For Fans of The Princess Bride

William Goldman's 1973 novel has a reputation as simply 'the source material.' That framing undersells it badly. Goldman narrates the book as an abridgment of a fictional Florinese classic, which means the meta-joke runs 300 pages deeper than any frame story the film could sustain. The result is funnier and, in places, more emotionally direct. Westley and Buttercup's relationship has more room to breathe. The final chapter is different from the film's ending in a way that rewards fans who thought they already knew how it resolved.

The ABC musical comedy series Galavant (2015-16) is the closest television has come to replicating what The Princess Bride does tonally. It is a medieval adventure that stops for Broadway-style song-and-dance numbers, written by Dan Fogelman with songs by Alan Menken, and it commits to the bit with the same straight-faced sincerity that makes the Reiner film work. It was cancelled after two seasons and has a cultish, defensive fan community that looks almost identical to the one that kept The Princess Bride alive on VHS for a decade.

Ron Gilbert designed The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) as a comedic pirate adventure where the humor comes from the straight-faced commitment of every character to an absurd situation. The result is the closest gaming has come to Goldman's voice: jokes that land because the protagonist plays them completely seriously, swordfights decided by verbal wit rather than button-mashing, and a romantic subplot that is genuinely charming. The first two games in the series are the high-water mark.

Matthew Vaughn's Stardust (2007), adapted from Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's graphic novel, is the film that came closest to repeating The Princess Bride's formula. It has the framing device, the self-aware genre wit, the central romance played straight while the surrounding characters are broadly comic, and a satisfying climax that earns its emotional landing. It underperformed at the box office and has since gathered exactly the kind of patient cult following that The Princess Bride had in 1987.