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?
Christopher Nolan has done some good big movies not based on existing book or IP: Memento, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet.
Interstellar is in my top 5 favorite movies. Fuckin’ blew my mind the first time I saw it.
But… op asked for “good” movies.
Tenet is terrible.
So is interstellar (mumblemumbleCORNmumble)
Anything by Martin McDonagh, especially
- In Bruges
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- The Banshees of Inisherin
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
Fargo. Even the “true story” that it’s based on never happened.
- 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!)
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.
Star Wars is interesting in that it’s a big franchise IP that isn’t an adaption of a book or comic
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.
Almost all ‘new’ ideas borrow from old ideas. If we don’t count Star Wars, then there’s nothing we can count.
The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Don’t forget Dune
It was a heavily influenced film, though: Flash Gordon + Hidden Fortress + dogfighting reel with a dash of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Hot Rod
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.
Synecdoche, New York Being John Malkovich Unicorn Wars Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Mad God House (1977) Susperia Videodrome
Star Wars.
IDK why I sometimes hear that Lucas derived the movies from some old book series; that’s bullshit. All the books came after the movies.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Charlie Kaufman’s work comes to mind. But he adapted a lot of stories he wrote as novels.
Annihilation is one as well I’d say. Even though it’s based on one of my favourite books, the movie did a good job of taking the premise / vibe and making it into something quite original. The book is definitely better by far, but I respect the artistic direction of the movie.
Free Guy, just for being the first original IP in I don’t even know how long
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.
Reservoir Dogs
Any film made by Christopher Guest and Wes Anderson. Every one of them are gems.
Maybe this is controversial - I really like Wes Anderson’s films but they’re more of a visual treat than anything else.
The visuals are a major reason to watch them. There is more, but the visuals are big.
