"The Princess Bride" movie captured the spirit of the book exceptionally well, and they were both great. I prefer the book slightly, because a novel can give you more than a 2-hour movie can.

"The Green Mile", since you are a King fan, was SO well done. Perfect cast and, aside from the opening and ending being tweaked a bit, was almost word-for-word the book. Both are well worth the time and effort to watch and read!

Dude no country for old men is an absolutely flawless adaptation

Silence of the Lambs was SURPRISINGLY accurate/faithful to the book. He even managed to gives those of us who read the book a wonderful, funny wink with the, "LOVE your suit" line.

"I'm looking at you Dark Tower!" - Liked and subscribed :'D

"Do you like 'Huey Lewis and the News'?" What a line lol

The dark tower adaptation was perfect it was so good they shoved 7 books into one movie.
Oh wait….

The World According to Garp, if you ask me, is a prime example of a book flawlessly adapted into a movie. The movie stays so true to the source material and the tone is exactly the same. The movie does leave out some things from the book, but nothing feels lost from the story because of it, and can generally just be filled in with context clues and subtle details in the movie’s background. The dialogue, settings, tone, pacing, direction, writing, and especially the casting is just perfect. I am not exaggerating when I say that the character essentially IS Robin Williams, even if you had no idea that there even was a movie, the character reads as if he were just straight up Robin Williams (there’s literally a line in the book about humour being Garp’s religion). I will say that if the movie isn’t someone’s cup of tea, then the book likely won’t be either, and vise versa, but essentially, hands down one of the best adaptations from book to film, in my humble opinion: The World According to Garp by John Irving.

So happy to the Expanse on here because that adaptation was SOooOooo enjoyable.  I would die for show-Drummer 😭

Silence of the Lambs is nearly a perfect adaptation. That's the one I always suggest if someone wants a great example of an accurate adaptation.

I think the movie Arrival is a very good adaptation of the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang.

It’s a bit dated but I think that Lonesome Dove was a great adaptation and still holds up. Some elite acting by Robert Duvall.

Harry Potter deserves credit just for finishing its series. You dont see that happening too often with 7-8 entries espeicially of a YA series. Im looking at you Percy Jackson and Alex Rider.

The best part of the Ghost in the Shell live action was the seething anger of the audience

I know you were only looking at movies here, but I think Interview with the Vampire (TV) is one for the list. To me it's an example of what an adaptation should be: they kept the core themes and conflicts of the story, were mindful enough to weave in threads from later books in the series to avoid weird rewrites and retcons, while also mixing up some of the particulars (timeline, character history) to freshen the story up.

Add that onto the stellar performances from the cast, and some absolutely gorgeous writing, and it's IMO one of the best adaptations I've ever seen. Maybe my all time favorite.

John, I have always loved the book, ON THE BEACH.  The 1959 movie adaptation was spot on.  I think some of the dialogue was taken word for word from the book - similar to your comments on AMERICAN PSYCHO

Loose adaptation: APOCALYPSE NOW, from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.”  Runner-up: BLADE RUNNER, based on Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

Faithful adaptation: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel.  Runner-up: Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, based on the book by Anthony Burgess.

And yeah, “Shogun” turned out pretty awesome.

Ah, similar journey with LotR. Got about halfway thru Two Towers, then an argument with a friend led me to vow to never read them ever again, and thus far have not. Yes we were teens and yes, we were nerds that would fight about books.

In terms of the way they split 'IT' between kids and adults, I actually think that worked very well in terms of the emotional impact and our ability to get invested in the characters, because we were able to experience their story in a linear fashion (which makes it easier for people not familiar with the characters to get to know them).  I think about the opening the adult story, and how, if you begin it with that, there's a mystery, but the audience isn't really going to care about this person because we have no idea who he is.  But when you spent like 2+ hours with him and his friends as kids, when we saw what all they went through, and then we catch up with them years later to see how they're doing as adults, we get their reunion, and then experience the tragic reveal of their loss with them?  Man, that really worked.

The Last Unicorn and the Princess Bride.  Both even have the original author write the screenplays!