Movies that are Better that the Book
 
We all know that no one can ruin a great book better than Hollywood.  Take Lolita and Great Gatsby, for example.  Every once in a while, a movie is as good.  What's rare is a movie that exceeds the book.  Here are my picks:

Godfather /Godfather  II
Some people call Mario Puzo's book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century.  I'm not quite sure I'd agree.  Puzo's strength is in his storytelling.  His glaring weakness is in dialogue.  Some of it is so bad that I got extremely frustrated every time I came across an extended volley of words between characters.  Coppola greatly improved upon the dialogue and also gave the story grand operatic quality that didn't exist in the novel.  Clearest case in point is the flashback sequences in the second movie.  The stories of Vito Corleone's upbringing in the novel are interesting but not as dynamic and spellbinding as the movie version.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great read - one gets a more complete psychological picture of each character and some of the stories that were left out of the movie are just amazing.

Field of Dreams(Shoeless Joe)
Shoeless Joe was written for baseball geeks and stat whores.  It's Hustler magazine for Bill James.  The movie is an unabashed love letter eloquently expressing all the wonderful nostalgia and mysticism associated with baseball.

Amadeus
The movie retains all the best parts of the play.  The ending of the play kinda sucks.  For the movie, Peter Shaffer restructures the play by borrowing from his best work, Equus.  Like in Equus, the bulk of the movie is narrated in flashback by Salieri.  A confessional with a priest takes the place of a therapy session.  The result is that the ending of the movie doesn't suck.

Last Picture Show
Bogdanovich's movie was probably the most poignant movie made about growing out of adolescence.  The book was about a bunch of dumb and horny rednecks ruining each others' lives.