BEST book to movie? Man, that's hard!

But a candidate that leaps immediately to mind is Cider House Rules.

Two things must be said:
A. It does cut way back on the book, but with all that it's excellent and faithfully gives the feel of the book, in my opinion.
B. The screenplay was written by the book's author, John Irving. Several of his other books had been turned into movies by others, and he'd also worked with other screenwriters on one or two of his books, and was fairly well pleased with the results in both processes. But he let everyone know early on that for The Cider House Rules that either HE would write the screen play, with full artistic control, or there would be NO MOVIE.

Result: a triumph.

Dave Oesterreich