10 Great Films That Were Better Than the Book

Forrest Gump (Winston Groom vs. Robert Zemeckis)

Any film featuring Tom Hanks aboard a watercraft at anytime is easily going to enrich our lives. No doubt his 1980s film repertoire was unmatched by any other actor (except for maybe Bill Murray), but his Academy Award-winning performance in 1994 as a simple man in a complex world stands on top.

Winston Groom's 1986 character piece filled with endless adventures was eventually gripped a few years later by the Hollywood paws and turned into a touching, empowering rom-com. With the screenplay cutting off the rugged parts of its novel's pages, the film eventually became one of the highest grossing movies of the 1990s. Not to say that's what made it better, but it did.

Blow (Bruce Porter vs. Ted Demme)

Although the true crime book offers a well-written exploration of the topsy-turvy life and times of an ambitious up-and-coming drug dealer, the recreation on the silver screen with Johnny Depp, Paul Reubens and Penelope Cruz makes the lifestyle seem pretty worthwhile, if you don't mind rotting away in jail for the rest of your lonesome days just to get down with the lady Cruz.

Bruce Porter's original title "Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All" might have been a little long for billboards, but the story developed into one of the best-told character pieces of modern film. It's also quite possibly Depp's best performance to date (partly due to the lack of make-up and pirates).

Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King vs. Frank Darabont)

It was between this and "The Green Mile" for this writer/director collaboration's top play. Both films are highly regarded prison features on the prisoner/guard relationship met with a few curveballs and top shelf actors.

Darabont and King are both masters in their own right, but this film takes the cake as one of the '90s most beloved tales of friendship from behind bars with the dream of one day living freely again. This storyline has more or less been beaten to death ("Prison Break"), but this 1994 classic is the perfect way to lighten the mood when you realize you're going to prison for a very long time.

Psycho (Robert Bloch vs. Alfred Hitchcock)

As with many classic films, people tend to get the book after they've seen the movie. With "Psycho," lots of people waited until they saw the film adaptation before getting the book, if they knew how to read at all. Some are still waiting for the illustrated version.

Hitchcock took the 1959 novel and transformed it into one of the most classic horrors of film history in 1960. Later, Vince Vaughn would be cast in the remake, which although decent, was just another creepy role for him to go along with "Domestic Disturbance."

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson vs. Terry Gilliam)

No one is knocking Hunter as a writer; he remains the man. His guns a' blazing, pill-popping novel "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" presents a win/win to the film world, as the whiskey-soaked scoundrel handed over page after page of wild rides.

The trick of the film, however, was to end strongly, whereas the novel veered slightly off track. Still regarded as an incredible piece of writing material, Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro show us the real thing up close and overly personal.

If you didn't already hate Las Vegas and still want to go after seeing it, you're downright as mad of a man as Hunter himself, which he would regard as a true success.

Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell vs. Lana & Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer)

No matter how good the writer, it's hard to put into words the cinematic genius presented in "Cloud Atlas," a love story of all-time...literally. Although the 2004 novel by David Mitchell did its best to encapsulate the timelessness of the soul mate concept and our ever-intertwined reincarnations, it fell short by presenting everything in a very dark, dismal light, like that of a 10-watt bulb in a prison cell.

The film wins as it did a better job piecing together the age-old idea of love triumphing through a positive light, from the beginning of time to the post-apocalyptic future, starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. Since the movie got it right, teaching us that novels can actually be bettered by film, perhaps the new trend will be to remake novels, since they're running out of original movies to make.

The Shining (Stephen King vs. Stanley Kubrick)

If any director had a shot at consistently breaking the mold of books being better, it'd likely be Stanley Kubrick, as "Lolita" and "The Clockwork Orange" are no slouches in this department either. Not just some random pick out of the Hollywood hat, the film was released in 1980, just three years after King's book release, an author Hollywood has put its trust in to get us through its lacking horror literary section.

Although King has an unparalleled vision for horror with his words, Kubrick brings the pages into psychotic existence with the help of the wild and crazy Jack Nicholson. It's just a nice reminder that we can all wind up as kooky as Jack given a certain set of circumstances.

No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy vs. The Coen brothers)

Although McCarthy has a steady list of accomplishments in the mystery/thriller realm, nothing brings words off the page like the haunting stare of Javier Bardem in his Oscar-winning performance in "No Country for Old Men." The Coen brothers ("Big Lebowski," "Fargo") have a knack for sinking their teeth into screenwriting projects that come up smelling like roses. No offense to McCarthy, but if the Coen brothers are reworking your material, it's probably in better hands than before.