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In reply to #1:  Great topic.  While I agree with almost all of the posts about turkey-movies from much better books (except I thought Catch-22 wasn't all that bad) but one of the worst, all time, has got to be Possession.  They took a Booker Prize winner and put Gwyneth Paltrow in it (who might have physically resembled Maud, but that was all), and Aaron Eckart was disastrous (and innacurate) as Roland.  Not even the very good actors Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle could save it.  It was a yawn-fest, while the book was completely engrossing and delightful.

Call of the Wild has to be my pick. The story doesn't translate well from the dog's mind to man's. We see the whole Jack London story from the eyes of Buck, and then the movie turns it around and ruins the perspective. It's like they tried, they just couldn't pull it off.

In reply to #22: Call of the Wild may not have been any good, but Into the Wild was great!

In reply to #6:I agree about the Scarlet Letter!

In reply to #8: Hopefully you don't mean the 1968 Zeffirelli. The main actors were both in their teens - Olivia Hussey (Juliet) was 16 or 17, and Leonard Whiting (Romeo) was 18 or 19.

In reply to #20: No, not Garp--Hotel New Hampshire. Are they really bad movies, or are the books overrated too?

I would have to agree with # 6 that Beowulf was one of  the worst book to film creations that there ever was.  As a medievalist, I was appalled.  As a science fiction fan, I would have to say that both Dune and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy were dismal failures as well.

To #25--no, the Zefirelli film was well cast. I'm thinking of the 1936 version, starring 43 year old Leslie Howard as Romeo, playing off of Norma Shearer's 34 year old Juliet.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has to be the worst adaptation of the novel, in my opinion, because they took way too many scenes out of the novel. There was very little reference to the O.W.L.'s that fifth years had to take, which should have been the second priority of the movie after the Order of the Phoenix itself. After the attack of the dementors, the Dursleys' leaving the house looked really awkward. There was little focus on the the House of Black, which is suppose to be a really important setting later in the series, especially in the seventh book. There should have a bit more action. They also took out the scene where the Weasleys children and Harry Potter were to go back to the House of Black and, later, St. Mungo's. Those were pretty good scenes with settings that would later have to be used anyways.

Beowulf is at the top of my list. My students know that just mentioning the movie will elicit at least a ten minute rant. I wasn't a big fan of The Golden Compass either. The changes made for the movie seemed to me to remove all the suspense. I felt the movie was very anti-climatic.