What is your favourite film adapted from a stage play? And your least favourite?

The 1989 movie "Steel Magnolias" which started as a stage play in 1987 written by Robert Harling is hands down a fave of mine.  The play was such an immediate success that it garnered prompt attention from Hollywood which fast-tracked it to becoming a feature film.  And the rest is cinematic history y'all.

This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at February 12, 2020 9:26 PM MST

I don't have a favorite because I've never really liked one.  Les Miserables is the worst.

I went back and looked at a list and saw two that I didn't know were first plays that I loved:

Children of a Lesser God
Agnes of God

I guess I'll go with the film that first came to my mind :

"Bug"   directed by William Friedkin

WOWW!!!!!!!!!

This movie is truly incredible - - and it is nothing what one might think by the title. (I literally knew NOTHING about the movie when I went to see it, other than I wanted to see it because Friedkin directed it. I was THE only person in the entire movie theater, which made the entire experience even better. I can't recommend this movie highly enough.)

Offhand, I can't think of a least-favorite movie based upon a play.

Favourite: Paint Your Wagon, despite the fact that the plot of the play isn't even remotely similar to that of the movie. The songs are mostly the same, and with musicals that's the most important thing.

I really haven't seen too many movie adaptations of stage plays that I've disliked. Movie adaptations of books, on the other hand ... If I enjoyed the book, the movie invariably sucks.

The best one I've seen recently is "Little Malcolm"(aka Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs), a dark comedy about an art student who founds an extremist political party, which is really just a sordid personality-based cult consisting of him and his three mates. I thought it was distinctive because it had some very stagey dialogue but the direction and aesthetics were very cinematic.