Several of these have been done: Nightfall,* Inconstant Moon*, The Puppet Masters, A Boy and His Dog, Flowers for Algernon, and The Screwfly Solution. Not necessarily done well, mind you.
Get thee to a video store or Netflix or Amazon! It’s not only been filmed. It’s definitively been filmed. And that’s Harlan’s own thought on the matter!
Heinlein’s All You Zombies.
The Moon Moth by Jack Vance. I’ve been waiting for years for one of Vance’s works to be translated on to the screen. One of his non-SF books was made into a TV movie some years back (Bad Ronald) but I don’t believe any of his SF works have been filmed. (Although, knowing Hollywood, maybe that’s a blessing.)
Harry Harrison’s novel Technicolor Time Machine. For those who don’t know, it’s about a film company using a time machine to create a blockbuster movie in record short time. I’ve always thought it would make a good film itself.
I’ve long thought that Fredric Brown’s Arena could, and should, be filmed. It’s been ripped off many times, and, although an episode of Star Trek was supposedly based on it, it has been said that they simply bought the right because the telreplay they were writing already resembled it so much. Certainly what they ended up with was related to, but most enphatically was not Brown’s story. With CGI, you could do a helluva job on this. In the right hands, you could make a great flick, without the crutch of voiceovers.
I think the way to go about making a good SF movie to to make it from a short story – most novels have too much background, or too much going on, to compress it all into a film. On the other hand, Hollywood tends to take a simple, sdtraightforward story and eviscerate it, dumb it down, then pad it out. Donald A Wollheim’s clever short story Mimic became a bloated film of the same name that lost the punch it had as a story. But The Day the Earth Stood Still, They Live, The Last Mimzy and others started out as short stories.
I’d have to look through my lists again, but I think that lots of stories by Fredric Brown, Robert Sheckley*, Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, and Niven could be turned into good films. Heck, you could build an entire series out of the “Bar Tales” of Clarke, Pratt/de Camp, Niven, Robinson, et al.
Not a film, but there’s a graphic novel of The Moon Moth due later this month, aldi… His story The Brains of Earth would have made a great ‘B’ movie. Could still work today, I think.
“Liar” by Isaac Asimov.
“The Mountains of Mourning” by Lois McMaster Bujold
“A Pail of Air” by Fritz Leiber
“Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” by Cordwainer Smith
"The Country of the Kind"by Damon Knight
Several of Cordwainer Smith’s stories, although I would probably disagree with Dendarii Dame on Alpha Ralpha Boulevard. I can’t see how you could do that one justice without a sizable budget.
Scanners Live In Vain would probably be my first choice, although The Lady who Sailed the Soul and Mother Hittons Littul Kittons could both work without needing huge budgets.
I would love to see Venus on the Half-Shell made into a movie, if only to see how someone would tackle a cod piece/viagra based navigation system on screen.
The Jaunt by Stephen King.
I’d love to see a better, updated adaptation on Flowers For Algernon. Someone like Aronofsky directing. I rented Charly and was highly disappointed. It didn’t date well at all, and even though he won the Oscar, i didn’t think his acting was all that great. Also they could’ve stuck closer to the book. It didn’t have anywhere near the emotional impact the book did for me.
The Cold Equations – by Tom Goodwin.
And another thumbs up for A Pail of Air. although, you might need to expand the acts a bit, it’d need more meat for a 2 hr. movie, I think. Maybe more exploration into the airless earth?
Oh, and of course The Long Walk, by King (Bachman).
There have been three versions of The Cold Equations ** done on TV. I’ve only seen one of them, but they did a halfway decent job.
Bester’s Fondly Fahrenheit and/or Time is the Traitor.
Shipwreck by Charles Logan (though it is pretty downbeat).
High Eight by Keith Roberts (though whether it is SF or a ghost story is debatable).
Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw.
Any or all of Ballard’s Vermillion Sands stories.
Huh, I thought I’ve seen all of the Twilight Zone reboots, but somehow that one escaped me. I kind of figured it had to have been done many times.
Because the location where he narrates is a twist. You do it as a voiceover and show the incidents, then show him finishing up his story live.
Richard Wilson’s “Mother to the World” would work, as would Racoona Sheldon’s “The Screwfly Solution.”
Some of my favorite short stories have been mentioned here. (Forgot how much I loved Niven’s Gil Hamilton stories… a psychic detective and black market organlegging).
And I read Light of Other Days at a short story party.
Which brings up a valid point: a lot of these would make a good short film. But if you tried to stretch them out to 90+ minutes…
After what happened to The Running Man, I’m not sure I want Hollywood going anywhere near Bachmann any more.
Besides, they’d never have the guts nowadays to film Rage.
George O. Smith, Highways in Hiding. Very little required except some stunt work.
Tim Powers, Declare. A little CGI required for the few scenes with Djinn, but not much. A very long book, however, might have to compress it a bit.
Eric Frank Russell, Sinister Barrier. Would need some CGI Vitons, but they would not be difficult.
John Crowley, Little Big. Almost no special effects needed. Just some period costuming for the early days, but might be able to write around that. It’s also a very long book would work GREAT as a miniseries.