Is there any movie that was equal to or better than the book, is it intrinsic to the media themselves?

An excellent question for discussion. Sure beats the usual drivel on here!!!

I've generally foundnbooks superior, if only for the simple reason of having the opportunity to go into greater detail of both characterization, and or explanation. That being said, on rare occasions, I'd found, once in awhile, a movie can at least equal a book, or, if not precisely equal, at the very least, get reasonably close. The best example I'd ever seen for purely military history films, I think was The Great Raid, about the liberation of Cabanatuan POW camp on Luzon that the Japanese ran for the survivors of the Bataan death march. Another, that, if not perfect, was so well casted and acted as to let one ignore the very few historical inaccuracies, was, of course, Glory, Matthew Broderick along with Denzel Washington should, in my view, have gotten an Oscar for his depiction of Col Robert Gould Shaw, plus, casting him in the role was virtually genius, as well, to my way of thinking. There's also DaY One about the Manhattan Project, which, aside from leaving out the story of Louis Slotingp, as depicted in the otherwise abysmal Fat Man and Little Boy, where I'd thought Paul Newman woefully miscast, Brian Denehy in Day One did a tour de force as MGen Leslie R Groves, Paul Newman did his best, however, Brian Denehy was a spot on match in terms of physiognomy, though John Cusack playing Louis Slotin or the role of him in Fat Man was quite good, certainly. Tjere are others I could cite as well, however, hopefully, those at least I think reasonably illustrate my point, I'd be eager for any thoughts, I realize of course that tastes as to such things will obv differ, many thanks.

I always tried to read the book first before seeing the movie although this wasn't always the case. Ex. I saw the movie We Were Soldiers before reading the book. Same with Platoon. Anyway if I end up reading the book first I too often criticize the movie depending on what's left out. I stopped watching the Harry Potter series because of that reason. I've also come across some movies that do a doggone fine job of portraying their respective book (Flags of Our Fathers).