13 films that are better than the book they’re based on

Film history is littered with bad adaptations of good books. Think of Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot in Netflix’s Persuasion, a film that boldly asks: “What if a Jane Austen heroine was possessed by Fleabag?” Or of The Hobbit franchise’s rapidly diminishing returns. Or even the plodding movie version of The Girl on the Train, which pointlessly transplanted the action to the US and tried to trick viewers into believing that Emily Blunt was a washed-up alcoholic by making her skin look a bit red.

It’s case studies like these ones that can lead readers to declare that the novel is always, always better than the movie. There’s space for characters to be properly sketched out, and for us to fully get to grips with their foibles and motivations; often, they have a distinctive inner voice that just doesn’t work on the big screen.

But then there are a handful of films that manage to turn this trend on its head, whether that’s by building on already impressive source material, or simply taking something that’s, well, a bit naff, stripping it for parts and then reconfiguring the story, adding better characters, or playing around with the setting. Here are 13 movies that are arguably way more enjoyable than the original book.