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'Jaws' (1975) - The Oscar-winning film undeniably improved upon Peter Benchley's bestselling novel, expertly paring it down to its bare essentials, erasing a strange Mafia subplot, and creating an explosive climax where there wasn't one.

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'The Princess Bride' (1987) - A classic film for past, present, and future generations, the novel's author, William Goldman, wrote the screen adaptation, so there was not much controversy to be had.

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'Jackie Brown' (1997) - Elmore Leonard's 'Rum Punch' was a great novel about an air stewardess mixed up in crime, but Quentin Tarantino made the protagonist a black woman, and gave Pam Grier her career-best role.

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'A Clockwork Orange' (1971) - Anthony Burgess's violent, grotesque, confounding novel was genius in its own way, but Kubrick's unique aesthetic made it immensely more digestible and effective. It is known as a classic cult film!

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'Planet of the Apes' (1968) -

French author Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel is a satirical social allegory about a journalist and a professor who stumble upon an intelligent ape culture, but the film adaptation was groundbreaking and featured a climactic twist that the book lacked.

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'The Spy Who Loved Me' (1977) -

Ian Fleming's ninth James Bond novel was panned across the board, and it looks nothing like the action-packed 007 thriller it became on-screen. Bond doesn't even show up in the novel until its final chapters!

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'Psycho' (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock changes Robert Bloch's one-line dismissal of Marion Crane into an iconic slasher cinema moment, and he imbues the story with much more suspense and surprise than a book ever could.

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'Die Hard' (1988) - Though the film doesn't stray far from the basic plot of Roderick Thorp's 1979 novel 'Nothing Lasts Forever,' the film added humor and personality to its characters, and the film's influence has extended far past that of the book.

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'The Bridges of Madison County' (1995) - Robert James Waller's tale of an affair between a National Geographic photographer and a lonely Iowa farm wife is a book people love to hate, especially when compared to the film, whose leads are two Hollywood legends.

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'The Notebook' (2004) - Nicholas Sparks's syrupy novels tend to all follow a predictable trend, yet the adaptation of his first novel was a hit! Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling elevate it from its airport novel origins, and can make the most cynical viewer cry.

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'Blade Runner' (1982) - The novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' is a sci-fi classic in its own right, but the liberties the film took in its loose adaptation, and the ambiguity of whether Deckard is a replicant, changed the entire energy of it.

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'Forrest Gump' (1994) - The film cut out an extraordinary amount from the novel, including when Forrest becomes an astronaut, works with an orangutan named Sue in space, and crash lands into a forest with cannibals.

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'Drive' (2011) - Like James Sallis's novel, the film is a lot of style over substance, but that kind of technique just works better on-screen in this case. Gosling's restraint, and then his bursts of violence, make a much stronger visual impact.

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'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' (1964) - Stanley Kubrick makes multiple appearances on this list, as he has a keen eye for evolving narratives, like this straightforward thriller about nuclear war, and turning them into something with a much more lasting impression as social commentary.

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'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1975) - The film shifted perspective from Chief (Will Sampson), who narrates the novel, to McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), and the central conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched became so much more dynamic.

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'The Shining' (1980) -

Stephen King was famously unhappy with Kubrick's adaptation of his novel. He didn't like how it diminished Jack's supernatural possession, but grounding Jack's horror in the natural turned out even scarier.

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'The Silence of the Lambs' (1991) - While the film cuts away extraneous subplots and characters, its best feature is Jodie Foster as Clarice and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.

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'No Country for Old Men' (2007) -

Cormac McCarthy's writing style is very distinct, and unfortunately not appealing to a wider audience. The Coen brothers took his stellar material and infused it with a more engaging style and more dark humor.

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'Jurassic Park' (1993) - The film was a huge technological feat for its time, and its remakes still pale in comparison to the original. Spielberg wows with the fully realized dinosaurs, but also in the way he makes the characters more developed than Michael Crichton's book. 

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'The Godfather' (1972) - It might be enough to say that there's a reason people don't binge-read Mario Puzo's 1969 novel. But Francis Ford Coppola's epic film adaptation streamlines the meandering prose, turning the story into a feat of American cinema.

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'The Shawshank Redemption' (1994) - This film is considered by many to be one of the greatest of all time, and yet people often forget it's based on Stephen King's novella. There's a good reason for that.

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'Jumanji' (1995) - While Chris Van Allsburg's 'Jumanji' is a picture book, the movie still deserves credit for its stellar cast and its ability to transform the game into a childhood classic.

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'The Last of the Mohicans' (1992) -

James Fenimore Cooper's novel is an 18th-century classic, but by today's standards, it's slow and dense. The film, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, is fast-paced and much easier to get through.

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'Stand By Me' (1986) - Adapted from Stephen King's 'The Body,' not much differed from the novella, but director Rob Reiner captured the dark humor and bittersweet childhood nostalgia flawlessly, making the movie a beloved classic.

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'L.A. Confidential' (1997) - James Ellroy's novel is a neo-noir classic, but the film adaptation wins this round because of the way it seamlessly captures 1950s Los Angeles.

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'Fight Club' (1999) - While Chuck Palahniuk's novel is a masterpiece, the film is often favored for its ending, as well as Brad Pitt's portrayal of Tyler Durden.

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'Requiem for a Dream' (2000) -

Much like all of Darren Aronofsky's films, 'Requiem for a Dream' contains haunting imagery that stays with you long after it's over, and the imagery far surpasses the book's descriptions.

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'Mystic River' (2003) - Dennis Lehane's novels tend to play out better on-screen, and this Clint Eastwood-directed film starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon is one of the best examples.

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'There Will Be Blood' (2008) - To be fair, Paul Thomas Anderson reportedly only used the first 150 pages of Upton Sinclair's 'Oil!' for 'There Will Be Blood.' However, the film transforms the dark satire of the novel into something truly formidable, entertaining, and affecting.

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'Fantastic Mr. Fox' (2009) -

Wes Anderson is probably not the first person you'd suggest to adapt a Roald Dahl children's story, but he did an amazing job at keeping it mature, refined, deeply sweet, yet still accessible.

See also: Horror films based on true stories

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