3. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Laden with awards, lavished with praise and unbelievably successful at the box office, Peter Jackson's cinematic take on the Tolkien epic was a masterclass in how remain reasonably faithful to difficult and wordy source material, and still bring in the buck. The lengthy running time of the trilogy as a whole gives Jackson the opportunity to flesh out a story bursting at the seams with characters, while remaining well-paced and visually stunning. Most of the plot elements of the novel and major themes are present, and largely unaltered. Given the sheer depth and breadth of Tolkien's novels, which took a good 15 years to be written, it is remarkable that Jackson managed to do the novel such service, while providing undeniable entertainment.