Wuthering Heights 2026 will stream on HBO Max on May 1

Variety, The Hollowood Reporter, Deadline, Elle and many others report that Wuthering Heights 2026 will stream on HBO Max beginning May 1.

Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell‘s take on the classic Emily Brontë novel starring Margot Robbie an d Jacob Elordi, is set to premere on HBO Max on Friday, May 1, debuting on HBO linear the following day at 8:00 p.m. ET.

A version with American Sign Language will also stream exclusively on HBO Max, performed by ASL Dubbers Leila Hanaumi and Giovanni Maucere, and directed by Justin Jackerson. (Kennedy French)

A contributor to Afar celebrates 'Wuthering Heights Fever With a Literary-Inspired Tour of Brontë Country'

As I climbed into the four-poster bed of my regency-styled bedroom, I had to remind myself this was real. Tonight, I was sleeping in a room where members of the Brontë family had slept some 200 years ago, in the building where Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—the literary sisters who gave the world Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall respectively—were born. As a travel writer, I’ve slept in many wonderful places, but this felt particularly surreal.

Having joined a new wave of Brontë-curious readers in the wake of Emerald Fennell’s recent Wuthering Heights film adaptation, my stay at the Brontë Birthplace—a museum that offers overnight board—in the small English village of Thornton was one part of a literary tour readers can string together to explore the homes, landscapes, and inspirations behind the sisters’ novels. The county of Yorkshire in northern England is both their, and my, childhood home. I wanted to delve deeper into the lives they led and explore their connection to this familiar moorland scenery.

My drive to the Brontë Birthplace, which sits on the outskirts of the city of Bradford (the United Kingdom’s city of culture in 2025), seemed unremarkable until I reached Thornton’s historic center. Here, lanes became narrower and buildings noticeably older, dating from the late Georgian to the early Victorian eras. Tiny “snickets” (lanes) ran between them. Faded shop facades echoed the former community where the Brontë siblings’ father, Patrick, worked as a perpetual curate (a type of parish priest in the 19th-century Anglican church).

A short walk from their Market Street home led me to the ruined Chapel of St. James—or the Bell Chapel—where the famous siblings were baptized. Beside an ivy-strewn bell tower, a section of the original church wall was etched with the words: “Thornton: my happiest years 1815–1820” followed by Patrick’s name.

One of the most distinctive Brontë-themed walks in the area is a nine-mile route marked by four “Brontë Stones.” Created by novelist and poet Michael Stewart, the trail links Thornton with Haworth, where the family spent most of their lives.

Three of the commemorative stones are dedicated to each sister and one is dedicated to the three siblings collectively. Each is inscribed with a bespoke verse from famous writers such as poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and singer Kate Bush.

Traveling to Haworth by car from Thornton will take you less than 20 minutes and, once you’re there, the village’s streets are well worth exploring if you’re not put off by their steep inclines. The soot-blackened gritstone buildings and mélange of converted mills speak to the region’s textile manufacturing past. When the Brontë sisters were alive, Haworth’s cobbled Main Street would have had everything from blacksmiths and joiners to stone masons and grocers.

I passed a former tea merchant that once sold writing paper to Charlotte, plus the Barraclough clockmakers (now the Hawthorn restaurant) who crafted the family’s grandfather clock. The Haworth Old Post Office, now a curio-filled café with an original Victorian counter, was where the sisters sent off their manuscripts to London under the pen names Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell.

The parsonage where the Brontës lived from 1825, was among the most enthralling stops I made. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey were all written in the home, which is now a museum. Seeing the sofa on which Emily Brontë died was a somber moment.

The parsonage’s rooms showcase writing desks, clothing, and jewelry owned by the sisters, plus sketches by brother Branwell. Beside their creativity—encouraged by their enthusiastic, story-telling father—there was much darkness in the Brontës’ lives. Branwell fell into alcohol and opium addiction, and this once poorly sanitized village brimmed with reminders of death. One museum member told me that Haworth’s water supply “passed through the graves of 42,000 bodies.”

Rambling across Haworth’s surrounding heather moorland brought me close to the sentiment of Wuthering Heights. The popular 4.5-mile Brontë Connection route starts in the village of Stanbury, reachable via the “Brontë Bus.” It follows the outskirts of the disused quarry site of Penistone Country Park and follows the rocky path that leads to the frothing Brontë waterfall, named after the family, which descends into Sladen Beck.

Keen walkers might want to go as far as Ponden Kirk, the gritstone outcrop that inspired Emily’s depiction of Penistone Crags in the novel, before rejoining the road that leads back to Stanbury to pass Ponden Hall (the farmhouse that may have inspired her Thrushcross Grange).

The description in the original Wuthering Heights novel by housekeeper Nelly Dean of “temporary brooks [crossing] our path, gurgling from the uplands” couldn’t be more fitting of the sodden, peaty bogs I’d experienced. Yet now, as I paused to take in the panoramic views, the clouds parted to reveal a bright blue sky. (Lucy McGuire)

A contributor to The Age has also been touring Haworth and Top Withens.

Ordinarily, I’d object to the howling, bone-chilling wind on Haworth Moor. It turns a refreshing country walk into a test of tenacity. On the hike to the ruined Top Withens farmhouse, however, that icy wind feels fittingly atmospheric. A sunny idyll wouldn’t be very Wuthering Heights – the moody, weather-beaten setting is a key part of what makes Emily Bronte’s only published novel.

This unforgiving but handsome slice of West Yorkshire moorland is likely to get many more boots trudging across it in 2026. The Emerald Fennell-directed movie, Wuthering Heights, starring Aussies Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, is likely to have a whole new generation setting off in search of Heathcliff’s windswept, isolated home.

Bronte fans have long since adopted Top Withens as the real-life location, even though a plaque on the wall of the ruined farmhouse wall admits it may not be. “The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described,” it reads. “But the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.”

Architectural layouts be damned. Top Withens embodies the spirit of Wuthering Heights. It is bleakly beautiful, built on one floor into the hillside and guarded by a pair of spindly sycamore trees. The moorland landscape hasn’t changed much since Bronte’s only novel was published in 1847, with the reservoir and wind turbines being very much on the horizon, rather than disturbing the lonely, heather-swathed foreground. Crucially, Top Withens stands apart and alone. There is no building in sight that could pass muster as a neighbour.

There is little doubt that the author would have walked here. She was born in the outer Bradford suburb of Thornton – where the Bronte Birthplace reopened as a small museum in 2025 – but lived for the vast majority of her life at the parsonage in Haworth.

Her father, Patrick, was the perpetual curate at St Michael’s Church, on the other side of the graveyard from the Bronte family’s honey-stoned home. The sheep paddocks and moors start at the back of the parsonage, and Top Withens is nearly six kilometres away on foot. The most popular route also passes Bronte Falls, a small waterfall that was given its name post-literary fame.

While the moorland is the best place to get a sense of Wuthering Heights’ setting, the Bronte Parsonage Museum gives much more insight into the author’s life.

Emily Bronte’s personal tale is lapped by great waves of tragedy. Her mother, Maria, died within 18 months of moving to Haworth. Two of her elder sisters died of tuberculosis while away at school, and her brother, Branwell – a mildly talented painter – was a troubled alcoholic and opium addict. Branwell died in September 1848, three months before Emily died of tuberculosis, aged 30.

Patrick Bronte outlived all six of his children, and his character is most pervasive throughout the museum. An Irish immigrant, he was unusually well-educated, having studied at Cambridge. His poems were published, and the children grew up surrounded by books bearing their family name.

The most memorable room of the parsonage is the dining room, and not just because Emily is widely believed to have died on its couch. This is the room where the three Bronte sisters would write, regularly flitting around the table to check on their siblings’ progress. Emily’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Anne’s Agnes Grey were put together at the same time, around the same wooden table.

Haworth village is no longer quite as the Brontes would have remembered it, although Branwell’s old haunts, the Old White Lion and the Black Bull, still stand. The hilly, pedestrianised main street is now lined with restaurants and literary-leaning gift shops, the result of an overnight success that was sustained long after the sisters died. The moorland, however, is still the same wild, brooding place that inspired Emily’s masterpiece. (David Whitley)

More on adaptations as Mirror recommends Jane Eyre 2006 after watching The Other Bennet Sister.

For many, classic English novels are regarded as untouchable works of literature, and adaptations can often face considerable scrutiny - yet this particular TV series appears to capture the 19th century with remarkable authenticity.

Originally broadcast in 2006, this rendition of Jane Eyre brings Charlotte Brontë's beloved novel to life, chronicling the journey of its titular character as she navigates orphanhood while striving to carve out a better existence for herself.

Spanning four episodes, the series delivers a breathtaking retelling of this timeless tale, with Ruth Wilson taking on the lead role alongside Toby Stephens as Edward Rochester. (Emily Malia)

The Free Press Journal has an article on Jane Eyre and 'Why The Classic Still Resonates In A Modern Feminist Lens'.