The Big Sleep is pretty darn good in my book, even if you could drive a truck through one of the holes left in the movie plot.
James Ellroy said Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson’s screenplay of L. A. Confidential was “great.” From such a notorious perfectionist as Ellroy, that is high praise indeed.
That would make it a pretty successful adaptation then, no? 
At the risk of a hijack, the damage done to the characters Fangorn/Treebeard, Faramir, and Theodan offset the quality of the rest of the movie (which I agree was otherwise superb).
The English Patient was both a very good book and an excellent movie.
Catch Me If You Can did a good job of taking Frank Abagnale’s fun, light-hearted book and adding the layer of emotional resonance to help the audience feel for the character and create contrast.
I’m rather shocked at my own self for not having mentioned both;
The Right Stuff: Good call PoorYorick, good subject matter given a very nice screen treatment.
and
The Lord of the Rings: Another good call as well, Odinoneeye. I missed out on most of the LOTR threads during my absence so this is a good place to put a few observations.
I am absolutely stunned at how well the director of LOTR has captured all of my own mental imagery in the movie. Yes, there are some character errors and minor plot abberations. So what? For how much they have succeeded at bringing an honest and faithful reproduction of the books to the screen, I am completely satisfied with their effort.
The accuracy of the backdrops makes me wonder if they did not have all sorts of core groups providing reviews of the images prior to their use. It is hard for me to imagine that their artists just dashed off such exact renderings without some revisions via group examination.
I’ll suggest another one here. It’s been so long that I’m not entirely sure I have a solid remembrance of it. I seem to recall that “The Hunt for Red October” was also pretty faithful to the book. Let’s not discuss the absolutely catastrophic trainwreck that was “The Sum of All Fears.” That garbage scow full of muddled plot and displaced locations was more than a little disgusting. Especially when one considers that “The Sum of All Fears” is easily Tom Clancy’s finest work.
Not to me it didn’t as I didn’t see the changes as damaging.
** Sophie’s Choice ** - Perfect in every detail.
Out of Africa. IIRC it is actually an adaptation of several books. I have only read some of them, but they are not nearly as episodic as the movie. Nevertheless, the film manages to tell a more or less continuous story from them.
Out of Africa. IIRC it is actually an adaptation of several books. I have only read some of them, but they are not nearly as episodic as the movie. Nevertheless, the film manages to tell a more or less continuous story from them.
The Pianist was pretty faithful, although there were some moments that I was sort of hoping they’d leave out.
Well, for what it’s worth, apparently the author actually liked the movie ending better then the one he wrote for the book.
CURSES! First TheRealJohnPeat beats me to the Fight Club punch, then HPL makes my point about the Palanuik prefering the movie ending… aarrgghh!
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind worked pretty well I think. Dropped some of the mundane (but more likely true) stuff about producing the shows in exchange for cloak and dagger stuff. Good deal, at least in my book.
uhhh…that should read either “the author” or just “Palanuik.” Couldn’t decide which to use, so I split the difference.
The whole world’s against me.
Thought the movie was more uplifting and spiritual, actually… I felt the book was a little darker and more ambiguous.