Is there anything nicer than whiling away a rainy day with a book? There's something just so unfathomably satisfying about sitting snug in a window seat with a novel propped up on your knees, looking outside and letting your story-gorged brain make the grey, wet world come alive with new possibilities and wonder.

At the same time, though, there are moments when only a film will do (because sometimes concentrating is hard, let's be honest). There are also – occasionally- moments when a film works better than the book it was based on. Here are some movies for those moments, when you just don't feel up to reading a book, or the book.



Jaws

Here's a fun story: once I read Peter Benchley's novel Jaws in one go from cover to cover. I didn't feel guilty about it at all. Want to know why? It was awesome! Benchley sure knows how to write a gripping and fast-paced shark book.

But although Benchley's book was a major success, I'd bet my nicest hat that nobody would remember much about it today if it wasn't for Steven Spielberg. Forget the rubber shark – Spielberg knew that what was truly frightening was what you couldn't see, or could only glimpse or imagine, lurking out of shot. Add to the mix some amazing performances by Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw as the grizzled, haunted shark hunter Quint, and you've got yourself an unforgettable story that combines sun-dappled small-town quaintness, lurking terror and rollicking adventure with genuine sentiment and 1970s hair.

Pride and Prejudice (BBC Miniseries)

Right now in Melbourne, at this very moment as we breathe, there is a statue of Mr Darcy (the Mr Darcy, that is, the one brought to life by Colin Firth), emerging from a pond at Rippon Lea House and Garden in Elsternwick. I will wait here calmly while you compose yourself/book your airline tickets/run out the door.

The statue was shipped to Melbourne from Lyme Park in Cheshire, the estate that doubled as Pemberley in the BBC miniseries, and captures the moment when Fitzwilliam Darcy, dripping wet and all clingy-shirted, emerges from but the briefest of dips in one of his estate's many lakes. As he walks back towards his home, he bumps into his one true love, Elizabeth Bennet, and (survey says) the "most memorable British TV drama moment of all time" was born.

Pride and Prejudice the miniseries is certainly not better than Jane Austen's celebrated book, but it does equal it in terms of its own accomplishments. These go beyond just wet shirts and swims in lakes (which aren't kosher Austen), and can be seen in its rich, complicated and meticulously rendered world and how fascinating and very real its characters seem. It's hard sometimes to imagine what early 19th century England might have been like, but the miniseries can show us in amazing, beautiful detail what the past looked and felt like and how very real it all was.

Stand By Me

I haven't seen Stand By Me, Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's novella "The Body", for a long, long time, but I can still remember how keenly I shared the characters' desire for something like an adventure and their sense of getting lost in a much larger, more frightening, but also much more exciting adult world.

It's all set in the summer of 1959, where a young River Phoenix, along with his buddies played by actors Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell, go out searching for the dead body of a missing local boy. Along the way they discover what happens when the thrill of being an invulnerable kid comes into contact with a world where bad things can, and do, happen.

The real significance of their adventure is only realised years later, though, by the writer in the group, Gordie Lachance (Richard Dreyfuss), who reminisces about that summer after reading a newspaper article about the recent death of his friend. Ultimately, the film tells us that in order to make sense of your experiences you sometimes have to pour your life into writing, where adventure and youth become immortal.

The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather is one of the monuments of post-war American filmmaking. The tragedy of a principled young man, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), who sacrifices his goodness to protect his criminal family, was universally hailed as an artistic masterpiece upon its release; and, even now, few films can match its extreme excellence.

Mario Puzo's pulpy novel, on the other hand, which the movie is based on, is not so great. Where Coppola found epic grandeur in a poetic depiction of a family's domestic life and history, Puzo only used the most stock-standard banalities of literary expression. Coppola's film is one of those rare times when watching the movie is an immeasurably better and richer experience than reading the book. If you combine it with the even more ambitious, masterful sequel – The Godfather, Part II – the darkness of Michael Corleone's descent will keep you busy for most of your day, but will most likely linger for the rest of your life.

Fantastic Mr Fox

There are some books we read as kids that we get so attached to that anything else that comes along with the same name can make us feel a bit defensive or mad. For anyone who grew up reading Roald Dahl's children's novel – or spending long car trips listening to the audio book – Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox seems like a big risk. For one thing, Anderson fills Dahl's quintessentially English countryside story with slick Hollywood stars and his usual troupe of actors. We get George Clooney as Mr Fox and Meryl Streep as Mrs Fox, and Jason Schwartzman as Mr Fox's son, Ash. Throw in Bill Murray, Willem Defoe and Adrian Brody, and this doesn't sound or look like any Fantastic Mr Fox you might remember.

This is Wes Anderson picking up Dahl's story, turning it over, taking it apart, and putting it back together again as a film and then filtering that through his own signature style, expressed in stop-motion, which lets him mould every little detail to his heart's exact, strange desire. You won't get anything much like the Mr Fox you remember, but that's exactly the point.