I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.
This week's topic is about book-to-screen adaptations. I've written before about books whose adaptations I liked better than the source material and also adaptations I hadn't seen yet but would consider watching. I don't watch a lot of movies generally, but I'm most likely to watch one if it's an adaptation of a book I like. It's often hard to make a movie that does the book justice, though! I usually like it better in one format or another. Here are ten rare ones that I enjoyed as books and enjoyed again as movies.
1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Not the Johnny Depp version (which I've only seen part of) but the classic 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder. It's one of the few movies I've seen multiple times and it will always be a memorable childhood classic, just like the book.
2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
I read the book in middle school but finally saw the movie for the first time last year. I'm sure they had to cut out a lot of the plot since it's a giant book and they made it a normal-length movie, but watching it reminded me what I liked about the story in the first place.
3. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Although I do not lose my mind over John Green's books like a lot of people, I did genuinely like this book and thought they did a nice job with the adaptation. I liked it better than the adaptation of Paper Towns that came out the next year.
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I just recently reread this book, which was as delightful as the first read-through, and then I got my husband to watch the movie adaptation with me. Although they had to change a lot of the plot to avoid having the movie be mostly people writing letters to each other, I still thought it captured the heart of the story.
5. All the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling (except the sixth one)
By and large, I thought the movie adaptations, while simplifying the plots of each book, did a nice job of creating the same sense of magic and adventure that the books do. (I will spare you my rant about how they utterly ruined the adaptation of the sixth book.)
6. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I was nervous that the movie adaptation wouldn't do this amazing book justice, but it was carefully crafted and stayed true to the story.
7. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
This is another case where they had to rework the plot pretty substantially in order to make it fit into a typical-length movie, but the humorous spirit of the book was still evident in the movie version, and my husband (who had never read the book) enjoyed the movie a lot.
8. Matilda by Roald Dahl
The book and the movie each have a different feel and a different focus, but I love them both for different reasons. This is another one of the few movies I've seen multiple times, and I've reread the book several times as well.
9. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
This is one of Christie's most famous works for a reason, and I was glad that the star-studded movie a couple years ago kept the same general rhythm of the book, even if their Poirot was a nearly unrecognizable version (crying over a long-ago love and his inability to solve the crime — what?).
10. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
I went and saw Love, Simon twice when it was in theaters. It was just so good! Becky Albertalli is one of my favorite authors, and I was happy that they'd taken her first book and given it the feel of a classic teen rom-com.
Which good books have been made into good movies?
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: A Soldier of the Great War and Half the Sky
Five years ago I was reading: This Star Won't Go Out, Ivanhoe, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Ten years ago I was reading: The Book of General Ignorance
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