I am preparing to duck and donning my asbestos suit as I type but…
To Kill A Mockingbird. Great, great, great book - Great Great Greater movie.
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That is an interesting one. The book is truly great and the movie is truly great. I would say it is more of a case of them being equal. This still satisfies the Op’s question.
Jim
Just as a point of clarification, yes it’s based on a short-story the Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke. When Kubrick approached Clarke about adapting it as a film, Clarke attempted to write a screenplay, but found the work tedious. Kubrick & Clarke wrote the expanded storyline together, and while Kubrick developed a script, Clarke wrote the novel based upon Kubrick’s notes. Thus, while “2001” is based on an already published story, the novel ‘2001’ was actually based on the movie rather than the other way around.
I’m not entirely certain, but I believe ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ was a similar situation - the screenplay had already been written, and a novel based upon it was produced in anticipation of filming a movie about it.
Run away. FAST.
OK, yes, it’s a great movie. In fact, it’s a really great movie.
But - there’s one small part of the book that is completely missing from the movie and adds SO much to the characters of Atticus and Jem that it irritates the crap out of me every time I see the movie. I sit and enjoy the movie, but all the while I keep thinking about Jem and Mrs. Dubose’s camillas.
Perhaps that’s just a personal nitpick, though.
I see someone has already said Bridges of Madison County. I’d never read the book again, but I’d sit through the movie again.
Gone With the Wind. Yes, they kill off 2 of Scarlett’s kids, and make her a brunette, but seriously, the movie is better than the book.
Awakenings --althought the book was good, the movie is as good.
What a terribel choice of a novel to turn into amovie… discontinued plotline, characters that become increasingly uninvolved…
Still the movie make the book, and the book makes the movie… It doesn;t matter in which order they happen to you, one creates the unbderstanding of the experience of the other. Sort of like the story they both try to decribe…
nicely done
Regards,
FML
To Kill a Mockingbird is a perfect novel and a perfect movie.
Son of a bitch. I had a full on response written and I went back and checked to make sure no one mentioned it. Rats.
The original novel Red Alert was a drama. How can one of the greatest movies of all time not be better than the dramatic version of Dr. Strangelove. And like DrCube I haven’t read the original novel. I have read the novelization of Dr. Strangelove, and it’s not worth reading.
The screenplay was written by the original author, Kubrick and Terry Southern, resulting in the greatest black comedy of all time. I think Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, Stanley Kubrick and others had something to do with the movie being better than the book.
Mrs. Evil Captor says the “Dexter” series on Showtime is much better than the book it’s based on.
How about The Shining?
It’s a perfectly acceptable and good book, but the movie is kind of legendary.
Mystic River
I don’t know that I’ve ever read a slower moving book. It was a very painful read.
I like the movie.
Battlefield Earth. If you doubt this, read the book. 
Star Wars?
Made her a brunette? What color hair did she have in your copy of the book?
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil was an excellent book (IMHO), and the movie was just as good (again, IMHO).
Fight Club has already been mentioned, as has The Godfather.
You Only Live Twice was arguably better than the book, but since the Bond Films ceased to bear any relation to the novels they were supposedly based upon after Thunderball, a case could be made for disqualifying Bond films from these proceedings.
Logan’s Run was much better than the book, too- certainly a lot more believable, and visually engaging, even if it was filmed in a shopping mall for the most part.
I actually have read both (YEARS ago!) and I definitely concur about the novelization DR S & the cast raising the level of the film.
I swear that I saw a made-for-TV film in the early 1990s that was essentially an update of RED ALERT, tho not titled that. Anyone have any idea what I am remembering?
Was it "By The Dawn’s Early Light "?
Well, have you READ the book? 
Honestly, there wasn’t much wrong with the book, and it did have various details and conversations that the movie left out, but the movie flowed much better and did more “Show not tell” than the book could.
That said, “From The Adventures of Luke Skywalker” is such a cooler subtitle than “A New Hope”
For what its worth, I ahve to throw Catch 22 in the ring here. I caught the movie about 3 years back on cable. IT was about 20 mintues in when I turned it on, and it pretty much ruined any plans I made for the next 2 hours. It was funny when It needed to be but really drove home the absurity of war, and I think the governemnt in general.
Now the novel, I picked it up about a year ago and I want to burn it and have my brain wiped of ever seeing it. EVER EVER EVER. It just mad eme angry! The flash backs/fowards were just randomly placed. In the movie Yosarian was just some guy who'd done his job and wanted to go home, in the book he's a selfish cowardly asshole who may be getting dicked over but if he wasn't such a dick himself most of it woudn't happen.
I do have to throw out a caviat here. The book so disguested me that I just got about 130 pages in and chucked it under the TV and never looked for it again, so its possible that it got better, but I'll never know.Am I the only one that absolutely hated The Green Mile? God it felt like that movie dragged on forever and ever.
The Shawshank Redemption the movie was better than the book, which I feel real bad about, because the written version is also damn good - note that they didn’t need to change much; a lot of the dialogue is exactly as in the book. I’m sure I’m note the only one who can’t read that now without hearing Morgan Freeman’s voice 
Well, no so much “better,” since Annie Proulx is a writing goddess, but Brokeback Mountain (script by Larry McMurtry) did fantastic work expanding her short story (of the same title).