re: What is the best movie that has also done its source book the most justice?

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The Shawshank Redemption

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Came here to say this.

Norwegian Wood

I really feel like they should have had Sean bean say “one does not simply walk back over and pick someone up from mars”

LOTR

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LOTR

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Again, NO

Fellowship was close, but they left the entire Bombadil/Barrow Downs story out, which completely changes the importance of Merry's blade against the Witch King later.
Also, Strider had the shards of Narsil the whole time in Bree, he didn't have a functional sword.

Two Towers, you have Faramir bringing Frodo to Osgilliath, which was a major no-no on multiple parts. Not only do they never go there, the whole issue with the Ring is if you start to want it, you can't let it go. Faramir (book) said "not if I saw it on the roadside, would I pick it up". He understood. Faramir (movie) said "here's a nice prize, to prove my worth", which should have doomed him.
Also they flip Gandalf and Theoden, book Theoden wants to fight on the plains but listens to Gandalf (go to Helms Deep). In the movie, Gandalf tells him to fight on the plains, but Theoden says no, we will go to Helm's Deep. After Gandalf frees him from Saruman's enchantment, in the book he's all in on Gandalf being the leader, and would do anything he says. The film undercuts that.
They also exile Eomer from Edoras in the movie so he can return to save the day; he's at Theoden's side the whole time in the book.

ROTK, there's that whole mess with the Dead coming to Minas Tirith, which never happened in the book. And the book ends with the Scouring of the Shire, where Saruman has seized power and ultimately is killed by Wormtongue. They skip that completely, and kill Saruman off way too early.

The movies are great on their own, but they are significantly different from the books, and sometimes lessen the importance of what the books say.

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Most King novels have a solid first act, a dynamite second, and a dismal third.

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Amen and amen, except for the JFK themed book. That was a great novel. The Stand was exactly as op described. Last 3rd of the book which was 1.5 million pages was garbage.

Little Big Man.

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The Deliverance movie was about 95 percent accurate to the book. The only significant parts cut out are the introductions and the very final portions after they make it back home. Besides that, you see the scenes of the movie through the pages of the book.

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I actually had James Dickey (and Wlliam Price Fox) as creative writing professors at Carolina .... he thought they did a good job with the movie mainly because they allowed him to write the screenplay (plus he played the sheriff in the movie). He often ate at our family restaurant up until his death. Coach Jim Carlen and he would meet there once or twice a month.

He was good friends with Kurt Vonnegut. Their books jockied for #1 on the NYTs best seller list at the time and they became friends and pen pals because of it. Dickey has Vonnegut come in and lecture to one of the classes I attended (Peterson was the professor's name) and Vonnegut was not nearly as pleased with the making of Slaughterhouse-Five as Dickey was with Deliverance I can tell you that.

Both books came out at roughly the same time as did both movies.

I was honored to have a short story of mine, chosen and read by Vonnegut that day in Peterson's class with Dickey in attendance. It was a story about some SpecOps buddies reunited in a different realm and Vonnegut and Peterson seemed to really like it.

A year or two later I found myself serving at Bragg.

Odd how life works sometimes.

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Daughter talked about the book and movie and said that all of the girls cried during the movie when the “hot guy” died.

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I’m assuming she was talking about Dally and not Johnny.

I don't say this lightly, but the Silence Of The Lambs movie might actually be better than the book, and the book is great.