Michael’s decision to take over the “family business.” In the film, Kay is faced with the dark realization of just how cold-blooded Michael has become, laying the groundwork for the sequels.
10. Silence of the Lambs
Thanksgiving will never be the same. (Don’t forget your liver, fava beans, and chianti!). Jonathan Demme’s classic horror-thriller is an astonishingly faithful adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novel, which gave me nightmares for a week. The story of FBI trainee and murdering genius Hannibal Lector follows most of the same beats, especially the key scenes between Hannibal and Clarice. In the book, we have access to her inner monologue and her struggling to be taken seriously in the male-dominated FBI Academy, but the movie does a good job of showing this through exposition. There is one notable deviation from the film to screen — the movie’s iconic Chianti reference (in the book, it was Amarone). Doesn’t have the same terrifying ring to it, does it?
