Some stories make for great adaptations, and some stories get adapted more than once and prove a TV show was the better option than the movies.
As Hollywood continues to churn out one adaptation after the next, one of the ongoing trends is taking a story that was previously adapted into a film and making it a TV show. Turns out, some of these stories were better served on the small screen, playing out over the course of a season, instead of just a couple hours.
These are five TV shows that told a story better than their film counterpart and should be the way you take in the adaptation at this point.
The Best Book Adaptations of 2025
Interview with the Vampire
AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” has far outstripped the film that came years before it. The first two seasons of the show brings the author’s iconic book to the small screen and the largest change is that it takes the subtext that Louis and Lestat were in love and together and makes it overt text.
If you live for shows that thrive on making people sitting in rooms talking riveting television, there are few shows airing that do it better than “Interview with the Vampire.”
12 Monkeys
“12 Monkeys” is a beloved cult film with great performances from Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis. The show still blows it out of the water and remains an underwatched gem because it aired new episodes on Syfy. What started as a clear-cut retelling of the time travel story to stop a viral plague’s release a lá the film evolved over the course of four seasons to be a show about the family you choose and a battle for the safety of time itself.
Netflix’s “Dark” gets a lot of acclaim for being the best time travel TV show but “12 Monkeys” is right up there competing for that top spot.
Westworld
Was every season of “Westworld” a banger? Absolutely not. But the HBO series proved that spending more time in this world was often worthwhile, allowing it to explore ideas that elevated it well beyond the original 1973 film.
The first two seasons, in particular, offered thought-provoking examinations of consciousness, identity and free will that were ahead of the curve compared with many of the sci-fi films and TV shows that followed. While later seasons were more uneven, the series remained ambitious to the end. That HBO canceled it before it could deliver its planned conclusion remains a source of frustration for many fans.
Friday Night Lights
“Friday Night Lights” is the slice of life high school drama that all others have been trying to emulate since it first premiered. The fact that this show ever struggled to find a ratings foothold will forever be a mystery and it deserved many more Emmy accolades than the few it received.
Peter Berg found plenty of success adapting the true story of the “Friday Night Lights” book into a film starring Billy Bob Thornton. He struck gold returning to that well and telling a more fictionalized take of a high school football team and the town that cares so deeply for it – for better and worse.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” began as a 1992 film that just didn’t connect in the same way the show did. A lot could be attributed to the reworked cast, but the ideas that were explored were better examined in the TV space.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy – the next in a long line of Slayers tasked with protecting humanity from all manner of supernatural entities, be they vampires or others. Juggling that, she also has to deal with high school (and later, adult) woes. The show was ahead of the curve in many of the topics and themes it explored, and it changed how TV stories were told with its masterful blend of episodic and serialized storytelling.
