Which adaptation do you think has surpassed its source material in quality?

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Muppet Christmas Carol

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.

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.

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

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.

Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower

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.

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.

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.

The Bourne Identity movie > book

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

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.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

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.

Foundation. The books are okay. But the show has better character, escpecially the empire side. Great visual, and more griping plot

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

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

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

Buffy

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

"The Manchurian Candidate" isn't a great book.

Haven't read the comics, but everyone says that The Boys tv show is way better

They Live.

The Thing but not The Thing From Another World.

Most things based on the work of PKD.

A lot of Lovecraft adaptations have to be a bit loose (because his stories tend not to lend themselves to films and he wasn't a good person) and are all the better for it - Re-animator, From Beyond, The Color Out of Space, Dagon, etc. plus quite a few fan films.

Flash Gordon film.

The first two Blade films - they struggle to make great Blade comics.

The Legion TV series.

Manhunter (1986)

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby.

The Ten Commandments

I think the TV series of Station Eleven is better than the book. Not that the book is bad at all, but the show is something else.

I think the anime adaptation of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End was genuinely better than the manga. Which is saying something, because the manga was already pretty damn good.

Yorkshire puddings.

A Very Brady Sequel.

Stalker. The movie, not necessarily the games.

Roadside picnic is a fantastic book that feels thrilling for a scifi story. There's everything you could hope for, from deep philosophical questions to fictional technology that's described in a way that fascinates but doesn't attempt to over-explain; there's political implications to the geopolitics of the time that the authors consider. And at the center, an anti-hero who just wants to get his wish fulfilled and get out of this place, who's willing to make a deal with the devil for it.

To take all that and reimagine it as a long trialogue in an eerily deserted nature reserve/post-apocalyptic wasteland that touches upon all sorts of deep philosophy—from the divine to whether we can truly know ourselves; the struggle between logic and creativity; the vast ineffability of the natural world, not so much as Man vs. Nature conflict but as a reminder of how large and apathetic the natural world is to humanity—while maintaining a strained atmosphere of invisible threats that we never see. I could draw parallels to Dante's Inferno and Sartre's No Exit.

chef's kiss

It is one of the most aesthetically beautiful films I've ever seen, and does something I wish more filmmakers would do: focus on atmosphere rather than plot and action. It sounds boring, but it was a transformative work of art.

It's dark, it's broody, it's strangely serene. I love it so much.

There are some covers of songs I like much more than the originals, a lot are Bob Dylan but also:

Neverwhere was a TV show before it was a book, I like the book more.

Lord of the Rings. I’ve read the books before watching the movies (I saw them first like 3 years ago) and the books are just… walking… And they walked…. Walked…. They walked… so much walking…. still walking…. And then walking…

If covers are allowed... I will always love you by Whitney Houston was so good people outside the US forgot/didn't knew it was a cover.