Books - What are you reading?

Jaws
Silence of the Lambs
[alan partridge voice] Jurassic Park

Can anyone think of good examples of films that are as good/ better than the book?

Not off the top of my head, but I've seen a lot of films based on rubbish books, so in a way that bar is not too high. I'd say some of the 50s pulp fiction transfers to the big screen would probably qualify, although I can't say that I've read a lot of pulp fiction.

Stephen king films if Stephen king is kept away from the film:

The Shining
Carrie
Stand by Me
Misery

Game of thrones the TV show is a huge improvement on the printed garbage source material

The Bourne films are vastly superior to the total fucking dreck that Ludlum wrote

Have you tried to read The Godfather

Ok none of this is great literature

Fight Club

Can anyone think of good examples of films that are as good/ better than the book?

For me American Psycho would fit that category. The book and film are sufficiently different to make a good pairing, emphasising different things.

Can anyone think of good examples of films that are as good/ better than the book?

Loads. Badly written books often make good films ot TV shows; I think the director feels less constrained by the original, since they aren't desecrating a classic. Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter mostly wrote drivel, while Conan Doyle and Thomas Harris are hugely overrated, but decent films and/or shows have been made from their work. I would say all the Hannibal Lecter films are significantly better than the books. Silence of the Lambs is a trashy airport novel.

Some films are built not on shit books but small short stories, greatly expanding their scope. 2001 was based on a short story "The Sentinel". Total Recall is an interesting case; most Dick film treatments haven't done so well and failed to capture the author's tone and intent. Paradoxically, Total Recall is based on one of the shortest stories Dick ever wrote, a relatively weak shaggy dog joke, and yet the film (and I mean the original) was one of the most true-to-the-author adaptations ever done. The idea that the hero is a fake and decides to be a fake, combined with the suggestion that the whole thing really is just a shop-bought fantasy, is very Dick.