Films that are better than the book?

Here's a tricky one for ya: Most people say that the book is always better. That statement generally is true. But have you ever read a book you thought wasn't as good as the movie? I think I got a couple:

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The story itself just seems to work so much better visually. Also, I think the film was better structured.

A lot of people don't seem to like the film American Psycho as much as the Bret Easton Ellis novel because they are so drastically different. While I think both book and film are great, I think the drastic differences were needed.

In my opinion, if the story needs basic and fundamental changes to become a movie, the writers should give it another title. I hate being led to believe something promised by the title, only to find nothing reflective of the book but the title and a character's name.

Cheaper By the Dozen comes glaringly to mind.

Two controversial picks: The Color Purple, which I think Spielburg improved by focusing on the characters' inter-relationships rather than the indulgent internal monologues of the Alice Walker novel...
...and Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson dredged out the essential conflicts and observations about temptation and integrity, without Tolkien's sometimes endless digressions on linguistics, heritage, and Elvish horticulture.

Jaws the film was a classic of its kind - the book was pretty poor in comparison.

I've heard that The Godfather isn't a very good book.

There are a few cases where I prefer the movie to the book, but in all of them, I don't think the book is bad, I just prefer the film.

The Prestige: I thought each medium had a different angle on the story, and I appreciated both.
Solaris: I like the Soderbergh movie. The book is good, but it gets very academic at times, and although it has some incredible ideas the movie is simply more captivating. I have yet to see the Tarkovsky film.
Trainspotting
Empire of the Sun. Actually, I thought this book was kind of boring.

I've heard that Children of Men isn't nearly as good as the movie.

I loved Hotel New Hampshire, but (unusually for me) thought the film actually was better ...

Death Note was well executed and the sequels avoided the plot meltdown from the second half of the series.

I'd second Jaws as well.

Ditto Trainspotting.

Seven Years in Tibet was a good movie but a dull book. The two were quite different.

#3 Bah! He can never be forgiven for Arwen in a stream. Or the other vast corruptions he made of a logical storyline. Yes it was shorter, and shiney. But I prefer a good honest soundly constructed piece of steel to tinfoil anyday.

Sphere - maybe. It certainly has more dramatic tension than the book which wanders slowly to an almost gripping point.

#6 children of men isn't a good film either though, maybe it's a terrible book.

High Fidelity is one for me; I'm just not a big Nick Hornby fan, and love John Cusack. Fever Pitch was another - again, "meh" on Hornby, and, well, I'm a Red Sox fan - 'nuff said :)

#11: I really enjoyed Children of Men actually, I thought it was excellent.

#12: I agree about High Fidelity.

I'll agree with LOTR, it is the only way I could get through the story undeterred by long, boring portions about talking trees, or whatever.

Also Jurassic Park, but that may be just because I saw the movie first, I know other people disagree.

Twilight, hands down. The movie was tolerable because, unlike the book, no one involved seemed to be taking it seriously.

#5, The book of The Godfather is nothing compared to the movies (Godfather 1&2). However, I can say that while it is definitely on the trashy and badly written side, when I read it as a teenager I found the sex scenes fascinating!

I had a hard time getting through The Chronicles of Narnia as books, but the two recent movies went a little faster (not that they were stellar, though).