Favorite authors whose books have been made into movies: What are some of yours?

[FrankfurtCat]

John Irving:
The World According to Garp
The Hotel New Hampshire
The Cider House Rules
A Prayer for Owen Meany (movie title is Simon Birch)

Hunter S. Thompson:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Where the Buffalo Roam

I probably missed some, these are just the ones I'm aware of by these authors.

[Callmecrazy]

1. Stephen King...

(Rita Hayworth and) The Shawshank Redemption.

[FrankfurtCat]

2. He has many good ones, some of the best movies made.

A not-so-well known but really good one is Dolores Claiborne.

[Callmecrazy]

3. I liked Misery too...nt

[FrankfurtCat]

4. Me too!

But it creeps my kids out-and they love Zombie and Vampire movies!

*My kids are all grown-ups, except for the youngest, who is 16

[Va Lefty]

9. Stand by Me (The Body)

A lot of his stories don't translate to film well. Christine, The Shining, Cujo and The Tommyknockers I didn't like.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. Yeah, I think his non-horror books translate to film better

He wasn't fond of The Shining at all.

[Midwestern Democrat]

19. It's generally agreed that his first five books - Carrie through The Dead Zone - were his best works

and four of these books are usually considered to have had the best film adaptations out of all of his horror novels - all of these adaptations also had very good directors:

Carrie - Brian de Palma
Salem's Lot - Tobe Hooper
The Shining - Stanley Kubrick
The Dead Zone - David Cronenberg

Beyond the first five books (and excepting the non-horror tales like Stand by Me, The Green Mile, etc), the adaptations were certainly a mixed bag - and most did not have directors nearly as well thought of as did the four "successful" adaptations I listed above. I certainly think better directors could have made better films out of "Cujo", "Firestarter", and "Pet Semetary" than the relative non-entities who helmed these films instead (although John Carpenter's adaptation of "Christine" was nothing to write home about).

[mantis49]

27. This and

The Green Mile were my favorites. Also Stand By Me.

[Sunriser13]

28. Every time The Green Mile catches my eye while channel surfing

I just can't seem to do anything but watch it.

Every actor in it, every single one, played their part to the absolute fullest.

Even Mr. Jingles...

Michael Clarke Duncan was amazing as John Coffey: "Just like the drink, only not spelled the same"...

[PufPuf23]

5. Philip K Dick

Bladerunner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)
Total Recall (short story, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale)
Adjustment Bureau (short story)
Barjo (French, Confessions of a Crap Artist)
Next (Golden Man, short story)
Radio Free Albemuth (independent film)
A Scanner Darkly
Minority Report (short story)
The Man in the High Castle (TV series)
Screamers (short story)
Paycheck (short story)

[Aristus]

6. Sir Laurence Van Der Post.

The Seed And The Sower was made into the film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence."

[Coventina]

7. Jane Austen: Good adaptations of all her novels exist.

JRR Tolkien: I know the LOTR/Hobbit movies are somewhat controversial, but I think Jackson did a good job with them.

[pinboy3niner]

8. Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and more.

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. Sssshhhhh

You do not talk about Fight Club.

[UTUSN]

10. Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers, directed by Huston

with Liz, Marlon, Julie Harris, & Brian Keith, all at their top form. A totally undervalued item.

[FrankfurtCat]

11. Sounds amazing...I've never heard of it.

I'm going to find it and watch it-I really like all of those actors and Huston. It sounds like I'll want to read the book also. I need to read more-used to read all the time.

[UTUSN]

12. One of the great opening lines:

"There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed."

[TexasBushwhacker]

14. I liked "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" too n/t

[UTUSN]

16. Yip. She was one of those 1 or 2 hit wonders I aspire to be

On edit: Whups, she had 3 or 4 or more wonders so I have no talk.

[OrwellwasRight]

17. I don't quite understand the criteria.

Do we have to like the movie or just the book?

If we have to like both, I'd say L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz & Steig Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. I'll also second all the John Irving books into movies except I have not seen Hotel New Hampshire. I'll add the Rowling/The Harry Potter Series.

If we don't have to like the movie I will add:

Kurt Vonnegut (I have yet to see a film version of his books that did justice, but they've tried with Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night and Breakfast of Champions)
Upton Sinclair (There Will Be Blood really had nothing whatsoever to do with the book Oil, which inspired it; I think they didn't want to admit the book was anti-capitalist)
George Orwell (I have yet to see a really enjoyable version of 1984)

[FrankfurtCat]

20. There is no criteria...

You don't even need to like the book, let alone the movie. I don't like all the books written by my favorite authors, and as you pointed out, often don't like the movies generated from them.

[Brother Buzz]

18. Elmore Leonard's Chili Palmer series: Get Shorty and Be Cool

Genuine bummer Elmore Leonard kicked the bucket before he got around to writing more in the series. Fun movies and even better reads.

[FrankfurtCat]

22. I didn't read the books,*

but I really enjoyed the movies!
* I didn't know about the books until now-on my list they go.

[Brother Buzz]

24. Superb casting made the films

John Travolta's great performance made me totally reevaluate him, but casting Dennis Farina in Get Shorty, and Dwayne Johnson in Be Cool were strokes of genius.

Hell, watching Dennis Farina owning Gene Hackman was a thing of beauty:

Anything written by Elmore Leonard deserves a look; your library is your friend

[LWolf]

21. That's a hard question.

As a bibliophile, I have a long, long list of favorite authors. Some are sentimental favorites, and some are favorites because they write well.

As someone who doesn't see many movies, I'm sure there are plenty of movies that have been made that I don't know about. I almost always prefer the book to the movie, even when the movie is well done. The exception to that pattern is The Princess Bride; while I like the book, I like the movie better. Of course, the author of the book is also the author of the screenplay.

And, of course, many many many books by authors who are not necessarily my favorite have been made into movies.

A few favorite authors whose work have been made into movies, good and bad:

Mark Twain
Ursula Le Guin
Chris Van Allsberg
Maurice Sendak
Neil Gaiman
Sherman Alexi
John Greene

[FrankfurtCat]

23. Seeing your and others' responses makes me want to read more.

I enjoy movies, but find it hard to maintain my interest to the end of most movies. I have to watch in segments, or just try again later. That's one thing that's so great about books-when you get to boring or confusing parts, you just read it again, or put it away and read when in a different frame of mind.

One book I absolutely loved was Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Mists of Avalon". It is amazing. A mini-series or something was made that was entertaining, but barely scratched the surface of the complex epic story told so brilliantly by Zimmer Bradley.

The Princess Bride, like you say, is one of the rare movies that many of its readers prefer to the book.

[IcyPeas]

25. Edith Wharton: and one more....

I enjoyed reading and watching: (they actually translated into movie format quite well)

The House of Mirth

The Age of Innocence

Ethan Fromme

and must mention The Girl With the Pearl Earring, written by Tracy Chevalier. I think this translated into movie format very well. A simple story and the movie "got it".

[jalan48]

26. Elfriede Jelinek-'The Piano Teacher"