Funnily enough, Die Hard is similar. It’s a great action movie, legendary and timeless. The book on which it’s based is awful.
It’s so rare that this happens, when usually it’s the reverse — a great book is made into a bad or mediocre movie. The true exceptions — great books made into great movies — seem vanishingly rare to me. Off the top of my head I can only think of a few: Lawrence of Arabia (from The Seven Pillars of Wisdom), The English Patient, The Name of the Rose. Apocalypse Now from Heart of Darkness, perhaps?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fict...
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Lush Life by Richard Price
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
V by Thomas Pynchon
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Adaptations are tricky and although it is very common for a sublime piece of literature to become a mediocre film, and somewhat common for a fantastic book to become a fantastic film -- it is rare for a film and a screenplay that are inarguably among the greatest of all time to come from a book that would likely not be memorable without the film.
Everything about The Godfather should have been a failure. From the casting, to the production, to the monetary situation at the studio, to the lawsuits, to the source material. But it's a near-perfect film. And that sort of anomaly coming out of such chaos (again, Gone with the Wind is probably the closest similarity when it comes to English-language film) is almost as remarkable as the film itself.
I think The Shining is a great example of a good book, while the movie is one of the best horror movies ever made. And yet, reportedly Stephen King hates the Kubrick film. As someone who enjoys both, I simply think he’s wrong and I guess as the author he will always come at it with a unique viewpoint.
* The Silence of the Lambs * The Shining * Shawshank Redemption (novella but I'll allow it) * Brokeback Mountain (same) * No Country for Old Men * Little Women (there are a few versions to choose from but I would choose the 1994 adaptation myself, thought he 2019 version was very good) * Requiem For a Dream * Lolita * Roots (mini-series but I think we should allow it)
That's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Heart of Darkness was a way better book, I mean it was published 120 years ago and people still talk about it, the only thing I think people really remember from Apocalypse Now was loving the smell of napalm in the morning.
It's funny that I started reading the book many years later, not knowing that it was the inspiration for the movie. I realized almost half way through the book.
The English Patient - didn’t read it but the movie is pretty terrible. Exactly nothing interesting happens for 3 hours.
Reasonable people can disagree, but at least don’t present these examples as universally acclaimed books and movies.
I think it's a bit of a weirdly paced novel though, and from recollection it's really easy to miss certain implied meanings if you miss a single sentence or so towards the end.
Dissinterest is different from uninteresting.
As for English Patient - look, you might not like romantic sagas, but it's rather flippant to call it pretty terrible given the awards it won. Clearly someone enjoyed it.
I loved the Three Body Problem trilogy, remains to be seen how good he series/movie will be.
Fight Club
A Clockwork Orange
Planet of the Apes