Children of Men (2006)
Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Written by: Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby
Based on: The Children of Men (1992) by P.D. James
Why it’s better: The film version of Children of Men takes plenty of liberties in adapting the P.D. James novel, but it smartly retains many of James’ big-picture ideas. Most significantly, it turns the story into more of a thriller. With Cuarón at the helm, it’s at times an unbearably stressful viewing experience that makes those underlying themes all the more potent.
The movie sucked
#25... I don't think better as such, but more so, brilliantly capturing the true essence of the books, yet Mr Tom bombadil is much missed
The movies are weak on it's own, but they are crap adaptation. It's plastic-cheap game cutscene-level, which is way more obvoius when you (try to) watch The Hobbit.
Overall you have very little idea on what makes movie better than book. Cutting things and simplyfying plot does not make them better story teller.
About the other books and movies that I've read and watch:
Godfather:
Both movies are great on it's own but it does not make them better than books.
The Prestige:
The book seems to be good until finale which is crap.
Movies are typical Nolan-like pulp, he's crappy storyteller.
Jurassic Park.
Movie is great on it's own, but book is much wider and Spielberg have to cut good part of it to make reasonable size movie. Other plots were included in part III.
As for Starship Troopers (I didn't read the book) - the movie was dumb. Satiric tone was nicely made (as Verhoven did in Robocop), but the rest was huge pile of crap.