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?

  • InisSieferI@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Christopher Nolan has done some good big movies not based on existing book or IP: Memento, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet.

  • aleph@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Anything by Martin McDonagh, especially

    • In Bruges
    • Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    • The Banshees of Inisherin
    • aleph@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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
        • aleph@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          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 😄

  • theragu40@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago
    • 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!)
    • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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!

  • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • freamon@endlesstalk.org
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    1 year ago

    Star Wars is interesting in that it’s a big franchise IP that isn’t an adaption of a book or comic

    • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • jeffw@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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

      • Terevos@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Almost all ‘new’ ideas borrow from old ideas. If we don’t count Star Wars, then there’s nothing we can count.

        • maegul (he/they)@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          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.

    • jeffw@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Adopted from a couple older movies, like Kurosawa’s hidden fortress, among others

    • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It was a heavily influenced film, though: Flash Gordon + Hidden Fortress + dogfighting reel with a dash of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

      • freamon@endlesstalk.org
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        1 year ago

        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)

  • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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)

  • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • quinnly@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      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

      • EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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

        • PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          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.

  • jeffw@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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!

  • wilberfan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    BOOGIE NIGHTS. An original screenplay, although inspired by some real people and incidents.

  • Pat@kbin.run
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    1 year ago

    Brazil is one of my favourite movies. AFAIK it’s not based on a book. It is frequently compared to 1984, but it’s not based on it. Just similar themes of a totalitarian dystopia.