Generally, LL has fared almost as poorly as Stephen King in translation to film. In many cases, the nuts and bolts of their stories are there, but whatever it is that pulls their readers in is completely missing. With THE GREEN MILE and SHAWSHANK, folks began to get King right and LL has some good representation as well.

For fun, my list of the best is-

DIAMOND OF JERU - Billy Zane plays the best LL archetype hero, hands down. Super, super film.

CONAGHER - Sam Elliott and Catherine Ross are largely responsible for how this one came to be from what I've read. Beautiful and poignant, it's just about perfect.

CROSSFIRE TRAIL- Tom Selleck should have made about a dozen more westerns than he has, and now its too late. Another one that feels LL through and through. I watch this one once or twice a year. Its one of my go-to westerns, like RIO BRAVO and EL DORADO. That's good company.

THE SACKETTS - even though I see the flaws more clearly now than back then, I still love this. It suffers from 70s TV production values and being a bit TOO condensed, but it was (at the time especially) quite an event for us fans, and I was a fairly new obsessive one at that time. It sure put Tom Selleck on the map.

THE SHADOW RIDERS is also fine, but most everything I've managed to see seems pretty much standard to sub-standard fare...most of them just not particularly good, with TAGGART, CATLOW and THE MAN CALLED NOON being better than the rest. SHALAKO and THE BURNING HILLS on the other hand are two that SHOULD have been way better than they are. There was a TV-made HONDO film back in the 60s that's just awful. Pretty lousy stuff.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON is one of my favorite films, but its not a true LL book so it doesn't count :)