The Ten Commandments.
Definitely agreed on Jaws (what was up with the weird Hooper-Mrs. Brody sex scenes?) and I’ll throw in Jurassic Park. The book is OK, but the movie is one of those defining moments of cinema.
My three:
The Commitments - book by Roddy Doyle, film directed by Alan Parker. The book (a novella, actually) is about an Irish band that plays Motown-style music. It’s good, but the movie fleshes out some of the conflicts better and you actually get to hear the music, instead of just reading about it. And the performances - by a relatively unknown group of musicians and novice actors - is outstanding.
Angel Heart - based on the book by William Hjortsberg; film directed by Alan Parker. The book is about a private detective hired my a mysterious client to find a missing singer in a strong mixture of religion and black magic. Credit to the Hjortsberg for writing an interesting story, but Parker captures the mood much more effectively. He also changed the setting for parts of the story from New York to New Orleans. It’s easier (for me, anyway) to imagine a voodoo underworld in the Big Easy than the Big Apple.
Stardust - book by Neil Gaiman, film directed by Matthew Vaughn. I actually can’t remember why I liked the movie so much more than the book, but I did.
For the record, I’m registering my strong disagreement with those of you who listed The Princess Bride, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings.
Sense and Sensibility. It’s got a number of “show don’t tell” flaws as a book, which Emma Thompson’s screenplay completely wiped away. For starters, she gave the male lead an actual personality. Great film.
I agree with Robot Arm
Sorry I’m so late. I was asleep at 4:54
I do disagree with several of the choices in this thread, though.
I agree about Jaws, but only based on what I’ve heard – I haven’t read the book. And I’m ambivalent about V for Vendetta – a lot could easily be cut from the graphic novel (and was, fortunately, for the film), but there were some things that the comic did better.
A few others:
The Day the Earth Stood Still was better than the short story it was based on, Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates.
They Live was better than the sketchy story it was based on.
I liked Rashomon an awful lot more than the two stories – Rashomon and In the Bush that it was based on (and it was derived more from the latter than the former)
There were an awful of of changes between the book and the movie of Ice Station Zebra. I definitely take the movie over the book.
A show, but based on what I’ve read of the Sookie Stackhouse books, **True Blood **is better than the books.
Love the show, but I can’t get into the books at all.
I came here to state my usual ‘Godfather’ response to this question, but I’ve just changed my standard response.
Yeah, Jaws the book was that bad.
Good call.
MMM
The Last Picture Show. And the book was really, really good.
Star Wars.
I respectfully disagree and if you say it again I’ll disrespectfully disagree. 
I found the book better precisely because of what the film got wrong, as good as the film was anyway.
Highsmith was well-able to convey in the book all the complex and conflicting psychological, emotional and self-esteem elements that drove Ripley to do what he did. Not to fault the medium for ultimately making this act seem conniving and craven, but it was nigh impossible for the movie to do those elements justice, and it erred in couching his sexual feelings in today’s terms, rather than the the terms of the period in which it was written.
I can’t believe noone’s mentioned The Color Purple yet. That gets
my vote.
:mad:
I can’t believe this!
The answer to the OP is King Rat.
What? The book is fantastic, as is the movie.
Kiss of the Spiderwoman is unreadable, but the movie is wonderful.
“The Natural.” In the novel at the end is a combination of Casey at the Bat and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. The movie had that amazing home run.
Robert DeNiro as a Whoopsie.
I’d have to say Forrest Gump. The book was not a fun read, but the movie was a fun watch.
Oh, and let’s not forget Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s novel is just gawdawful, but Boris Karloff did an outstanding job as the creature in the movie.
If we’re counting TV shows, Dexter on Showtime is much better than the books. The first book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, compares favorably with the first season, but it’s very fortunate that they avoided the second and third books for plotlines in the following seasons; the later books are absolute rubbish.
Frankenstein. Whale’s vision is completely different from Shelley’s–and that’s a good thing. I’m sorry, but when Shelley alludes to Milton and Goethe, she makes me want to drop her book and go read Milton and Goethe.
Lets see,
The Sand Pebbles
Flight of the Phoenix
Andromeda Strain
I gotta disagree on Frankenstein. I liked the book, and have read it several times. The movie had great acting and fascinating visuals, but I get the distinct impression that the movie was what they made because the mores at the time wouldn’t let them make the book more directly into a movie. The movie script is actually several layers of attempts to adapt a stage play to the screen (the original stage play itself isn’t visible under all that, let alone the novel).
The same thing happened to Dracula, although I have to agree that just about any version of Dracula is an improvement on the book. Although it’s fascinating, the book has way the heck too many characters and its notion of their connection with each other is pretty sketchy, so that stage and screen adaptations keep making connections between characters that aren’t in the book in order to explain why these characters have anything to do with each other – like the 1931 film giving Harker’s visit to Transylvania to Renfield, or the 19709 version making Lucy the daughter of Van Helsing, or the 1971 and 1995 versions making Lucy or Mina the reincarnation of Dracula’s dead wife, or… well, you get the idea. And only Coppola’s version even tries to keep the Texan in it.