Faithful book/movie adaptations?

June 1, 2008 5:35 PM

Can you think of examples of movies based on novels (or short stories) that are very, very faithful to the source work?

The two movies that I think of are Stephen King's "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" and more recently Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men". I think both film versions of these are amazingly close the original novels. Can you think of any others?

posted by zardoz to media & arts (70 comments total)

Rosemary's Baby.
posted by dhammond at 5:40 PM on June 1, 2008

Just a couple really quick..

Princess Bride.
Lord of the Rings (pretty much)
Sin City
Dexter (the showtime TV series, the first book/series)
posted by filmgeek at 5:42 PM on June 1, 2008

To Kill a Mockingbird.
posted by rtha at 5:46 PM on June 1, 2008

The Graduate
The Maltese Falcon
posted by dobbs at 5:48 PM on June 1, 2008

The Pride and Prejudice mini-series (not the movie).
posted by frobozz at 5:50 PM on June 1, 2008

In keeping with the King theme, Stand By Me and The Dead Zone.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:51 PM on June 1, 2008

Oh, and 300.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:52 PM on June 1, 2008

The first two Harry Potter movies (which is why I didn't like them as much as the later ones--the pacing was all wrong for a film. They were too faithful to the books.)
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:52 PM on June 1, 2008

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 5:53 PM on June 1, 2008

A Room with a View - down to the chapter headings as interstitial titles.
posted by plinth at 5:53 PM on June 1, 2008

A Scanner Darkly.
posted by dragoon at 5:54 PM on June 1, 2008

Everything is Illuminated, V for Vendetta, all the Harry Potters. and Slaughter house 5 are all pretty faithful. If you want exact, I think Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet is every line from the play, but plays are not novels.
posted by about_time at 5:57 PM on June 1, 2008

Ha, Princess Bride? Have you read the book? There's no way any movie adaption of that book could do it justice.

Unless you mean strictly plot line. Plot wise it follows along well. But as far as all the side notes and parenthesis and stuff, that's just gone from the movie.
posted by theichibun at 5:58 PM on June 1, 2008

V for Vendetta changes some very substantial points from the book. Also dittoing theichibun's comments on The Princess Bride. All of the Harry Potter movies (even the first couple) have cut a lot of stuff, too, and changed things. I don't know if you can really compare them to the faithfulness of the No Country adaptation.
posted by synecdoche at 6:01 PM on June 1, 2008

I'd quibble with the assertion that V for Vendetta follows the plot of the book. Sure the basics are there, but so many details have been ripped out or changed that I would argue that it is quite a different thing altogether. Whole subplots are missing, the timing of events has been rearranged, and much of the bite is gone from the story as a whole.

The scene where Evey is captured and imprisoned, however, is incredibly faithful to the book (and is all the better for it, IMHO).
posted by pwicks at 6:04 PM on June 1, 2008

If you're looking for nonfiction, Apollo 13 and The Pianist.
posted by Melismata at 6:09 PM on June 1, 2008

Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:11 PM on June 1, 2008

Secretary?

Maybe not faithful in the way you are asking though.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:12 PM on June 1, 2008

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 version).

Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers (which were filmed together and split later).
posted by kirkaracha at 6:12 PM on June 1, 2008

No Country for Old Men.
posted by emd3737 at 6:13 PM on June 1, 2008

I love both the LotR books and movies, but faithfulness to the source material was primarily in spirit rather than letter. Even if you have the extended edition (which fixes a problem or two), there are some very significant departures.

I'll also say that given examples such as Kubrick's Lolita or Plein Soleil or even some of the James Bond films, staying faithful to the original material is not necessarily the highest virtue in the visual dramatic arts.
posted by dhartung at 6:14 PM on June 1, 2008

Gods and Monsters (another example of a book that stays too close to its source material, ending aside)
posted by thomas j wise at 6:28 PM on June 1, 2008

I remember seeing Stephen King's The Dark Half when I was a kid and I was amazed it followed the book so closely.
posted by sanka at 6:31 PM on June 1, 2008

The Bridge to Terabithia.
posted by sulaine at 6:33 PM on June 1, 2008

How about The Andromeda Strain? Someone once told me the movie fades to black at the end of every chapter in the book (which I haven't read so I can't verify if this is true or not).
posted by Sloben at 6:43 PM on June 1, 2008

Mrs. Intermod just finished reading The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and reports that the film was faithful to the book.
posted by intermod at 6:46 PM on June 1, 2008

Besides changing the ethnic background of one minor character (an Irish cop in the book is an African-American cop in the movie), Mystic River sticks close to the source material.

High Fidelity was a pretty straightforward adaptation of the Nick Hornby book. About a Boy not so much.
posted by The Gooch at 6:47 PM on June 1, 2008

No Country for Old Men

It's pretty close, but there were several substantial changes in my opinion: Chigurh's ambitions, the character of the hitchhiker, and Carla Jean's perception of her husband at the end of the movie.
posted by cowbellemoo at 6:53 PM on June 1, 2008

Definitely the Pride and Prejudice miniseries. It included pretty much everything in the book and got the tone right, too. (But it's also 5 hours long, so there you go.)
posted by Solon and Thanks at 6:54 PM on June 1, 2008

I thought movie version of The Virgin Suicides remained faithful to the book. The only major difference I can recall is that the movie showed news reports on TV rather than in the newspaper, but that's just because it's kind of boring to watch someone reading an article.
posted by zerbinetta at 7:20 PM on June 1, 2008

I thought the first Narnia movie was one of the most faithful film adaptations I've seen, but then again it had been (and has been) years since I read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, so my memory might have been missing departures.

I don't think either the Harry Potter or the LotR movies are more than broadly faithful to the source material. There are all kinds of changes and cuts even in the first two Potter films.
posted by Caduceus at 7:28 PM on June 1, 2008

On the Austen front, Roger Michell's version of Persuasion is about as close as a feature-length adaptation can get to one of her books. And in many features (including especially the overall social reserve of the characters) it's far more source-faithful than the miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice (not meaning to run down the latter -- it's just more precise).

Like their version of A Room with a View (referenced above), the Merchant-Ivory production of Howard's End seemed pretty faithful to Forster's text -- but it's been awhile, and I may be mistaken. They don't make any attempt to reproduce his treatment of a Beethoven symphony as processed through a passionate young intellectual's consciousness, so maybe that counts against it.
posted by BT at 7:30 PM on June 1, 2008

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
posted by fuse theorem at 7:36 PM on June 1, 2008

Everything Is Illuminated is relatively faithful to one plotline (although it shortchanges the climax of the book in order to simplify the character relationships, IMO) but removes the other plotline entirely.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 7:40 PM on June 1, 2008

A Scanner Darkly.

I would completely disagree with this. The book follows the plot and uses much of the dialogue but does not come anywhere near close to the intent, imo. In fact, more than once I've claimed that it was clear that Linklater read the book but didn't understand it. (Of course, it could be that I didn't understand it but you'll never convince me of that.)
posted by dobbs at 7:41 PM on June 1, 2008

I was surprised how close The Silence of the Lambs was to the book. The rest of the series... not so much.
posted by upplepop at 7:51 PM on June 1, 2008

The Remains of the Day. A few small things were changed, seemingly to facilitate the new medium (haven't watched it in a while), but even chunks of dialogue were kept pretty much intact.
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 7:54 PM on June 1, 2008

2001, although it's not entirely clear which was an adaptation of which.
posted by tkolar at 8:06 PM on June 1, 2008

A Scanner Darkly.

I would completely disagree with this. The book follows the plot and uses much of the dialogue but does not come anywhere near close to the intent, imo.

Hm, I can't say I'm exactly sure what you mean, dobbs. A Scanner Darkly was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this question.
posted by ludwig_van at 8:22 PM on June 1, 2008

Besides changing the ethnic background of one minor character (an Irish cop in the book is an African-American cop in the movie), Mystic River sticks close to the source material.

I'd disagree with this - most of the parts of the book revolving around Sean Devine are cut from the movie...
posted by Lucinda at 8:33 PM on June 1, 2008

Is there any particular type of faithfulness that you prefer?

e.g. The story of a novel tends to be longer than easily fits in a movie -- some people will find different ways of cutting the length to be more faithful than others (e.g. removing a subplot entirely vs. cutting events from each plot)

Also, many/most novels are told through the thoughts/feelings of one or more characters while a movie's story is usually told with the visible stuff that happens. A movie of a novel that tells it's story in a more visual way might seem to be a more faithful adaptation than another, even if there's the same number of changes in plot points, characters, etc.
posted by winston at 8:45 PM on June 1, 2008

In the case of 2001, the book and the movie were cowritten simultaneously, so I'm not sure if you want to count that. From IMDB:

The screenplay was written primarily by Stanley Kubrick and the novel primarily by Arthur C. Clarke, each working simultaneously and also providing feedback to the other. As the story went through many revisions, changes in the novel were taken over into the screenplay and vice versa. It was also unclear whether film or novel would be released first; in the end it was the film. Kubrick was to have been credited as second author of the novel, but in the end was not. It is believed that Kubrick deliberately withheld his approval of the novel as to not hurt the release of the film.
posted by krakedhalo at 8:48 PM on June 1, 2008

Thanks everyone for your responses! There are a lot movies I've seen but hadn't read the book.
posted by zardoz at 9:05 PM on June 1, 2008

Regarding 2001, "The Sentinel" was the acorn to the film/ novel's oak tree.
posted by bunglin jones at 9:14 PM on June 1, 2008

I haven't read the book, but I've heard from people who have that Dances with Wolves is quite loyal.
posted by Nelsormensch at 9:18 PM on June 1, 2008

Brokeback Mountain.
posted by amanda at 9:20 PM on June 1, 2008

Atonement, for sure, although, as was pointed out up-thread, significant parts of the book (including plot points) are revealed in the way it was told, which is of course, unavailable in the movie version.

Just finished Sophie's Choice in both media. Pretty good movie, but Styron's use of language and ability to relate a story is SO profound that the movie can't help but come up short.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:25 PM on June 1, 2008

The Shawshank Redemption is pretty faithful to Stephen King's novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (in the collection Different Season). The pacing is very close and much of the dialogue & narration are verbatim.
posted by twistofrhyme at 9:35 PM on June 1, 2008

Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman, is inspired by some short stories by Raymond Carver. The stories are included in the Criterion edition of the DVD.
posted by sociology at 10:02 PM on June 1, 2008

Lolita
posted by rhizome at 10:02 PM on June 1, 2008

My Fair Lady is the first to come to my mind.
posted by Precision at 10:13 PM on June 1, 2008

The more recent BBC/Masterpiece Theater miniseries adaptation of Jane Eyre is one of the most faithful screen versions of the book that I've seen.
posted by kosher_jenny at 10:37 PM on June 1, 2008

Ronja Rövardotter
posted by martinrebas at 2:41 AM on June 2, 2008

A scanner darkly was the first that came to my mind as well. Even though it diverges a bit, I thought the mood carried over rather well.
posted by monocultured at 3:16 AM on June 2, 2008

The Last Man on Earth movie adaptation of the book "I am legend"
posted by PowerCat at 4:54 AM on June 2, 2008

The Stepford Wives. The original, not the terrible remake. Seconding Rosemary's Baby, both of them were written by Ira Levin and incredibly close to the novels.
posted by 8dot3 at 5:20 AM on June 2, 2008

A couple Stephen King ones (he himself is a stickler for keeping adaptations close to his source material...the more it differs the less he likes it):

Pet Semetary
The Mist (although there was a tacked on ending)
The Stand (abridged...it had to be, but very faithful)
The Shining (The Stephen Weber one not the superior Jack Nicholson one)

Non-King works:

A Clockwork Orange (although the book has an extra chapter not in the movie)
Presumed Innocent
Sin City (someone mentioned 300 above but I didn't see Sin City mentioned)


Ones that I REMEMBER being very close but...I could be wrong:
Rawhead Rex (based on a novella by Clive Barker)
posted by arniec at 6:11 AM on June 2, 2008

Everything is Illuminated, V for Vendetta, all the Harry Potters. and Slaughter house 5 are all pretty faithful.

I have to disagree about V for Vendetta - a complex & deeply provocative interrogation of political & social morality was turned into a pathetically simplistic superhero yarn (replete with totally unnecessary bullet-time dagger action!). Painful to watch, if you read & appreciated the book.

(Although I will say that Hugo Weaving's performance was pretty amazing - too bad he didn't have a better script & co-star to work with)
posted by jammy at 6:43 AM on June 2, 2008

The Robert Redford version of The Great Gadsby was very faithful to the point where you could following along with the book as they said the dialog.
posted by mmascolino at 7:34 AM on June 2, 2008

My mother insists that Gone With the Wind is the most faithful adaptation she's ever seen. The drop a couple of kids, but otherwise it follows along very well. (I can't speak to it myself: I read the book as a teen, but didn't seen the movie until a couple of years ago.)
posted by epersonae at 8:19 AM on June 2, 2008

/They
posted by epersonae at 8:19 AM on June 2, 2008

Frankenstein (1994) followed the book fairly closely, save a few minor changes and alternate ending that worked surprisingly well.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:40 AM on June 2, 2008

The 1980 version of Ursula K. LeGuin's novel 'The Lathe of Heaven' is a spot on copy of the book. There was a later US production that pretty much blew it.
posted by elendil71 at 8:46 AM on June 2, 2008

John Irving's novels usually span decades and involve a lot of characters, so the movies usually have to compress time or combine characters. The movies of The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and The Hotel New Hampshire are good adaptations of the spirit of the books. Simon Birch is a poor adaptation of A Prayer for Owen Meany (or maybe it's a decent adaptation of the first part of the book, but they leave a lot out).
posted by kirkaracha at 9:46 AM on June 2, 2008

John Irving's novels usually span decades and involve a lot of characters, so the movies usually have to compress time or combine characters

This is one of the reasons I thought A Door in the Floor was one of the better films based on a book, since it didn't bother taking a full novel and condensing it down into a 2-hour movie, but instead decided to deal only with the first section of Irving's A Widow For One Year instead of the whole book.

(Of course, it also helps that they chose to deal with the only section of the book I thought was any good to begin with).
posted by The Gooch at 11:20 AM on June 2, 2008

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
posted by 8dot3 at 11:27 AM on June 2, 2008

A couple Stephen King ones

...don't forget Christine.

Before 1984, my answer to this question was always Fail-Safe.
posted by Rash at 12:48 PM on June 2, 2008

Also, John Steinbeck -- The Grapes of Wrath (although the movie ends way before the book) and Of Mice and Men.

And Robert Mitchum's Philip Mrlowe: Farewell, My Lovely from 1975.
posted by Rash at 12:55 PM on June 2, 2008

The African Queen is almost exactly like the book. In fact, I saw the film first. When I read the book I found it so much like the film that I found it troubling, and had trouble finishing it.
posted by vilcxjo_BLANKA at 1:34 PM on June 2, 2008

The film society I'm a member of is finishing off a ten week "Impossible Adaptations" series tonight, which included some films that might fit the bill. For the next week or so the schedule will still be up online here.

Of all the films in the series, I think Raoul Ruiz's Time Regained might be the closest to the kind of adaptation you're asking for. (I'd recommend seeing it - it was quite good!)
posted by bubukaba at 4:28 PM on June 2, 2008