Top Five Movies That Are Better Than The Book

It’s become an absolute cliche to say that the book is always better than the movie, but the Journal Pulp is about to let you in on a dirty little secret: it isn’t always so.

The following, composed in rather rapid fashion, is my off-the-cuff top-five list of movies that are better than the book:

Number 5: The English Patient, a well-written novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The movie, directed by the English auteur Anthony Minghella (RIP), with phenomenal acting performances by Juliette Binoche, the stunning and skeletal Kristin Scott Thomas, and most especially Ralph Fiennes, concretizes in ways the novel does not approach this complicated plot.

Number 4: The Grifters, by Big Jim Thompson (1906 — 1977), who was a prolific and good (if uneven) pulp writer. The movie came out in 1990 and is a kind of neo-noir film, directed by another English auteur named Stephen Frears, produced by Martin Scorsese. Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening deliver unforgettable performances (“So what’s it going to be? The lady, or the loot?”), but the undisputed star of this show is John Cusack, who plays the cool and tragic Roy Dillon.

Number 3: Wild At Heart, by Barry Gifford, whom I admit to having a true literary affection for — though I’m not entirely sure why: he writes so much mediocre stuff. And yet there’s something about him, something unlike anyone else. I did genuinely like his slim novel Wild At Heart and I recommend it for the writing style alone. In fact, it’s among his very best efforts and the writing is truly beautiful. But it doesn’t compare to the movie, directed by none other than David Lynch, and 1990 winner of the coveted Palm D’Or at Cannes — a flawed movie, to be sure (all Wizard of Oz references should have been removed), but a movie that is not unintelligible, as so many David Lynch movies are, a gorgeous movie with profundity and strangeness and seriousness and laugh-out-loud humor, all at the same time. Sailor Ripley, incidentally, the main character, is one of my favorite movie characters of all-time.

Number 2: After Dark, My Sweet, which was also written by the previously mentioned pulp writer Jim Thompson, a book told from the first-person perspective, as most of Jim Thompson’s novels are, and in this case that first-person perspective flaws it, in my opinion. But I did like the book. The movie, however, directed by James Foley and starring Jason Patrick and the very lovely Rachel Ward (who never looked lovelier), is filmed with a sparseness and sense of longing that takes the story to a level far beyond noir. This is one of the most romantic movies ever, with a heartbreaking ending you will not see coming.

Number 1: Blade Runner, of course. Of course. A semi-famous novel, first published in 1968, entitled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by American writer Philip K. Dick, who is a good writer, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it from this book alone. The movie Blade Runner (directed by the vastly overrated Ridley Scot) is not only better: it’s better by light years. In fact, Blade Runner is bottomless, and without any doubt one of the greatest movie ever made.