Jurassic Park and The Princess Bride are the two exceptions I've thought of so far where I enjoyed the books and the films equally (or maybe even the films slightly better). In both cases, I saw the film first.
I've seen the first two Harry Potter films. The main problem I had with them is that the books are extremely episodic storytelling set over the course of a whole year. That doesn't really lend itself to a 2-hour film. You get the good vs. evil battles, but you don't get the sense of everyday life at Hogwarts that makes the books such a success. A TV series would have been a far better way to bring them to the screen IMHO.
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I've seen the first two Harry Potter films. The main problem I had with them is that the books are extremely episodic storytelling set over the course of a whole year. That doesn't really lend itself to a 2-hour film. You get the good vs. evil battles, but you don't get the sense of everyday life at Hogwarts that makes the books such a success. A TV series would have been a far better way to bring them to the screen IMHO.