When films are adapted from books, more often than not, I tend to find the books a lot more enjoyable. So I have skipped watching a lot of films in the hope of reading the books later.
So what are some great films not adapted from books? Or what are some films that are significantly better than the book they were adapted from?
Christopher Nolan has done some good big movies not based on existing book or IP: Memento, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet.
Interstellar is in my top 5 favorite movies. Fuckin’ blew my mind the first time I saw it.
It’s the music and sound design. F’n masterpiece.
It’s maybe the best theater movie I’ve ever seen.
It’s just completely overwhelming in that setting.
But… op asked for “good” movies.
Tenet is terrible.
So is interstellar (mumblemumbleCORNmumble)
Anything by Martin McDonagh, especially
- In Bruges
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- The Banshees of Inisherin
Also, just thought of some others that aren’t based on books but have quite a literary feel:
- Tár
- The VVitch
- There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s “Oil”
Thanks for the heads-up, I wasn’t aware of that.
I’ll still keep it on the list as it’s an amazing movie anyway 😄
- Pulp Fiction
- Donnie Darko
- The Big Lebowski
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
- In Bruges
- The Matrix
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Ocean’s Eleven
- Indiana Jones original trilogy
- Get Out
- Bladerunner (a book, apparently)
- Bladerunner 2049
- 28 Days Later
- American Beauty
- The Usual Suspects
- Gladiator
- Schindler’s List (also a book??)
- Saving Private Ryan
- There Will Be Blood (dammit, a book!)
Gonna get pedantic here:
Blade Runner is based on “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep” by Philip K Dick.
There Will Be Blood is based on “Oil” by Sinclair Lewis.
Both were acclaimed in their own right before the film adaptations.Okey dokey then… carry on!
Completely fair!
Also Schindlers List was a book first
Star Wars is interesting in that it’s a big franchise IP that isn’t an adaption of a book or comic
Yea, in the case of Star Wars, there’s a lot of borrowing from old ideas and mythological forms as well as the samurai and western genres that I’m not sure it entirely counts … it probably sits in its own little category of sort of fairy tale literature brought to film, which is an achievement in its own right.
Directly stole characters from samurai films too. 2 characters in Hidden Fortress act exactly like R2 and C3PO
I’m sure there are other examples
The spear fight in HF was really cool.
Don’t forget Dune
As an influence … for sure!
Almost all ‘new’ ideas borrow from old ideas. If we don’t count Star Wars, then there’s nothing we can count.
It’s not just about borrowing from older ideas, it’s about the extent to which star wars was knowingly channeling a certain kind of story structure that has old cultural roots.
The Lion King would be a similar-ish example. It’s basically Hamlet, which Shakespeare based on an older Viking story (AFAIU) … so it’s just one of those stories that’s out there.
None of which is to criticise Star Wars, just to argue that it stands separate somewhat.
The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Adopted from a couple older movies, like Kurosawa’s hidden fortress, among others
It was a heavily influenced film, though: Flash Gordon + Hidden Fortress + dogfighting reel with a dash of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
I’m vaguely aware of those influences, but decided to answer OP’s question very literally (there’s no ‘New Hope’ book that anyone can check out after seeing the first film)
2001 Space Odyssey might be an interesting candidate here, just because of the way in which the book and film were more or less born together and diverged in their own separate ways, though the genesis of the whole thing was apparently in a short story by AC Clark that I know nothing about.
Fargo. Even the “true story” that it’s based on never happened.
Forrest Gump is apparently better than the book. I haven’t read it but the people who did unanimously agree that the protagonist in the book is too much of an asshole.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
King Kong
Little Miss Sunshine
The Raid 1 & 2
Beetlejuice
The Goonies
E.T.
American History X
Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein are very loosely based on the original story (ostensibly Mary Shelley’s verbal retelling of the story before she penned the novel) and both are good in their own right.
Great films not adapted from books - most of David Lynch’s work would count here: Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Inland Empire, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (though that’s a prequel to the TV show, obviously)
Reservoir Dogs
Free Guy, just for being the first original IP in I don’t even know how long
I was truly, genuinely, surprised at how much I enjoyed the philosophy of Free Guy. At first, I thought it was just a feel-good movie, popcorn flick, but I was happy to be able to go to the cinema during Covid, middling, middling, middling, and, lo, by the end the movie had completely won me over. IT IS ABOUT HOW WE FEEL ABOUT OUR LIVES, regardless of our place in the cosmos.
I wished it had gone deeper into the ethics of creating conscious AIs, but that would have been too much to ask for that kind of movie. That same year I watched Dune in the cinema, and I kind of like them both. Almost equally, but in different ways. About 6 months later, I went back for The Matrix Resurrections and was sorely disappointed. Free Guy should have been The Matrix 4.
BOOGIE NIGHTS. An original screenplay, although inspired by some real people and incidents.
Star Wars.
IDK why I sometimes hear that Lucas derived the movies from some old book series; that’s bullshit. All the books came after the movies.
I think Star Wars is a great example of an original film that’s endlessly familiar. It took so many old fantasy tropes, western tropes, war movie tropes, a hefty dose of Kurosawa, and made something that almost anyone can relate to while still being completely alien.
You might be interested in reading “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell. Also read the whole discourse and criticisms surrounding the work.
The story was beat per beat inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell’s metaphorical inmost cave was translated into Luke literally going to a cave in Empire Strikes Back.
Not to take anything away from Lucas’ creativity, of course. But to me it was quite obvious that he read or at least was aware of Joseph Campbell’s theory of stories and that Lucas read Frank Herbert’s Dune
My pet peeve is when people say a story with is hero’s journey is just a rip-off of another hero’s journey. Campbell didn’t invent or discover it, the story structure was used a lot before him and was known as the medicin jurney. He just wrote a book about it
He didn’t invent it, but he did try to flatten every story into this masculine take of a heroic life, some screenwriters took this to heart and then we got Luke in the cave.
Sometimes I go through weeks of intensively reading mangas or go back to the Greek mythologies, Homer, Apuleius, and enjoy how different the story beats in these cultures are compared to, well, my boring person’s American hegemony entertainment.
Memento. Technically was an unpublished short story rewriten for the screen.
Some Wes Anderson stuff: isle of Dogs, Grand Budapest Hotel (loose influence), Royal Taenbaums
M (1933)
Short Term 12
Shawshank is based on a short story too
Interrogation (1989)
Funny Gaes (1997 version!!!)
A lot of Powell and Pressbruger’s stuff… Red Shoes, Colonel Blimp
Coen bros stuff-Fargo (strongly recommend this), O Brother Where Art Thou (inspired by Homer, but a bit different from the book lol), Big Lebowski
Just a few to start you with. I basically pulled some fine examples across cinema history. I ignored a lot of great silent stuff, especially the comedy. If you reply to this one day, I’m sure I can follow up with more refs!
Charlie Kaufman’s work comes to mind. But he adapted a lot of stories he wrote as novels.
Annihilation is one as well I’d say. Even though it’s based on one of my favourite books, the movie did a good job of taking the premise / vibe and making it into something quite original. The book is definitely better by far, but I respect the artistic direction of the movie.
Especially “Adaptation,” right?
