Are books always better than their movies?

Although most people tend to prefer the book over the movie, still there are some examples where the movie was much better than the book it is based on. Take The Hours for example, the book by Michael Cunningham was published in 1998 and it won the Pulitzer prize for literature in 1999. The film appeared in 2002 starring Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf and granted her an Academy Award, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep were nominated for the best co actress. The story is about three women in three different generations all affected by Virginia Woolf's master piece "Mrs Dalloway", the first woman is Virginia Woolf herself writing the novel (England 1923), the second is Laura Brown (LA 1949) who is reading the novel and preparing a party for her husband, and the third is Clarissa Vaughn (NY 2001) giving a party to her friend and former lover who won a prize for his book and who is also dying of AIDS. Although the book and the movie have more or less the same plot, watching the movie is a much more enjoyable experience than reading the book. The movie provided a better indulgence into each era, with carefuly chosen scenes, make up, film material, costumes and definitely in this case seeing would be much deeper than reading words and imagining how the word "drive" would involve this old car and how the word "kitchen" will be that illustrated in the three different houses, each carrying the legacy of its country and age. Philip Glass' music played a pivotal role in creating the perfect atomosphere for the themes of the film, as all characters share unhappiness, confusion, identity crisis and homosexuality, it is really one of the best soundtracks you can ever listen to, something the book could not provide. The movie was also the first to depict Virginia Woolf in person, Kidman's make up and acting was stunning and she really deserved the Oscar. The book is written in the stream of consciousness technique which, given its depth and huge psychoanalysis focusing on the characters rather than the events, is one of the most difficult styles to be converted into movie, but still the movie wins over the film big time. Could we conclude that whenever we are in front of a work that deals with past eras or famous figures, the movie with its ability to provide this visual experience would win over the book? Well, this is definitely a difficult question, but sometimes yes, the movie could provide the full picture and fill in the gaps that the book could not fill with words. Another example that fits with the above assumption is "Girl with a Pearl Earring", starring Scarlet Johansson and Colin Firth, based on the book by Tracy Chevalier. The story takes place in Delft, Holland in the 17th century when the great Dutch painter Jan Vermeer was working on his master piece Girl with a Pearl Earring that symbolises the Baroque era in painting. Again the movie with its scenes, costumes, music and facial expressions of the characters takes you really there, way more than the book does. Again, a book or a movie? The question remains and an absolute answer is not easy to be found.