好莱坞有将文学作品改变成电影的传统，而此类型的成功范例所不可缺少的要素包括：一个绝顶聪明的编剧，一个灵感不竭的导演，一个独当一面的演员，他们要做的便是，浓缩故事，充实人物，摈弃负缀。

1.《搏击俱乐部》　

Chuck Palahniuk sly mediation on modern identity was transformed by director David Fincher into a testosterone fueled loony punk rock opera starring a brilliant Brad Pitt as an unhinged id and a slack-jawed Ed Norton as an everyman on the edge.
　　
小说作者查克-帕拉尼克对于现代认同感的隐晦阐述，被电影导演演绎得成了一出充斥着癫狂朋克与华丽摇滚的大戏，男性荷尔蒙指数爆棚，而狂妄不羁的布拉德-皮特和游走在危机地带的爱德华-诺顿银幕上碰撞出了耀眼的火花。

2.《美国精神病人》　　

Bret Easton Ellis's tongue-in-cheek thriller about a serial killer became instantly infamous for its shocking violence and gratuitous sex. Critics vilified the novel for depictions of unspeakable depravity. But the book's main flaw was it's sloppy ambiguity— is Patrick Bateman an actual madman or some feverish delusion? Director Mary Harron offered a solution in her smart, stylish, and chilling movie adaptation—she directly tells us who Patrick Bateman is, crafting an alternately terrifying and hilarious satire of machismo and impotence.
　　
小说家布雷特-伊斯顿-埃利斯笔下那个连环杀手因令人瞠目结舌的罪行与追求变态快感而臭名远名扬， 评论家称这部作品为描述无法启齿的罪恶与堕落的佳作。但原著却在交代主人翁身份上含糊不清，他到底是个疯子还是臆想狂？导演玛丽-哈伦在这部机智狡黠、风格迥异、令人毛骨悚然的电影中给出了答案。男主角帕特里克-巴特曼是一个恐怖与滑稽，大男子主义与唯诺孱弱交加的矛盾体。　

3.《魔戒》　　

J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary sword-and-sorcery tome has moments of brilliance punctuated by hundreds of pages of songs, Elvish genealogy, and exhaustive geographical Middle Earth detail. In making his modern cinematic classic, Peter Jackson ignored such passages and focused on the story – a particularly human story about good, evil, and the power of friendship.
　　
约翰-罗纳德-瑞尔-托尔金的《魔戒》系列小说为世人展开了一卷瑰丽无比的画卷：正义与邪恶，宝剑与巫术，精灵的家族渊源，中土世纪的风貌，数不尽的奇异细节都在一页页小说中娓娓道来。而皮特-杰克逊将之电影化的过程中，抛开繁冗负结，将重点置于故事本身，一个关于善恶和友情力量的人性故事。

4.《廊桥遗梦》

　　
This best-selling novel by Robert James Waller is a disciplined, if slim, tearjerker about an affair long dead. It seemed counterintuitive that Hollywood man’s man Clint Eastwood would take the Oprah’s Book of the Month Club Winner and with fellow icon Meryl Streep, transform it into a sweeping, bittersweet love letter to doomed romance.
　　
这部由畅销小说家罗伯特-詹姆斯-沃勒所撰写的作品是一个关于个人和道德原则与社会纲常激烈冲突的催人泪下的故事。好莱坞传奇克林特-伊斯特伍德在奥普拉的小说俱乐部发现了这部小说，邀来伟大的女演员梅丽尔-斯特里普，一同上演了这部苦乐参半，欲罢还休的无望爱情绝唱。

5.《教父》

　　　
Mario Puzo wrote one of the great pulp gangster books of all time. Francis Ford Coppola made it into two movies as bleak, complex, and cathartic as a Shakespearean tragedy. It’s not just a saga about the mafia, like the book. Instead, the movie is about the dark side of the American dream.
　　
马里奥-普佐撰写了这部有史以来享誉最高的黑帮题材的著作，大导演弗朗西斯-福特-科波拉又将他拍摄成了两部宛如莎士比亚悲剧般悲情苍凉、纠结复杂、宣泄愤怒的作品。这两部电影不再是一个关于黑社会帮派的故事，它们俨然已经成为“美国梦”阴暗面的最好写照。