Fight Club. Even the author preferred some of the changes made for the movie.

The Stargate movie was good, but SG-1 far surpassed it.

Arcane, the animated Netflix show that was based on League of Legends.

Starship Troopers - the book was extremely meh - the movie is excellent (and very relevant to modern day).

Clue - an excellent movie based off a fucking boardgame... ditto for Barbie now as well!

Mage the Acension is a TTRPG love letter to Ars Magicka and it blows it out of the water.

Johnny Cash's version of Hurt

The Mist

That ending was one of the most brilliant gut-punches in film history. Stephen King himself said he wished he had written it.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Controversial, but Lord of the Rings. Tolkien wrote great stories, but his writing style always seemed kind of lackluster.

Pretty much everyone who’s discussed it agrees The Godfather (film) blows the Puzo novel it adapted away.

Runner up is Adaptation, an adaptation of the novel The Orchid Thief that expands its scope significantly.

The Princess Bride was a pretty good book but an amazing movie.

Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower

The sequel to Trump screwing Stormy Daniels...Stormy Daniels screwing Trump.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), at the time of its release, was based on a short story called The Sentinel by Arthur C Clarke. In that story, the roots of the Tycho Monolith plot segment of 2001 of is sketched out, and then expanded as both a screenplay and a full-length novel.

Ill be killed for this but...Lord of the rings. Like, im sorry book purists but even after reading the books twice. Tolkien, is and always will be, THE high fantasy author, the one who basically made things we take for granted today. But the music from Howard Shore. So many scenes like from how fellowship began, to DEEEAAAATTTTHHH to Sam just being the broest bro to ever exist. I dont mind all of the cuts and changes they did, i happily return to the movies all year every year, the books? not so much.

heres a controversial opinion: The American Office vs the UK Office.

While I respect the original, Gervais' external antics and the much meaner, darker humor just don't create as good a comedy vehicle that enables the viewer to laugh and have fun and enjoy themselves watching the show

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The Magicians: The books were good, but the TV show really was in a class all its own. And it did away with using obscure words just because, that was annoying.

Game of Thrones: At this rate, ASOIAF is never getting done, so I'm by default giving it to the show for actually finishing the job.

Good Omens: The first season brought the book to life, but there wasn't source material beyond that. The second season did a great job fleshing out the characters and moving the story forward into the final season.

Blade runner. Much better than "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" but it is only loosely based off it.

PS: when reading a book after watching a film, it usually feels like the book is much better, fills in details, separates scenes which a film had mixed together or altogether done away with. E.g. The Shining, LotR, Dune...but for Androids I just felt "what, that's it?"

I welcome the controversy, but World of Warcraft.

I just went through my entire favorite movie and show list and couldn't find a single one. I can only find ones where the adaptation is great, because it limits its focus while still keeping the overall spirit of the original. Or ones that tell a very different story, but manage to do it well.

Dune, all quiet on the western front (1930s one), total recall, it's a wonderful life, blade runner, I claudius.

Battlestar Galactica (2003) -Originally a mini-seris to pay homage to the original idea through the lens of current events exploded into to what is my favorite show to ever be on television. Informing so much of what TV sci-fi could be after it.

The Bourne Identity movie > book

I would say The Expanse but them not filming the last 3 books skews that. Never had any interest in LoL but Arcane is amazing.

Jaws the movie is much better than the book. None of the characters in the book are remotely likeable.

Even the author agrees Fight Club the movie is better than the book.

Attack on Titan anime better than the manga. I love them both, but the musical cues, the animation, the voice acting all take the anime way over.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

Interview with a vampire. The book was good but the movie was better imo.

Freebsd

Both film versions of Solaris, though for vastly different reasons. Lem's original novel is super dry and hard sci fi, like most of Lem's work, which isn't my favorite kind of sci fi. Both films really delve into the fascinating psychological questions of the situation Kelvin finds himself in. The Tarkovsky version is the best, unsurprisingly, since Tarkovsky is the GOAT, but I also really enjoy the Soderbergh version with George Clooney. The latter is hollywoodized compared to the Soviet version, but still is a really interesting and gorgeous movie

Invincible. The comics are great, but I think the show dramatically improves a couple characters

I haven't read it, but I've heard the Forrest Gump movie is much better than the novel.