For the subjective interpretation of "definitely better," mind you.

I would personally argue that the film versions of Jaws, Jurassic Park, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and several of the James Bond films are better than their literary precursors. Similarly, I would say that while Apocalypse Now is not necessarily better than Heart of Darkness, it is more meaningful given its updated setting. Other adaptations, such as The Godfather, I can't properly judge due to not having read the book.

Also, a fun fact I acquired while doing some searches on this topic. Did you know Die Hard is based on a book? It's called Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp. I seriously would have never guessed.

I hated the book version of it, but absolutely adore the movies. Very entertaining films, with some of the best 3d animation I have seen to date, entertaining characters, and a plot that shares almost nothing with the books other then some names. And in this case, that is a blessing.

Star Wars is a good bet. I'm guessing there are Star Trek novelisations, too.

And... I mean, there's 'not as good as', and then there's 'gratuitously worse than'. Did PJ et al really look at Barrels Out of Bond and think, 'Alas, the best possible way we can film this is as a fairground attraction - if only we had more resources to properly do it justice!'? I really doubt it. They chopped out moments of character development, not because they didn't have space left in the movie, but because they wanted to fill that space with gigantic ridiculous CG action sequences.

And, y'know what? That's been the case for every movie other than Fellowship. The closest FotR has is the escape through Moria - but stack it up against Helm's Deep, the Mumakil, Goblin Town, barrels and gold statues, and about 2/3 of B5A... y'know?

hS

I don't know. But that could be an entertaining read. I see no specific reason why not, presuming you could make a reasonable, I use that term loosely, explanation as to why it came back. But I am not the best person to answer.