Adaptations I think were better than the book include The Shawshank Redemption which takes a relatively short novella and flattens into one of the most brilliant and rewarding movies in history and L.A. Confidential which compresses one of the most intricate and complex plots into a simpler (if still too intricate) film noir that is one of the greatest movies ever made. I give added credit to John Huston's adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead, which many thoguh was unfilmable and yet he created a masterpiece.