"Billy Budd" (1962).

The superbly acted film (splendidly directed by co-star Peter Ustinov)is based on the intervening stage play.

But the sifting process does away with everything roundabout and inessential while maintaining most of Melville's dark ambiguities.

I could never get through "Fellowship of the Rings," but I think the film version may be - overall - the greatest movie ever made. (The next two were slightly less impressive; and "The Hobbit"....)