9. Rashômon (1950)
The two stories that became Rashômon contain much of the basic substance of the film, but director Akira Kurosawa and his frequent star Toshirô Mifune get the credit for giving them the vivid flavor of real events, instead of subdued literary experiments. Which, of course, heightens the "What really happened here?" quality immensely. Mifune is even more over-the-top in this film than usual, but that's part of the fun too.
10. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
Another pulpy thriller elevated by terrific performances and a hushed, serious tone that doesn't wallow in the bloody details, The Silence Of The Lambs won a pile of well-deserved Oscars, including the Best Adapted Screenplay award. Too bad the follow-up, Hannibal, wasn't nearly as good—but then, neither was the book it was based on.
11. Fight Club (1999)
Another for the Mary Harron school of adaptation, David Fincher's Fight Club dredges all the plot and resonance from Chuck Palahniuk's book and leaves behind the amateur gimmickry of a young man's first novel: the stylistic tricks and gimmicks and the repetition in particular. Another strong Norton performance and the palpable chemistry between Norton and Brad Pitt livens up the proceeds considerably.
12. The Thin Man (1934)
Dashiell Hammett's snappy detective novels are still a pleasure, and The Thin Man is no exception, but where it lunges right into the action on page 1, the film adaptation—the first of six Nick-and-Nora detective movies—gives the story a little more room to breathe. Mostly though, W.S. Van Dyke just does a fittingly elegant job of bringing Hammett's book to life, complete with a perfect cast that make his quippy dialogue sparkle.
13. The Iron Giant (1999)
Ted Hughes' 1968 children's classic The Iron Man doesn't actually have that much to do with Brad Bird's animated adaptation—for instance, the movie version features a notable shortage of Space-Bat-Angel-Dragons attacking Earth. The book has charmed generations of British youngsters, but Bird's funny, clever, and gently pacifistic take on the story makes it more personal and more resonant, particularly for kids growing up in a heavily armed and hawkish America.
14. The War Of The Worlds (1953)
H.G. Wells and Jules Verne were both full of brilliant ideas that didn't quite pop off the page, thanks to frequently leaden writing. The 1953 adaptation of Wells' War Of The Worlds compensates by nearly popping off the screen with vivid cinematography and state-of-the-art-at-the-time effects that still look surprisingly eerie today. The movie can be stilted and awkward in places, with all the goofiness of '50s science fiction, but it's still thoroughly enjoyable, in a gawky kind of way.
15. Howards End (1992)
The Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala team did some terrific work with novel-to-film adaptations (A Room With A View, for instance), though clunkers like The Golden Bowl prove that not all their adaptations were magic. And while The Remains Of The Day was exquisite in its way, it just couldn't live up to Kazuo Ishiguro's fantastic novel, which got inside its protagonist's head in a far more visceral way. But they made cinematic gold with the heartbreaking Howards End, based on E.M. Forster's elegant book. Sometimes the movie and the book it was based on are both truly enjoyable. Too bad it doesn't happen more often.
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