Olivia Marcus and Gabriel Akuwudike will lead the cast of a new touring production of Jane Eyre, directed by 2025 Royal Theatrical Support Trust Sir Peter Hall Director Award winner Lily Dyble.The production, based on Sally Cookson, Mike Akers and the original company’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, will premiere at Mercury Theatre Colchester from 26 September to 10 October 2026 before touring to Rose Theatre Kingston, Northern Stage in Newcastle and Storyhouse in Chester. (...)The creative team includes set designer Anna Yates, costume designer Khadija Raza, movement director Natasha Harrison, lighting designer Lucía Sánchez Roldán, composer and sound designer Joseff Harris, fight director Rachid Sabitri, intimacy director Haruka Kuroda and casting director Helena Palmer.Dyble said: “What is at the very heart of Jane Eyre is courage in the face of the unknown. I’m thrilled to be delivering this story to audiences with bravery and risk, made possible by this phenomenal cast and creative team.” (Alex Wood)
The purple, treeless moors found across Britain’s uplands can look timeless and wild. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë described “the purple moors” as “a wilderness of heath”. Yet these moors have been shaped by clearance, drainage, grazing, pollution and burning.Peat records from Keighley Moor in West Yorkshire, not far from Brontë country, reveal a longer story. For most of the past 1,000 years, this landscape would have been much wetter, with abundant peat-forming Sphagnum moss, rather than today’s extensive heather-dominated vegetation created through rotational burning. (Joe Glentworth)
Anna Calder-Marshall as Cathy Earnshaw, ‘Wuthering Heights’ - 1970Wuthering Heights has been subjected to adaptations that are good, bad, and highly controversial, but none of them has been as dull and uninspired as the 1970 version directed by Robert Fuest.While Timothy Dalton does have the stoic, stony gravitas needed to play Heathcliff, there’s little he can do when paired with Anna Calder-Marshall’s take on Cathy Earnshaw. This is a literary character known for her unbridled passion, venomous rage, and repressed sexuality, but Calder-Marshall depicts her as a soapy hero only defined by the tragedy that the story concludes with.Even if the G-rated version was not going to go to the extremities seen in the Andrea Arnold and Emerald Fennell versions of the story, it still needed to be interesting as a romantic drama. Sadly, Calder-Marshall doesn’t even have a dose of chemistry with Dalton. (Liam Gaughan)
Jean Rhys, 136 años después: la escritora que rescató a una mujer recluida en un ático de Jane Eyre.Se cumplen 136 años de su nacimiento, una efeméride que devuelve la atención a la autora que convirtió a una figura secundaria de la literatura victoriana en protagonista de su propia historia (...)Sin embargo, su mayor reconocimiento llegó décadas después con Ancho mar de los Sargazos, publicada en 1966, tras un largo periodo apartada de la escena literaria. Un ejemplo de cómo los años de pausa o alejados de la actividad literaria más visible no implican un alejamiento del verdadero oficio del escritor.La obra dialoga directamente con Jane Eyre, el clásico que Charlotte Brontë publicó en 1847. Rhys recuperó a Bertha Mason, la esposa criolla de Rochester recluida en el ático, y reconstruyó su historia como Antoinette Cosway. El cambio de perspectiva permite abordar el pasado colonial caribeño, la identidad y las relaciones de poder que atraviesan al personaje. (Carmen Tomàs) (Translation)
Jane EyreEnero tiene algo de comienzo. Después de las fiestas, muchas personas sienten la necesidad de ordenar su vida, cerrar ciclos y pensar qué quieren hacer diferente durante el nuevo año. Por eso, Jane Eyre puede ser una lectura especialmente atractiva para inaugurar el calendario.La novela de Charlotte Brontë sigue a Jane, una joven que atraviesa pérdidas, dificultades y relaciones complejas mientras intenta construir una vida en la que pueda conservar su independencia y dignidad. No es solamente una historia de amor: también habla de identidad, autonomía y de la búsqueda de un lugar propio.Es un libro ideal para quien quiere empezar el año con una historia intensa y clásica, pero que todavía puede sentirse sorprendentemente moderna en sus preguntas sobre libertad y decisiones personales.Si naciste en enero, este podría ser tu libro: una historia sobre empezar de nuevo sin renunciar a quién eres. (Ciria Alarcón) (Translation)
As the wedding of the year fast approaches, Bec Harding was in full hen’s mode at the weekend.[Rebecca] Harding and Andy Lee are set to tie the knot in New York in October.She looked ravishing in red as her Wuthering Heights-themed hen’s party took place on Saturday in Melbourne. (Jackie Eptstein)
One of the world's leading Brontë experts is to attend the 2026 Kilkee Bronte Festival, which will take place this coming weekend.Ann Dinsdale, principal curator at the Brontë Society and Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England will be joining the festival in Kilkee, the place where Charlotte Bronte honeymooned, and where the Atlantic coast made such an impression on the famous author.Ms Dinsdale who has 36 years' experience caring for the museum's collection, organising exhibitions and working on important acquisitions will be making her first visit to the festival in Kilkee.Speaking to The Clare Champion this week, Ann said she is really excited to visit the West Clare seaside town, "I have been reading biographies about the Brontës for years - since I was a child really - so all these names of places in Ireland are really familiar to me. (...) (Sharon Dolan D'Arcy)
Multiple Narratives brings together works by eight gallery artists. The pieces are linked through their use of repetition, series and classification, some are narrative-driven, while others focus on visual exploration. Spanning drawing, sculpture, photography and found objects, the exhibition ranges from the minimal and abstract to the richly figurative.The show includes Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, Anna Barriball, Tacita Dean, Shilpa Gupta, Cornelia Parker, Raqs Media Collective, Thomas Schütte, and Dayanita Singh. (...)Progressing further into the gallery, the corner features two works by Cornelia Parker. White Cliff Crossings (2024) (...) [and] [a]djacent is Parker’s Brontëan Abstracts (2006) – photographs of Charlotte Brontë’s original manuscripts for Jane Eyre which are held in the British Library. These images give us a direct insight into the immediacy of the progress of the celebrated novel. Here Parker invites the viewer to be present at the author’s elbow, we enter Brontë’s consciousness as she edits her masterpiece and become privy to her ideas as they emerge and recede.
Sam and Mia are joined by their colleague Murray, who is one of the Museum's curators! Before taking on the role, Murray worked at other Museums and historic houses and undertook a PhD specialising in architectural history.In this episode, we ride the highs and lows of Britain's railways during the 1840s, looking at Branwell's time as a Railway Clerk and the investments the family made into this booming industry..
Wuthering Heights is a novel that has never been perfectly adapted, as even the Best Picture-nominated 1939 classic was only based on half of Emily Brontë’s novel. Instead of taking the opportunity to make a more thorough adaption, Emerald Fennell reduced the material even further by cutting out major characters and inserting more raunchiness; this is a complete misreading of the source material, as it is the unfulfilled longing between Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) that is supposed to heighten the sexual tension.Fennell’s film casts actors who are far too old to realistically be playing their characters and uses shock value to visualize Catherine’s sexual awakening; the result is a film that feels made by someone who had only skimmed the novel and didn’t understand what it was actually trying to say about loss and love. (Liam Gaughan)
The Synchro StingRays will be performing to three Kate Bush tracks in the water at Lakeside Adventures in Hartlebury tomorrow (Saturday, July 18).That will be ahead of Kate Bush Day next Sunday, July 26.StingRay choreographer and swim coach Ray Farr will then lead the official Wuthering Heights dance on land before inviting wannabe Kates into the lake to perform the dance there. (Tristan Harris)
It’s classic Hitchcock, but not as a twist but as a pivotal, shocking revelation. When it first came out, I believe it was considered almost a poor man’s Wuthering Heights, but I think Rebecca actually was the more truly gothic one. It’s a masterpiece.
David Canfield: How would you describe that interpretation? I’m curious how you conceive of this character, this scene, when he first presents you with the role, and how it then evolves once you start digging in.Samantha Morton: I did a bit of research into the source material and I bought the Madeline Miller book [Circe]. But I opened that book and then something just stopped me from reading it. The thing about me and my work is, my relationship to a movie script or a play or a TV episode or whatever I’m doing — that’s my special thing. Research is incredibly important for me, but it also depends on who I’m playing. Years ago, I was about 19 years old and I was playing Jane Eyre. It was a big ITV production. It was a TV movie, but they’d spent a lot of money on it. I remember literally carrying the book around with me like the Bible, with passages highlighted and all my notes, and talking to the person who adapted it and going, “Why isn’t this there? This doesn’t make sense.” I was almost in conflict with the script, which was very good, because I had issues with the choices. I vowed to myself moving forward that, while you have to do your research, you have to know what you’re doing, I didn’t want to be bogged down by everybody else’s interpretation, view, opinion, anything.
Aoife Rooney: Who would you most like to go for a pint with?Maggie O'Farrell: I’d like to go for a pint with Charlotte Brontë. I think she’d be very interesting, and it’s probable that she died of extreme morning sickness, so I’d like to talk to her about that. I feel like we lost so many books because she died so young. I’ve also read that she had an Irish accent, and I would love to know if that was true. Her father was Irish and her mother died when she was young.
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Step into the atmospheric world of Wuthering Heights.East Riddlesden Hall, KeighleyFebruary 14 - May 20Step into the atmospheric world of Wuthering Heights with Lights, Camera, Brontë: East Riddlesden Hall on Screen.
This exhibition uncovers the hall’s starring role in over a century of film and television adaptations of Emily Brontë’s iconic novel. Wander through historic rooms where directors once brought tempestuous romances and Yorkshire moorland drama to life, explore original screenplays and objects linked to the Brontës, and discover how the hall’s dark stone walls, rose windows and 17th‑century architecture inspired filmmakers from 1920 to the present day.
Blending literary heritage, cinematic history and local stories, this is your chance to experience East Riddlesden Hall as both a home of history and a star of the big screen.
Taking centre stage in the exhibition, being held at the National Trust property from Saturday (February 14), are three major adaptations of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights – a pioneering 1920 silent film, the 1992 production featuring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, and the 2009 ITV series starring Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley. (...)Original film stills and production materials, and recreated sets based on the surviving screenplay of the 1920 film, offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the classic story has been reimagined for the screen across generations. (...)The exhibition also highlights the legacy of the Brigg family, which helped preserve both East Riddlesden Hall and the literary heritage of the Brontës.John Jeremy Brigg, a founding member and later chair of the Brontë Society, played a key role in saving the hall from demolition in the 1930s.An oak buffet linked to the Brontës, believed by some to be the inspiration for the 'pewter-bearing dresser' in the opening chapter of Wuthering Heights, is among the pieces that will be on display. (Alistair Shand)
Sales of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights have risen by 469% in the UK since last year, as anticipation builds for Emerald Fennell’s bold and highly anticipated film adaptation, figures from Penguin Classics UK show.In January of this year, 10,670 copies were sold, compared with 1,875 in January 2025, in what Penguin has described as an unusually large boost.Sales of the book increased by 132% after the release of the first teaser trailer for the film last September. Between the trailer’s release and the end of the year, Penguin sold 28,257 copies in the UK, compared with 12,134 over the same period in 2024.Jess Harrison, publishing director for Penguin Classics, said: “I can’t remember the last time a film adaptation generated this much excitement for the book. Wuthering Heights is one of our evergreen bestsellers, but I do think the film is coming out at the perfect moment.“There seems to be a real yearning among readers for intense, maximalist, tragic love stories,” Harrison added. “We’ve seen huge demand for similarly angsty classics like Dostoevsky’s White Nights and Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat. But Wuthering Heights stands apart in being so wild and unhinged – an extreme book for extreme times.” [...]“I don’t think an adaptation needs to be completely faithful to the book: many of the best ones – like Clueless riffing on [Jane Austen’s] Emma – aren’t,” Harrison said. “But what you hope for is that an adaptation will capture the spirit of the original. With Wuthering Heights, it’s the extreme intensity of emotion that matters the most.” (Emma Loffhagen)
My copy of the book was cheap and flimsy because I preferred spending my hard earned wages from my Saturday job at Topshop on booze. Most importantly, my heart had just been broken for the very first time.It was, of course, the end of the world, in the way that being dumped at 17 has been the end of the world for millions of teenagers since time immemorial. And in between angsty phone calls to friends and cryptic MSN status updates (if you don’t know what MSN was, it was a noughties cross between Facebook and WhatsApp), I found Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.If you haven’t read it, you might be dimly aware of the two main characters, Cathy and Heathcliff. The pair - raised together in the crumbling hall, Wuthering Heights - have a mutual obsession with each other which destroys both their happiness and that of many around them.Aged 17, their doomed romance seemed to me to be the height of what it meant to be a human. What was the point in life if I couldn’t be loved in an all-possessing way, like Heathcliff loved Cathy?When - and I must warn here, despite the book being published while Queen Victoria was on the throne, I’m about to spoil a plot point - Cathy dies, Heathcliff moans in agony. “I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” I genuinely fantasised about having that quote tattooed on my ankle. Thank god my frontal lobe cortex developed in time to talk myself out of it.From the vantage point of a 17-year-old girl, it was like Emily Brontë had reached her hand through the book to take mine, just as Cathy’s smashes through the windows of Wuthering Heights.I’m not 17 any more, but I still love Wuthering Heights. It is a wild book, in every sense of the word. Far from being a conventional romance, the plot veers from passionate obsession to vengeance. Like the boxed in narrative of the book, it’s complicated. I love it because on every re-read, it takes me back to being that girl, one I remember so fondly even though my age has doubled.But I also love it now because it’s not the uncomplicated love story that it was to me at 17. Now it’s a dizzying exploration of revenge, ownership, anger, servitude, landscape. There’s love, yes, but it’s also a book about hatred.It’s an imperfect book - not nearly as ‘neat’ from a plotting perspective as Jane Eyre, written, of course, by the older Brontë sister Charlotte. I like to imagine that Emily wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, but that her pen wrote what she needed it to write in a kind of fever dream.And now it’s set to capture new fans via the film adaptation released later this month. So far, I’m nervous. Director Emerald Fenell’s last film, Saltburn, was perverse and gothic and frankly bonkers, so I think she’ll capture the spirit of the book well. The landscapes are set to be stunning, with filming having taken place across the Yorkshire Dales. I’m also excited for the soundtrack, masterminded by Charli xcx. If ever a book fits her vibe of insouciance mixed with glamour, it’s Wuthering Heights. Cathy Earnshaw is, in my eyes, the original ‘brat.But, famously, adaptations of Wuthering Heights are so hard to get right (though, for my money, Emma Rice’s stage production at York Theatre Royal a few years ago came as close as it gets). It’s too complicated, there’s a death every five pages, and half the characters have virtually identical names. And I feel very rude in saying this, but given I’m the same age as Margot Robbie, who stars in the film, I hope it’s forgivable to point out that she’s almost 20 years older than Cathy’s character in the book, and that matters. Lovestruck teenagers do and say awful things in ways we can forgive, in a way that we can’t of those in their mid-thirties. I should know.But for all my reservations, I’m excited that a new generation might come, via the film, to the book. That they will choose to inhabit Emily’s strange, twisted world. That she will, like she did for me, reach out from 1847 and grab their hands to give them permission to be wild, and passionate, and angry. That maybe, like I’ve done so many times since, they’ll decide to visit Haworth to see for themselves the landscape that inspired such a poetic tale.I don’t think I could have loved Wuthering Heights half so much now if I hadn’t read it for the first time then, and I’m so jealous of anyone who gets to experience it for their first time. The best literature not only reflects the way we think, it shows a mirror up to the way we feel. And if any of its new readers come to it heartbroken by the ends of their first loves, as I did all those years ago, so much the better. (Victoria Finan)
Emily Brontë’s genius was not for self-promotion. She hid her true identity under a pseudonym and agreed to pay £50 – more than the annual salary of a governess at the time – to get Wuthering Heights published in 1847. In contrast, the pre-publicity for Emerald Fennell’s new film adaptation, due for release on Valentine’s Day, has reached carnivalesque levels rare even in Hollywood. Few have so far seen it. But the trailer alone has already generated a babel of online response. Critiques have ranged from objections to anachronistic costumes – Margot Robbie in what looks like an Eighties wedding dress – to complaints that Jacob Elordi is “too white” to play Heathcliff. The film has been compared unfavourably to Andrea Arnold’s gritty, arthouse adaptation of 2011, which cast a black actor, James Howson, as Heathcliff.But who really is Heathcliff? Emily Brontë’s original text does indeed make it clear that his racial identity is supposed to be different from that of the Yorkshire-born characters. Picked up as a foundling on the streets of Liverpool, he’s brought to Wuthering Heights by old Mr Earnshaw, who tells his family to “take it as a gift of God, though it’s as dark as the devil” in a seeming allusion to the child’s skin colour. That neuter pronoun “it” suggests that Heathcliff is already being othered at the moment of his adoption.And yet no one in the novel ever discovers his origins. Edgar Linton thinks he might be either a “Lascar” – a term usually applied at the time to seamen from the Indian subcontinent or South East Asia – or “an American or Spanish castaway”. Perhaps, proposes the housekeeper Nelly Dean, his father was the Emperor of China and his mother an Indian queen. Elsewhere, he is described as “a dark-skinned gipsy”; and yet in one scene his face is depicted as being “as white as the wall behind him”.Andrea Arnold’s film recast Heathcliff as a survivor of the transatlantic slave trade, for which Liverpool was indeed a hub in the 18th century period in which the novel, though written in the 1840s, is set. She turned that imagined backstory into an eloquent portrayal of cycles of abuse. Yet there’s nothing in the text to suggest Heathcliff is black African. On the contrary, Nelly Dean specifically implies that he is not, when she tells him (with a casual racism that will make the modern reader flinch) that “a good heart will help you to a bonny face” even “if you were a regular black”.The success of Arnold’s film comes not from its slavish “respect” for the text but from its openness to treating it as an imaginative springboard. Over the years, Wuthering Heights has been adapted for stage and screen countless times, with spin-offs ranging from a now lost silent film to the unlikely Cliff Richard vehicle, Heathcliff: the Musical. And yet the truth about the original book is that much of what makes it a literary masterpiece is unfilmable. It’s an inscrutable text, probably intentionally so, that baffled critics when it first came out and continues to baffle scholars, not least because so few personal writings by Emily Brontë survive to explain what she intended, though the book itself hints at its literary context.That Heathcliff’s race and origins are left purposely ambiguous reflects the destabilising techniques, clearly drawn from the gothic tradition, on which the novel relies for its uncanny effects. Another is the frame narrative: the way it’s told as a tale within a tale, sometimes within another tale. We’re held at a strange distance, while paradoxically, the vivid descriptive writing makes us feel as though we’re only inches from the action.This is a tale of the supernatural – it’s a ghost story after all – couched in the language of naturalism. Domestic interiors offer themselves up with all the detailed solidness of their oak furniture. But even the realism over-reaches itself in the novel’s famous scenes of physical violence, which are so graphic as to teeter – perhaps intentionally – on the Tarentinoesque edge of parody. If you realistically filmed a grown man forcibly rubbing a child’s wrist to and fro over a broken windowpane until the blood ran down, it would be unwatchable.Wuthering Heights remains a completely uncategorisable novel, whose unique voice can’t be assimilated to the norms of Victorian fiction. And yet both it and Heathcliff do have literary forebears. Behind his character lies the Byronic anti-hero “linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes”, to quote Byron’s own Corsair.If the constancy of Heathcliff’s love for Cathy is his “one virtue”, it comes with overtones of sibling incest as the two have been brought up together as brother and sister. That too channels Lord Byron, refracting the transgressive love at the heart of his gothic tragedy Manfred, and also his notorious real-life affair with his own half-sister. Even the famous scene in which Heathcliff overhears Cathy telling Nelly that it would degrade her to marry him echoes a similar scene in Thomas Moore’s 1830 Life of Byron (a copy of which the Brontës owned) in which the teenage future poet overhears his first love tell her maid that she could never care for that “lame boy”.If Emily Brontë took these Byronic hints, she transmogrified them into something that was – and still feels – totally new and strange. Popular culture has since conventionalised Wuthering Heights into the archetypal world’s “greatest love story”, but it is far from that. No film version so far has fully represented the extent to which Heathcliff becomes a manipulative psychopath. And, despite the Byronic connections, one of the oddest things about the novel is the almost complete lack of sex. Unlike Charlotte Brontë’s works, which pulsate with frustrated sensual desire, it is often physical but never erotic.Early reports have, in contrast, called Emerald Fennell’s version “a whole other level of hot”. Judging from the trailer, its sexy, operatic production values and pounding soundtrack couldn’t be more different from Andrea Arnold’s downbeat version, which was filmed without music or make-up and seemingly with a handheld camera. I admired Arnold’s take, but I’m looking forward to Fennell’s. I’ll be judging it not on literal fidelity to the text – which is impossible – but on whether it creates its own convincing world.I’d also like – perhaps mischievously – to refer the Instagram costume cavillers to Chapter 7 of Wuthering Heights, in which the young Cathy returns from Thrushcross Grange newly and smartly dressed. According to the timeline of the book, it is 1777. However, her outfit is the obviously early Victorian combo of tartan and pantaloons: a “plaid silk frock” with “white trousers”. Emily Brontë wouldn’t have cared about fashion anachronism. But she would have been amazed to discover how many people care about Wuthering Heights.
Ever since it was announced, Emerald Fennell's version of the torrid Brontë classic has been the subject of furious online discourse over everything from its casting to its costumes.The most controversial film of the year? Usually that accolade is reserved for an edgy political thriller or a taboo-busting horror movie. But the film that is currently prompting the most "discourse" – to use a polite term for it – is an adaptation of a 19th-Century novel. Ever since Emerald Fennell declared that she was following Promising Young Woman and Saltburn with her own take on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, commentators have not been short of opinions – mostly negative ones."Fennell has channelled her creative instincts into a disturbing exercise in pointless destruction," wrote Lara Brown in The Spectator – and that was five months before the film's release date next week.Everything about the film has been pilloried, from its casting to its costumes, from the actors' accents to the inverted commas around the title: it's "Wuthering Heights", not Wuthering Heights, to emphasise that this is Fennell's own interpretation of the book, rather than the book itself. The hostility has been relentless. But could the reasons for this hostility go beyond some scepticism about a dodgy-looking period drama? [...]But these quibbles raise some big questions, the first one being: So what? Why shouldn't Fennell come up with her own out-there, sexed-up version of Wuthering Heights? If Clueless can put a Jane Austen plot in 1990s California, and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet can do the same with Shakespeare, why should we be fussing about dress design?There are two obvious answers, one of them suggested by the fact that, in the trailer, Robbie's Cathy sounded posher than any screen character since, well, the toffs in Saltburn.Fennell's last film, Saltburn, was set in a stately home, and one of the best things about it was that the writer-director seemed to know her upper-class characters intimately. There is no mystery as to how she managed it: as the daughter of celebrated jewellery designer Theo Fennell, she grew up in gilded circles. To quote Patrick Sproull in Dazed, "Not a lot of 18-year-olds have their birthday party photographed by Tatler and attended by a Delevingne, multiple Guinness heirs, several members of the nobility and the daughter of Sting." In short, Fennell is posh. Indeed, her background is so privileged that when she acted in The Crown as Camilla Parker-Bowles – now better known as Queen Camilla – she didn't have to sound any grander than she does in ordinary life.This hasn't endeared her to everyone. As popular as Saltburn was, some reviews argued that it was too forgiving of its posh characters because Fennell was so posh herself. "It's a satire that never bares its claws, never lifts a finger to criticise these people," said Sproull. Other people have grumbled that Fennell's connections and advantages gave her directing career an unfair head start. This meant that many commentators were primed to dislike "Wuthering Heights" from the very beginning. The antipathy had as much to do with their feelings about Fennell as their feelings about the film.But the main reason behind all the rancour is this: people who love Brontë's novel really love Brontë's novel. They're not just fond of it, they're fixated on it. As Hephzibah Anderson wrote in a BBC article, "Most of us read Wuthering Heights in our teens. In other words, when we're wildly impressionable." Many of the book's fans go on to view it as part of their identity – and, for that matter, as part of their love lives. "I remain convinced that the precedent for chasing toxic love stories was one set out for me as a teenager, by Heathcliff," confessed Olivia Petter in British Vogue. And she's not alone. Considering how devoted the novel's aficionados are, it was inevitable that any film which diverged from the text would be taken by some as a personal attack.The irony is that Fennell professes to adore the book as much as anyone. At the Brontë Women's Writing Festival last September, she said that she had been "obsessed" and "driven mad" by Wuthering Heights since she read it as a 14-year-old. "I know that if somebody else made [the film], I'd be furious."She's probably not too worried, then, that other people are furious about her. In fact, she may be quite pleased. Every time new information about the film emerges, there are thousands of impassioned words written about it, and while they aren't all flattering, they have undoubtedly helped to raise awareness and build anticipation.Could "Wuthering Heights" really be as over-the-top as the trailers suggest, we asked. Could it be so-bad-it's-good? Or could it even be… good? Certainly, social media reactions from an early screening have been strong, with one film writer even moved to declare it a "god-tier new classic"."I personally cannot wait to watch Fennell's Wuthering Heights," wrote Olivia Petter in Vogue. "I'll admit, as a dedicated fan of the book, I was sceptical at first. But now, I no longer care about accuracy."The old saying about there being no such thing as bad publicity has never been more true. (Nicholas Barber)
Last night at the London premiere of “Wuthering Heights” Oscar-nominated actress and producer Margot Robbie walked the red carpet in Leicester Square wearing a custom Dilara Findikoglu inspired by a bracelet that belonged to Charlotte Brontë.The intricate, delicate bracelet features hair from two people, believed to be her sisters, Emily and Anne. During the Victorian era hair jewellery was fashionable and widely worn and it was common practice to make mourning jewellery incorporating the hair of a deceased relative. The bracelet is made of a wide band of braided hair with a gold clasp set with garnets and has been owned by the Museum since 1923.The original bracelet is currently on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum alongside other examples of mourning jewellery.Rebecca Yorke, Director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum said: “The museum holds the world’s largest collections of Brontë manuscripts, clothing and personal possessions and we take our responsibility as custodians extremely seriously.“This event has offered us an unprecedented opportunity to share an item from our collection and tell its story with a global and contemporary audience, and we are thrilled that, thanks to director Emerald Fennell, Margot Robbie and everyone involved with the film, Emily Brontë and her masterpiece continue to be part of popular culture almost 200 years after her death.”Rebecca continued: “We were delighted to work in partnership with Wyedean Weaving, based in Haworth, to create a faithful and high quality replica bracelet which Margot Robbie wore on the red carpet, and to facilitate visits from Dilara’s team to view the original bracelet.”
I’m here to see it for myself. It’s a pilgrimage I’ve long dreamed of making, and I begin in York, the city where Emily Brontë’s sisters, Charlotte and Anne, rested overnight en route to seeking a sea cure for the tuberculosis that would eventually take Anne’s life (a small plaque marks the site of the long since demolished inn on Coney Street). Then I travel to the village of Haworth, where the Brontës spent the majority of their too-short lives.“People have a very strong idea of the landscape when they think of the Brontës,” says Ann Dinsdale, principal curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. “They conjure up images of wild, rugged moorland scenery, and of course, that applies mainly to Wuthering Heights.”She’s exactly right about these romantic notions, I think, as I explore the rooms where these writers lived—the small couch upon which Emily died, the narrow windows from which the sisters saw their world, the tiny books they created in childhood with handwriting so minuscule a magnifying glass is needed to read the words. I’m among those who have romanticized the world of the Brontës, as though I’ve created my own movie version of their landscape in my head.Certainly, Emerald Fennell must have been aware of how strongly readers like me feel about the world of the Brontës when she set out to make her film. I learn that to find the ideal locations, her team tapped Aurelia Thomas, a veteran of British film and television, to be the supervising location manager of Wuthering Heights.“It was very much the thing from the outset, how important the landscape was to this film,” Thomas tells me. “So much of the story, and how Cathy and Heathcliff’s love is so doomed and bleak in a lot of ways, comes from the setting and this feeling of desolation. The landscapes they walk in almost have a personality of their own. So it was a very important thing to find and to get right.”Thomas and her team scoured the peat and heather moors of Yorkshire, looking specifically for open, wild land far off the beaten path (and often far from road accessibility). They deliberately sought filming locations that had not been used in previous adaptations of the story, instead spending months searching for places that would, as Thomas says, “feel different and epic.” They passed on anything too flat or too close to a village road, or anything that felt too idyllic or pretty.Interestingly, this meant refraining from filming in Haworth itself, the village where Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights and the landscape where she would have freely roamed. Dinsdale notes that while Haworth has become “this rather haunting, kind of romantic place” nowadays, the Haworth of the Brontës’ time wasn’t entirely remote or untouched. Rather, it was an industrious, albeit very small, village.The parsonage where the sisters lived and penned their works was perched at the edge of the moors and the edge of the village, straddled between two worlds. I feel that intensely. The front door of the parsonage looks out onto the graveyard, with enormous, moss-covered tombstones. The back looks out onto the edge of the moor. It’s haunting and eerily beautiful, yet also quite popular, both with tourists and those walking the many paths leading from the village into the countryside.Instead, Fennell’s crew turned to remote stretches of moorland, specifically Booze Moor and Reeth Moor in North Yorkshire and Bridestones Moor in West Yorkshire, as well as Arkengarthdale Moor and Reeth Estate, two vast expanses of land. The result is a scene that feels otherworldly, epic, and wildly dramatic.Yet it also feels somehow within reach. “The goings-on in Wuthering Heights are so Gothic and over the top. But the action isn’t happening in a castle in Transylvania—it’s in a Yorkshire farmhouse,” Dinsdale says. The places they filmed feel like real places, because they are. They are places of wildness that I can step into, landscapes I can inhabit.The great 20th-century literary critic and author Elizabeth Hardwick observed that “the moors provide the isolation, the loneliness, and the removal that are essential to [Wuthering Heights].” I’d argue they also provide the central spirit of the story. The eternally restless and wounded feelings aren’t just emotions that Brontë wrote about in her novel or that Fennell depicts in her film. (Madeline Weinfield)
The Brontës lived in the Haworth Parsonage - eight miles west of Bradford - from 1820 and remained there until the death of the last surviving family member, Patrick Brontë, in 1861.Located on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, their life at the Parsonage had a profound impact on their literary works, particularly felt by Emily Brontë.Charlotte Brontë wrote, “My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hillside her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best loved was – liberty.”Emily Brontë was inspired by the real-life locations she would regularly come across whilst walking across the “wily, windy moors.”For example, located just under three miles from Haworth Parsonage, the abandoned farmhouse, Top Withens, has a strong connection with the novel and is a popular pilgrimage site for literary tourists.It has been associated with the inspiration for the Earnshaw home, but that has never been confirmed or verified. A commemorative plaque on the farmhouse states: “The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described, but the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.”Written almost 180 years ago, Wuthering Heights has become an enduring figure in the pop culture zeitgeist with over 15 movie adaptations, many stage productions and a timeless music video from Kate Bush keeping the legacy of the novel alive and kicking.Over the years, film productions have realised that one of the best ways to capture the mood and atmosphere which made Brontë’s novel so effective is to retrace the author’s footsteps and film in Yorkshire.The first adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights’ was directed by A.V. Bramble and filmed in Haworth in 1920. However, the silent movie was considered lost for many years, leading to an appeal by the Brontë Parsonage Museum in 2005 to trace the film.Speaking with the BBC, the librarian at the time, Ann Dinsdale said: "The film's makers went to a lot of trouble to ensure the accuracy of the film, shooting it on location.”Like many filmmakers before her, Emerald Fennell also saw the value of filming parts of ‘Wuthering Heights’ in its original setting. It was a big task and “huge responsibility” to bring her vision of Bronte’s novel to life and one she described as “an act of extreme masochism.”Speaking at the Brontë Women's Writing Festival in Haworth, Fennell said: “It's a huge responsibility because I know that if somebody else made it, I'd be furious. It's very personal material for everyone. It's very illicit. The way we relate to the characters is very private, I think."She added: “It has also felt like an act of extreme masochism to try and make a film of something that means this much to you. I've actually found it quite harrowing, in a really interesting way.”To capture the “misty and cold” atmosphere of the novel, Emerald Fennell shot her movie across various locations in Yorkshire, including Swaledale. Whilst in the North Yorkshire valley, filming took place at the ruins of the Old Gang Lead Mines, the Grade II listed Surrender Bridge and Melbecks Moor.The cast and crew also spent time in Arkengarthdale as they filmed on Booze Moor and in Langthwaite Village.Shazad Latif, who plays Edgar Linton in the upcoming adaptation, told the Yorkshire Post about his experiences filming in these dramatic locations.“The set design created by Suzie Davies for the houses was unbelievable. Obviously, the moors were amazing. You can feel the echo of Cathy and Heathcliff’s spirit up there,” said Latif. “It’s a stunning place to be and it evokes the spirit of the story that’s been there for 200 years. And it’s bloody windy!”Providing solace from the long and tiring days filming on the Moors, the cast and crew stayed at Simonstone Hall Hotel - a stately home renovated into an upscale hotel in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.The cast also spent time in local pubs after they finished filming and were seen in The Punch Bowl Inn (Low Row), The CB Inn (Arkengarthdale) and Green Dragon Inn (Hardraw.)“I didn’t have much filming to do [in Yorkshire], so I got to sit in the pub and wait for Jacob and Margot with Alison [Oliver] and Hong [Chau.] We would have drinks and play pool. It was great being stuck in there together. There were peacocks running about and a waterfall where they filmed Robin Hood: 'Prince of Thieves', five minutes across the farm, so it was just an amazing setting to be in.”Over the years, literary tourism has drawn people from all over the world to Yorkshire as they get the opportunity to explore the natural beauty and unique charm of the region. As Wuthering Heights is released in cinemas across the country, there will inevitably be a renewed interest in the beauty and mystery of the Yorkshire Moors, with people hoping to retrace the steps of Emily Brontë, Catherine and Heathcliffe [sic]. (Adam Davidson)
Emerald Fennell isn’t mucking about with Wuthering Heights. “Inspired by the greatest love story of all time,” roars the trailer for her new film, blasting us with sodden shirts and brutally tight corsets, bloody sunsets and Versailles-worthy interiors. Margot Robbie’s Cathy strides across a moor in a windswept wedding dress and Jacob Elordi’s ripped Heathcliff licks a wall and growls, “Kiss me and let us both be damned.”Damn Emily Brontë too because in the hands of Fennell, the writer-director behind Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, this is period drama at its most transgressive and maximalist. [...]Timid this ain’t, and it all starts with Fennell. Richard E Grant, whom the director cast as a haughty aristo in Saltburn, salutes her “fearless, jet-black sense of humour and baroque aesthetic”. Wuthering Heights, he says, is another “story of an outsider wreaking havoc on a hermetically sealed world — class, sexual obsession, doomed romance. I anticipate that her vision will be the polar opposite of polite.”“I like a physical response… and there’s nothing more physical than Wuthering Heights,” Fennell said on the Ruthie’s Table podcast this week. Brontë’s doomed and, yes, kinky romance is “extremely sexy… It makes you cry, it makes you recoil… It makes you question yourself.” Adapting it has been no moorland picnic. “I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book,” she told the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival last year. “There’s an enormous amount of sadomasochism [in it]. There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it [when it was published in 1847]. But it’s been a kind of masochistic exercise working on it because I love it so much, and it can’t love me back.”If anyone can pull it off it’s Fennell, 40, whose career has been powered by audaciousness, imagination and the marble-chiselled self-belief of the posh. The woman with a name like a Farrow & Ball paint shade started as an actress but moved with impressive briskness from playing Nurse Patsy Mount in Call the Midwife and an Emmy-nominated turn as Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown to directing darkly glamorous, divisive movies. “In our culture now we get the brakes being put on creatively… We’re afraid of embarrassment,” she told Ruthie’s Table. “I don’t mind being embarrassing.” [...]Film, though, is her main event and there she owes a debt to her star Robbie — Promising Young Woman and Saltburn were produced by LuckyChap, a company the Australian actress co-founded that specialises in female-focused projects. Wuthering Heights is the first time Fennell has directed her de facto boss, and some have cocked eyebrows at Robbie, 35, playing a character who is a teenager in the book. Fennell shrugged that off, describing Robbie as “the type of person who, like Cathy, could get away with anything. I think honestly she could commit a killing spree and nobody would mind.”She has also drawn flak for casting Elordi as Heathcliff, who is described by Brontë as “dark-skinned”. That was also smoothly batted away. “You can only ever make the movie that you sort of imagined yourself when you read it.” Fennell told The Hollywood Reporter. ““There are so many different takes. I think every year we should have a new one.” She cast Elordi after seeing him on the set of Saltburn one day. “He “looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read”. (Ed Potton)
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“I wasn’t always going to be in it. I was thrilled to be the producer, but at some point, we were talking about Cathy, and I decided to throw my hat into the ring,” [...]Robbie continued, “I’ve always wanted to be one of Emerald’s actors and fortunately, she felt the same way. It worked out wonderfully.” [...]“In my opinion, it is one of the greatest love stories of all time and it has a great cast and incredible actors. It’s a great film,” she added. (Latoya Gayle)
Since its publication in 1847, the great, canonical novel Wuthering Heights has inspired more than 35 film and television productions, beginning with a silent movie in 1920 and growing louder and louder over the course of a century until reaching its 2026 Emerald Fennell–directed crescendo.In this succession of adaptations, each filmmaker has gradually softened the original form—a dark and twisted story of obsession, generational trauma, and self-destruction—into something that more closely resembles a wild, cinematic love story. These adaptations, more often than not, have given credence to the saying, “Those who don’t create, destroy”—a saying that is also, ironically, the story of Heathcliff. Though Hollywood has continuously sought to portray him onscreen as a sexy, tormented, romantic hero, Heathcliff is really more like an awful boyfriend with a personality disorder who destroys the hearts and lives of innocents.It is a testament to our culture’s tendency to confuse toxicity with the heights of romance that when we read Catherine and Heathcliff’s story, we yearn to be loved so intensely that it might actually kill us. It’s a fantasy—and, moreover, a misunderstanding—that many of us take years to unlearn: In fact, love is not measured in units of suffering. [...]6. Wuthering Heights (1939), directed by William WylerThis film, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, is debatably the most romanticized adaptation. It also only covers the first half of the novel, which is the half where none of the haunting takes place.5. Wuthering Heights (1998), BBC Television adaptationDirected by David Skynner, this adaptation may be the most faithful to the novel, although the logline feels like it should really be “a legitimately crazy man takes revenge on a nice guy who did nothing wrong besides care for the woman the crazy man claims to love.” Heathcliff acts like a whiny little baby throughout this film, constantly throwing tantrums, running away, and slamming doors. Simply put, he’s insufferable. And I’ve definitely dated him. Fortunately, Cathy does an amazing job of haunting him later, appearing as a literal ghost he can see on the moors and as a little girl in constant flashbacks.4. Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” music video (Version 1)In the infamous music video for the verified ’80s banger “Wuthering Heights,” camp and pop culture icon Kate Bush whirls her arms around in a white dress, repeating Cathy’s desperate cry to “let me into your window” over and over and over, her huge eyes staring into the camera. (I don’t think she blinks even once.)She translates the gnawing, pining feeling in the novel, setting it to music that repeatedly crescendos, reaching a slightly higher pitch every time—which is sort of how it feels to be in a toxic relationship. Every time I hear it, it gets stuck in my head for at least three days. Come to think of it, becoming a musician might be the ultimate haunting tactic.3. Wuthering Heights (2012), directed by Andrea ArnoldA raw and devastating adaptation—easily my favorite one to date. Arnold’s Heathcliff is much more fully developed as a character, in part due to the more restrained performances and Arnold’s highly sensory style. But the filmmaker also incorporates one of the driving struggles of the original Heathcliff that every other adaptation cuts out: i.e., the racism he faces. By not whitewashing the narrative, Arnold allows for greater pathos to emerge from Heathcliff and Cathy’s entangled backstories.The movie ends almost immediately after Cathy (played by none other than Effy from Skins) dies, so the posthumous haunting is limited, but bonus points for Heathcliff being rendered as a real human rather than a cartoonish villain or heartthrob, which contributes to the melancholy atmosphere of the film that personally haunted me for days after.2. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1992), directed by Peter KosminskySure, Heathcliff (played by Ralph Fiennes) is seen giving Cathy (Juliette Binoche) a piece of paper on which he’s written down every day she has spent with the Lintons versus with him, and that’s super toxic, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s more important is that Cathy haunts the shit out of him in the second half of the movie. With Peter Kosminsky using the same actress to play Cathy’s daughter (also named Catherine) after she dies, Heathcliff is forced to lay eyes upon her exact face day after day. Unfortunately, this method of haunting does require you to get pregnant and have a lookalike daughter that lives with your toxic ex while you roam around the moors screaming and disturbing everyone. While that is clearly not advisable, I do admire the commitment.1. Wuthering Heights (2009), ITV miniseriesThis two-episode miniseries stars Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, but you may find yourself getting confused by who Tom Hardy is playing and what movie you’re watching, given he looks nearly identical to both Professor Snape and Edward Scissorhands. The brooding is so over the top you can’t help but laugh every time he slowly appears from behind a pillar. But Cathy (Charlotte Riley) running out of her home, pregnant, in the pouring rain to search for her childhood crush felt relatable. And Cathy and Heathcliff’s chemistry is actually amazing—which makes sense, as the two actors who played them later got married.Best haunting moment: When Heathcliff brings Isabella Linton home and tells her she has to sleep in a separate bedroom. This is because Heathcliff must sleep in his ex’s childhood bedroom, alone, next to a drawing of her. This is ideally how haunted I want my ex to be when he brings home a new girl for the first time. (Cazzie David)
In the almost two centuries since the Yorkshire sisters wrote their passionate and brave novels, the light of Brontë mania has barely dimmed.It’s shining brightly with anticipation now with Emerald Fennell’s ‘racy’ Wuthering Heights film landing in cinemas next week, and a fascinating biography of Charlotte’s life told through her extensive surviving clothing.Dress historian and illustrator Eleanor Houghton’s book is as riveting as Charlotte’s iron-busked corset and reveals the story of her ordinary life in Haworth, forbidden love, and fashion choices when fame came calling. Eleanor has worked as a costume consultant for film and TV, including the BBC’s To Walk Invisible and Gentleman Jack, and Frances O’Connor’s 2023 biopic, Emily.“The amazing thing about Charlotte’s clothing is that so much has survived,” says Eleanor, who researched and studied for her PhD, what she calls ‘the surviving witnesses to Charlotte’s life,’ through the gowns, bonnets, shawls, corset and boots that made up her wardrobe, along with letters and documents. Many exist because of a tradition of make-do and hand down.“When Charlotte died, she left everything to her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls and he and her father Patrick and housekeeper Martha Brown treasured many items as keepsakes.” Some items that were dispersed to families and souvenir hunters have migrated home to Haworth with 150 pieces housed in the Brontë Parsonage Museum.Charlotte’s garments and accessories play a vital part in joining the dots of her history in intimate detail from her birth to her death. “They have been active participants in a remarkable life - one that was both extraordinary, public and private, obscure and famous,” says Eleanor. “Secrets have been found within their very fibres. They challenge a lot of myths and preconceptions that we’ve had about Charlotte and her family.”One such object that still bears signs of Charlotte’s perspiration is a busked corset that she laced excruciatingly tightly like ‘a form of armour that shielded and fortified’ when she was broken-hearted through the unrequited love that she bore for her former teacher Constantin Héger in Brussels. “She’s kind of girding her loins quite literally, giving herself this strength. I think the clothes can tell us so much, very personal detail that you wouldn’t necessarily pick up from a letter.”Charlotte made most of her clothes with Martha, buying textiles from the mills and accessing fashion plates.A Paisley print dress she owned dated to the 1840s was bold and bright, with a pattern inspired by silk shawls imported from central Asia. “One of the most astonishing discoveries was the bright colours of fabrics that we have revealed by examining fragments through a microscope and harnessing modern technology,” says Eleanor. “We imagine drab colours, but they simply weren’t. Globalisation is another insight.”Charlotte owned a pair of beaded, deerskin moccasins made by members of the Mohawk tribe in Canada.When Charlotte published Jane Eyre, she used the pseudonym Currer Bell to disguise her female authorship. When the cat was out of the bag and her secret identity uncovered, she needed to transition from a provincial clergyman’s daughter and governess to celebrated author, with some trepidation and nervousness. That meant wearing a suitable ‘power’ gown when she was invited to attend lunches, dinners, lectures and parties by enthusiasts, influencers and the literati.When she met her literary hero William Makepeace Thackeray, the author of Vanity Fair, in 1850, she wore a two-year-old Prussian blue dress woven at Salts Mill, from alpaca fibres from South America. The fabric was printed in Lancashire, probably in Accrington. Hand stitching by Charlotte and Martha still exists.“She was in a very nervous state when she went to London for that important meeting in a new environment, a new world and meeting famous people,” Eleanor says. “When we choose clothes, we want to give off the right messages and feel strong, and Charlotte knew that was a potent force. It surprised me how important it was for her to gain strength through her regional identity and wear cloth woven in Yorkshire. She chose to connect to those Yorkshire roots.”Eleanor has drawn an illustration of the Thackeray Dress, and the altered original is at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.Poignant items include an ‘ugly’ or wind bonnet - strips of silk were worn over the brim to protect the wearer. They were the height of fashion at the seaside and Charlotte may have worn hers when she was in Scarborough with her sister Anne, who died there during their visit, whilst they were still in mourning for Emily. They had stopped on the way to purchase accessories in York.“Surviving garments are solid witnesses because you can’t always trust portraits and photographs as they are often staged with props, they are not candid,” Eleanor adds. “The real Charlotte emerges as a woman altogether braver, more vulnerable, less isolated, less provincial and more fashion conscious than anyone ever expected.” (Catherine Turnbull)
It’s a crisp afternoon in Haworth, West Yorkshire, and I’m drinking a pint of Emily Brontë beer in The Kings Arms. Other Brontës are on tap – Anne is a traditional ale, Charlotte an IPA, Branwell a porter – but the barman says Emily, an amber ale with a “malty biscuit flavour”, is the most popular. It’s the obvious choice today, anyway: in a few hours, Oscar-winning film-maker Emerald Fennell will be at the Brontë women’s writing festival in a church just up the road, discussing her adaptation of Emily’s 19th-century gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights.The film, to be released just before Valentine’s Day next year, is already scandal-ridden. It all started with Fennell’s casting of Hollywood stars Jacob Elordi and Margot (“Heathcliff, it’s me, it’s Barbie”) Robbie causing uproar. [...]Since my visit to Haworth, the full trailer has been released, showing Fennell’s brand of anachronistic sets and costumes (think sugary, eye-popping interiors and red latex gowns), some suggestive licking and bread-kneading, and Elordi’s (admittedly quite good) Yorkshire accent: “So kiss me – and let us both be damned!”Such a wild response was only to be expected. As I drink up and step out into the cobbled streets of this village built on a hill, Wuthering Heights’ potency is still palpable.“I sometimes feel, in the morning, that I could just walk around the corner and the sisters would be there talking to each other,” Diane Park tells me over a coffee in Wave of Nostalgia, her award-winning feminist bookshop. “They are still so alive here in this village.” Park’s shop sits near the top of the hill, on a road lined with terraced stone houses and quirky independent businesses. Seconds away is a lane leading to the church where the Brontës’ father Patrick was reverend. Behind it is a cluttered graveyard and the Brontë parsonage, where the family lived.When Park moved here more than a decade ago, she had only read Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. Today, she reads one of Emily’s poems to me on the shopfloor: “Hope, whose whisper would have given / Balm to all my frenzied pain …” How did she feel when she first read Wuthering Heights? “I was blown away by Emily’s insight into the soul.”The world was scandalised when Emily published it, under a male pseudonym, in 1847. It is the story of fiery Catherine Earnshaw and her relationship with outcast orphan Heathcliff, in whom she finds her match as they roam the Yorkshire moors: “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”When Catherine marries Edgar Linton and dies, it sets haunted Heathcliff on a path of vengeance, as the second half of the novel becomes a story of control, abuse and digging up graves. While some critics admired its unique strangeness, many echoed one review that said: “The reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity and the most diabolical hate.”This didn’t stop Wuthering Heights from becoming a classic. It was made into a silent movie in 1920, with locals crowding around the shoot in Haworth and playing extras. The story later moved to a Hollywood studio and enjoyed the romanticised Golden Age treatment with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, minus that more problematic second act. And at least 15 big and small screen adaptations have followed, from Yoshishige Yoshida’s 1988 retelling in medieval Japan, to Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version with James Howson as the first black actor to play Heathcliff. (The main criticism levelled against the casting of Elordi is that Heathcliff is widely considered not white in the book.)It was the BBC’s full-story 1967 series, starring Ian McShane as a brooding Heathcliff, that inspired Kate Bush to write her otherworldly hit, which brought Wuthering Heights into every home. “I just managed to catch the very last few minutes, where there was a hand coming through the window and blood everywhere and glass,” she has said, admitting she wrote the song before reading the book.So why does this story of passion-ravaged lovers on rain-ravaged moors have such a hold? “I think Wuthering Heights endures because the relationships between Cathy, Heathcliff and Edgar aren’t easy to quantify,” says author Juno Dawson, who grew up in Bingley and calls the Brontës “the pride of Yorkshire”. Dawson was inspired by Wuthering Heights to write a short story for an anthology called I Am Heathcliff. “They don’t fit into traditional notions of a romance novel or a ghost story,” she continues. “And each character is frustrating, unfathomable. If there’s something I take from it, it’s that ambiguity can be as satisfying as neat resolution.”I stroll over to where the Brontës lived, mingling with fellow visitors – mostly solo women whom I later spot at Fennell’s talk. “People have always come to make a pilgrimage,” says Rebecca Yorke, director of the parsonage and the Brontë Society, which opened in 1928. “If you look at the visitors book, there’ll be a mixture of UK, USA, Australia, Japan and Europe. About a third of our visitors are from overseas.” There are famous signatures too, from Sylvia Plath to Patti Smith.This is actually my third visit, or pilgrimage, to the parsonage with my mum. It just keeps pulling us back. Today we learn that the trees in the garden separating it from the graveyard only grew after the Brontës’ time here. So the family would have had views of death on one side and endless moors on the other. The rooms are quite claustrophobic and downstairs is where they wrote their novels, on a table that has an “E” etched on it. In the corner is the sofa on which Emily died, most likely of tuberculosis, aged just 30. The life expectancy in Haworth was a mere 24, partly due to the overcrowded graveyard contaminating the drinking water. Such details from this place’s past still feel compelling in the present, especially when it comes to the author of Wuthering Heights.“Emily is quite enigmatic,” says Yorke. “We don’t know as much about her as we do about Charlotte. And Wuthering Heights was her only novel – but it’s one of the best-known in the English language.” How, then, to square this woman described as peculiar, introverted and nonconformist, with the literary genius who created a novel so haunting, dark and poetic that it still fires people up today? As Charlotte said of her sister: “An interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world.” So much so that Charlotte made efforts to “correct” Emily’s reputation after her death, further adding to the mystery.The siblings have proven almost as popular as subjects for drama as their works, from Christopher Fry’s 1973 ITV series The Brontës of Haworth to Sally Wainwright’s 2016 To Walk Invisible for the BBC. In 2022, Emily got a somewhat reimagined biopic, with a passionate portrayal by Emma Mackey, and a raunchy affair with a curate. With each new film or TV series, fresh hordes of tourists have flocked in to Haworth.Down the hill, a record shop with a “Never Mind the Brontë” poster is just one of many nods to the local celebrities. Other windows boast a lampshade made from book pages and paintings of the moors. Authors live locally, or come to stay for writing retreats, says Park: “There’s that creative feeling in Haworth.” But does the Brontë effect have any impact on local culture in ways beyond the obvious? It runs deeper, says Park, with things such as the nature sculptures at nearby Penistone Hill Country Park, part of Bradford’s year as City of Culture. “It feels like Emily is in the heather and the trees. You just breathe the air. Wuthering refers to weather and I just feel she’s left her print here.”It’s not just about tourism. Take last month’s Wandering Imaginations project, which saw two young authors from Bradford and two from Ghana writing stories inspired by the Brontë siblings’ fictitious African kingdom Angria. “We’re here for the people that live here,” says Yorke. The society has just acquired a new building on the main street, where it will focus on “opportunities for local people to get closer to their heritage”. She hopes to further “instil that sense of pride in something on your doorstep, something people across the world think is worth visiting.”(Read more) Hollie Richardson)
From Edna Clarke Hall and Sylvia Plath to Kate Bush and Lily Cole, Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë's brooding 1847 novel about destructive love – has long captivated readers and creatives alike. On February 13, 2026, the latest film adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, from award-winning writer, director, and producer Emerald Fennell, will reintroduce the classic 19th-century Gothic tale to the masses once more. And sure to follow? An obsession with the windy heath and wild heather moorlands of Yorkshire, where it was filmed.Deeply inspired by Brontë’s connection to the landscape of West Yorkshire, where she lived, her only published work of fiction was too disturbing for many when it was released. In January 1848, one critic complained that there wasn’t “a single character which is not utterly hateful or thoroughly contemptible” in the entire book. Still, it endured, haunting public consciousness well into the 21st century. First coming to celluloid in a 1920’s silent film, versions throughout the decades have cast Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier (1939), Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche (1992) among many others, each attempting to capture the novel’s most jaw-dropping moments: cruelty and lust for revenge; bitter grief and unrealised longing; acrid betrayals of self, of loved ones, and the intricate remorse and contempt each elicits.“Because it did defy the conventions of that era, so boldly and so brazenly,” says Murray Tremellen, a curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, “people couldn't ignore it. It's a book that doesn't shy away from exploring some of the darker facets of human nature, but that's where its power lies. In a way, the book is almost more likely to resonate with people who have been through difficult experiences in their own lives.” (Andrea Russell)
Paltrow: I was watching Hitchcock movies from the ‘50s and people really did speak with that transatlantic thing. I brought that in a little bit. So, the internet is abuzz about “Wuthering Heights.”Elordi: They should be. Although, someone will pull their phone up and I’m like, “Get that away from me.” When was the last time you were on stage? [What led me to director Emerald Fennell] was “Saltburn.” What’s interesting is when I read “Saltburn,” my thought on it was, “I have to be Jude Law in this movie because of ‘Ripley’.” But then I realized these aren’t similar at all. I shouldn’t use that as a reference. (Matt Donnelly)
A big thing that makes me happy is reading out loud with my wife and pets. East of Eden, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. To share them outside of yourself is salve. (Anthony Breznican)
With all the recent buzz surrounding Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and the upcoming theatrical releases of Wuthering Heights and Dracula, we’re delighted to see that gothic beauty will be trending in 2026—but not the least bit surprised. This vampy aesthetic will be defined by dark pouts, smudged smoky eyes and fingertips painted with inky black and oxblood polishes. (Lauren Knowles)
When Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" arrives in theaters next year (just before Valentine's Day), it will mark the 16th time Emily Brontë's gothic romance novel has been adapted to film. The work has also been gloomy grist for television, the stage (as a play, a musical, and an opera), a graphic novel, and lord knows what else since its publication in 1847. The most famous version of "Wuthering Heights" to date is unquestionably William Wyler's 1939 film starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, which was refashioned into a classic Hollywood romance by genius-level screenwriters Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, and John Huston. Given its significant plot omissions, this is one of those movie adaptations that will get students in hot water with their English teachers, but, hey, at least they'll get to watch a classic piece of cinema boasting gorgeous cinematography from the great Gregg Toland.Why do artists keep revisiting "Wuthering Heights?" It's a downer of a novel with two terribly annoying main characters. But it's so overwrought that, if cast correctly (or reconsidered by a writer with a unique take on the book), it can really cook as a bodice-ripper. Or you could play it like director Andrea Arnold did in 2011 with stars Kaya Scodelario and James Howson and transform the novel into a rainswept saga of tortured, downright cruel passion.You've no shortage of options when it comes to "Wuthering Heights," but while you're waiting to see Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi steam it up as Cathy and Heathcliff, you might want to check out the 2009, two-part television version that featured Tom Hardy as the tormented main character.Made for the United Kingdom's ITV network, the 2009 screen take on "Wuthering Heights" from director Coky Giedroyc and writer Peter Bowker was greeted with a bit of a shrug, but it could be ripe for reappraisal 16 years later, if only for Hardy's performance. In her review for The Guardian, critic Kathryn Flett aired her frustration with the novel's swing from "bonkers" to "boring" (a structural flaw fixed in Wyler's movie) and correctly dings it for being a "quasi-romance." These qualities make it impossible to make a truly loyal movie based on "Wuthering Heights" — or, at least, one that would be bearable.Still, Hardy can make just about anything watchable, and if you're determined to go against Brontë's depiction of Heathcliff as being "dark-skinned," you'll get an electrifying performance from one of our finest actors (who has a penchant for vanishing into roles). Per Flett, his "smoldering stoicism" is nicely complemented by co-star Charlotte Riley (who later became Hardy's real-life partner and will soon appear in Travis Knight's live-action "Masters of the Universe" movie), while the supporting cast is up to snuff. This rendition may not overcome the problem of the book's difficult second half, but, as far as I've seen (and I've not watched every single "Wuthering Heights" adaptation), only Wyler and Arnold have pulled off that trick.In any event, if you feel moved by the Hardy spirit after watching all 142 minutes of this "Wuthering Heights," I'd recommend you shift genre gears and check him out in the criminally underrated 2014 crime thriller "The Drop." There's nothing mopey about that movie, and he's never been better. (Jeremy Smith)
Wuthering HeightsIf you somehow escaped high school without reading Emily Brontë's 1847 gothic classic "Wuthering Heights," now is the perfect time to tick it off your reading list, ahead of its newest film adaptation releasing on February 13.The film stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff, who are torn apart by societal expectations, time, illness, resentment, and guilt.But since this is an Emerald Fennell movie (director of "Saltburn" and "Promising Young Woman"), you shouldn't expect a run-of-the-mill book-to-film adaptation. (Gabbi Shaw)
For so many, Pride and Prejudice is a gateway drug into the wonderful world of period dramas. From other Regency-era romances (see: Bridgerton or countless other Jane Austen adaptations) to moody Gothic love stories (Jane Eyre—need I say more?), the English countryside is replete with cinematic inspiration. Naturally, this makes the island the perfect holiday destination for period-drama fiends everywhere. [...]Haddon Hall, one of the best-preserved medieval homes in all of England, offers a glimpse into the vibrancy of the Tudor era, complete with stone pathways smoothed out from 900 years’ worth of visitors and grand galleries framed with original Elizabethan wood carvings. Naturally, the moody location has appeared in a multitude of film productions, including The Other Boleyn Girl, Mary Queen of Scots, The King, and three different adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. [...]Those who have the means might consider booking a private guided tour for easy access to all preferred destinations. Expedition Yorkshire curates thoughtful single and multiday tours across York, Edinburgh, London, and more, allowing travelers to see the country through a local lens. Some expeditions also focus specifically on locations that may be of particular interest to period-drama buffs. (The Brontë tour, for instance, would be an ideal day for anyone with an undying love for Heathcliff.) (Chelsey Sanchez)
“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you—watch Heathcliff, send takeout . . . If there’s anything I can do to lighten your load, just let me know. I’ve already taken you off the Curriculum Management Committee and the Committee Oversight Committee.”“Thanks,” I mutter, bewildered, as always, at how my studies of Brontë and Dickens novels prepared me for such gripping daily tasks. [...]Last fall was such a bright star for me when The Heathcliff Saga film premiered and my book spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Writing that book six years ago, postpartum, kept me sane. I gave everyone A’s that semester. With the hormone shifts, lack of sleep each night and an insatiable Heathcliff hanging off my breast, I’d escape into my alternative Wuthering Heights world. In my book, Emily Brontë’s love-triangled teenagers learn that Heathcliff inherited warlock powers from a distant Yorkshire ancestor. My Linwood is less milquetoast than the original character. He bastardizes ancient Fae supernatural powers from the moorlands and starts a spell war with Heathcliff. Cathy, caught in the middle, asks Nelly Dean to train her in the supernatural arts. She teams up with Heathcliff, helping him purge Linwood’s magical darkness for good. There’s lots of teen angst, desperate kissing, and disengaged parents. The adults churn butter and argue with no idea their teens could destroy Great Britain with their dark fairy arts war.My literary agent, Sarah, took me on and sold the book in two days. I loved my editor, my only complaint being that he wanted to change the title from The Cathy Saga to The Heathcliff Saga. I groused. After all, I wanted my heroine to be the book’s star. But he said “Cathy” wasn’t distinct enough—it sounded like the comic-strip character—and he wanted my Heathcliff to be the new Edward Cullen.
In an era of cautious cinema, where on-screen intimacy is often sidelined or poo-pooed by younger generations, director Emerald Fennell is making a loud statement: passion belongs on the big screen.The full-length trailer for her adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights confirms what the first snippets suggested—this is an aggressively provocative, unapologetically erotic reinterpretation of "the greatest love story of all time."The glimpses we get are not subtle: several clips show the lovers entangled in intense moments of "kissing and crying in the rain." This is a relationship driven by self-destruction and underscored by the film's visually bold style.Fennell injected dark sexual tension into Saltburn and wielded the weapon of female rage in Promising Young Woman, and now she is reinventing stuffy literature into something much more erotic and modern.Maybe leave the kids at home for this one.The trailer’s most revealing moment comes in its final line, delivered by Elordi’s Heathcliff: “So kiss me, and let us both be damned.”This line perfectly encapsulates the illicit nature of their bond, which is precisely the kind of uncompromising passion that Hollywood has often shied away from.With an original new track by Charli XCX titled "Chains of Love" soundtracking the madness, this Wuthering Heights is set to make romance dangerous again.Mark your calendars: this aggressively provocative take on a literary classic arrives in cinemas on Valentine's Day, 2026. (Jason Hellerman)
While the teaser was all about toxicity and kink, the full trailer is more about the love story of Wuthering Heights, going so far as to tag the film as being “inspired by the greatest love story of all time”, which is exactly the kind of bullsh-t take about Wuthering Heights I do not support. Honestly, nothing about Emerald Fennell’s filmmaking or her approach to this material could ever annoy me as greatly as proclaiming Wuthering Heights, a story about two festering boils of humanity, a great love story.But if you look at any poll of great literary love stories, you’re bound to find Wuthering Heights at the top of the chart, followed by some ordering of Jane Eyre, Romeo & Juliet, and Gone With the Wind, because when people talk about their favorite love stories, they are almost always talking about stories that either involve some degree of abuse or love between idiotic children (R&J). We love love as long as it’s either toxic as f-ck or kids killing themselves over their first crush not calling them back fast enough. Actual, healthy expressions of love between adults take a back seat to complete tire fires emotionally dragging each other for decades.Anyway, no complaints about the actual substance of the trailer. The visual look stunning. I just do not care about anachronistic clothing or pop music on the soundtrack or any of that. Emerald Fennell is working in a distinctive style, I am down with it, and she’s allowed to frame her version of Wuthering Heights however she likes, just as we are each allowed to decide how we respond to it. I’m already sick of seeing people complain about historical inaccuracy, it’s a movie for chrissakes, it is going to reflect the taste and style of the people who made it, who are probably not you. (If you’re reading this Emerald Fennell, howdy.)I’m just so peeved about the marketing. I loved the teaser because it felt like Fennell got the subtext that everyone in Wuthering Heights is miserable because they live in a society so restrictive as to be an actual nightmare, but this trailer feels like a step backward. But maybe it’s a response to the criticism of the teaser, over which a lot of people flipped their lids about the prospect of Too Much Sex on screen. We’re still in the marketing phase, so we’ll have to wait for the full film to see how far Fennell does or does not take the toxic subtext of the story.At least we know there will definitely be some weird sh-t, there’s still plenty of licking and biting in his trailer. Wuthering Heights is for the orally fixated. (Sarah)
The trailer is set to Charli XCX's new track Chains of Love from her upcoming original album made especially for the movie soundtrack. One thing to note: the film's title is in quotation marks, seemingly to alert audiences that this is not going to be a completely faithful adaptation. But a new detail that has left fans perplexed is the film's claim to be "inspired by the greatest love story of all time". The original novel is not a heartwarming romance but more of a dark story of obsession and Heathcliff's vengeance after Catherine marries another. Needless to say, fans had some thoughts."'The greatest love story of all time' I don’t think we’ve read the same book," one confused fan wrote in the comments section of the YouTube video. "Are there two Wuthering Heights? Cause the one I read was NOT a LOVE story," someone else commented. Another viewer pointed out, "Wuthering Heights is a revenge story, not a love story". One person wrote: "Loved the story. But it's definitely not the greatest love story but the opposite, it's really sad and cruel". While the film's claim to be a romantic tale left fans of the book scratching their heads, others praised the cinematography.The trailer features stunning landscape shots of Margot and Jacob on the West Yorkshire moors. The original story takes place on the Yorkshire moors, with the 2026 version filming parts in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The trailer is a mix of sensual close-ups, shots of Jacob Elordi shirtless, and looks at Margot Robbie's luxurious costuming in corseted gowns and jewels. It ends with the two actors drenched in the rain as Jacob's Heathcliff tells Margot's Catherine: "So kiss me. And let us both be damned." "The cinematography is MAGNIFICIENT ! Every single shot could be a beautiful painting that's a master work here!!" one person praised. "Faithful to the original book or not, you can not deny this film looks BEAUTIFUL," another argued. "Say what you want about the "creative liberties" they to took in regard to the actual book....the cinematography looks dope," a third said. (Ella Rayment-Ward)
The trailer already has over 12.7 million views on YouTube in a matter of hours, but the reaction hasn’t been entirely positive. Many people have taken to social media to criticize the movie’s tagline stating that it is "inspired by the greatest love story." (Alyce Collins)
With a soundtrack by Charli XCX and plenty of shirtless Jacob Elordi moments, Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights seems scientifically engineered to captivate the attention of Gen Z. But as a new trailer makes its way into TikTok edits and Twitter discussions, something is missing that perhaps no one needs more than the film’s target audience.Text in the new trailer declares Wuthering Heights the “Greatest Love Story of All Time,” but we have yet to see whether Fennel will highlight that the film’s protagonists, Heathcliff (Elordi) and Cathy (Margot Robbie) also totally suck.Emily Brontë’s 1847 book is often paralleled to Romeo and Juliet due to its tragic elements, but in truth, this is a story of toxic love that a younger generation would benefit from seeing.For Gen Z, a brief lesson to take from the book would be that your first love, and all the ways it makes you selfish, vengeful, and manipulative, is often doomed from the outset, and pursuing any love at the expense of everyone around you has disastrous consequences.In Brontë’s text, all of Heathcliff’s so-called “romantic qualities” are indicative of the kind of love you might glamourize as a young person. Who wouldn’t want a man to be so in love with you that he’d bash his head against a tree until he bleeds and dig up your grave after seven years just to see your face?But as it plays out in the book, and hopefully in Fennel’s screen adaptation, Heathcliff’s wickedness, abuse, and manipulation are hard to fall in love with.The same goes for Cathy. Bitterly selfish in all the ways young affluent women might be, Cathy doesn’t have her priorities in order at any point in the book. Despite admitting a deep love for childhood friend Heathcliff, Cathy chooses social status and wealth by marrying Edgar Linton. Later, she only deems Heathcliff worthy when he returns with wealth, but he is back, as he once promised, to wreak havoc on all who wronged him.Whether these toxic elements make their way into Fennel’s reimagining of Brontë’s work remains to be seen. So far, the film is described as a love story in which “forbidden passion for one another turns from romantic to intoxicating in an epic tale of lust, love, and madness.”But if Fennel could do one thing for the young audience she’s targeting, please don’t let them leave the theatre wanting a love like Cathy and Heathcliff’s. (Alice Kelly)
We here at Book Riot are firmly of the opinion that no adaptation—be it good, bad, or middling—can change the legacy of a beloved classic book, so I’m greeting the new trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights with curiosity and a not-small appreciation for the trolling. Emily Brönte [sic] is going to be fine, and honestly, what did we expect from the filmmaker behind Saltburn? On a second viewing, the most outrageous thing about the trailer is the claim that Wuthering Heights is “the greatest love story of all time.” Whither the Romeo + Juliet stans? (Rebecca Joines Schinsky)
- Jacob Elordi has been given long hair and a decently well-kept beard, but he still looks like he smells of ethanol vomit and musk, as was the style at the time. Sort of sexy, if that's your thing — it's Elordi, after all. It's giving Long John Silver. Was this what Heathcliff looked like in the original Brontë novel? I've not read it, but as far as I know, it is not considered a staple of pirate literature.
- 30 seconds in, and there are plenty of shots that boast the stylistic flourishes you'd expect from the director of Saltburn. The standout: a stately, arctic white manor, in the middle of a snowstorm, with warm, amber light pouring out of its bay windows. It's all about striking, eye-catching contrast, which makes it all feel very dream-like; Fennell's really leaning into literary fantasy, here.
- Another example is the scene wherein we see a couple of aristocrats having afternoon tea in an impressively well-pruned garden. The background, which depicts a series of rolling hills, looks painted; none of it looks real, which is the point. It's interesting that Fennell has allegedly taken so many liberties with the plot of Wuthering Heights, because stylistically the film feels very storybook.
- Owen Cooper, ie. the brilliant kid from Adolescence, makes his debut as Young Heathcliff in an early shot. Doesn't he look cute? We're not in the manosphere anymore, Toto.
- Say what you like about the substance of Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, but they were both visual treats. Fennell just knows how to compose an eye-catching image — like here, 44 seconds in, with Elordi on horseback silhouetted against the blood-red horizon, galloping into the distance. Alexa, play “Holding Out for a Hero.” (...) (Jack King)
1. Conversation About the FutureA young Catherine and Heathcliff are shown sitting on the Yorkshire moors by the cliff talking about their future plans, where Heathcliff expresses his wishes to become rich and have a wife. To which Catherine responds with 'A wife?', clearly jealous.2. The Rain SequenceA storm-drenched moment shows Catherine and Heathcliff close together in the downpour. By the looks of it, this can be the scene where the two childhood friends give in to their feelings for each other.Their proximity in the rain marks one of the trailer's most transparent displays of shared intensity, capturing a turning point in their relationship.3. The Black-White-Red EntranceRobbie appears in a white lace top paired with a striking white-and-red Victorian skirt, standing beside Elordi's wealthy Heathcliff, who is dressed in classic black gentleman's attire. In one scene, the pair make an entrance to a parlour room together, showcasing how great they look next to each other.4. Heathcliff's ReturnElordi's Heathcliff re-enters the narrative, emerging from the mist after time away. Catherine is shown pausing in a foggy meadow as she turns and sees him, a moment that visually amplifies the emotional weight of their reunion.5. The Second Rain MomentFollowing Heathcliff's return, the trailer revisits the rain motif. The two characters face each other again in a storm, with the footage emphasising the unresolved history that resurfaces between them. The moment is labelled as very 'book-coded' by fans, as Heathcliff asks Cathy 'So kiss me. And let us both be damned.'6. Catherine in Mourning ClothesAnother shot features Robbie in severe black attire and a black veil associated with mourning, with Heathcliff standing next to her, also in black. It is a quiet, tense moment that highlights the layered grief and attachment between the characters.7. The Dinner Table ExchangeAt a candlelit table, Catherine and Heathcliff exchange a sustained look across the setting as he smokes a cigar and passes a smirk to her. The restrained environment contrasts sharply with the underlying tension, capturing the emotional friction for which Brontë's story is known.8. The Close-Up of CatherineWarner Bros has released the official trailer for Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell’s new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 gothic classic, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Warner Bros. YouTubeThe trailer closes in on Catherine's eyes in a quiet scene, focusing on Robbie's expression as she studies Heathcliff's face with all the emotions and yearning as he asks her to kiss him. The shot centres the character's inner conflict and longing, echoing the tone of the source novel. (Ria Pathak)
Now, a second preview of the album has been shared with the new song ‘Chains Of Love’. Like ‘House’, the song carries a similar spooky feel to it, and begins with a swirling, cinematic melody, as it gradually builds towards an euphoric chorus.“I’d rather lay down in thorns/ I’d rather drown in a stream/ I’d rather light myself on fire/ I’d rather wear all these scars/ I’d rather watch my skin bleed/ In the eye of your storm,” Charli sings as the song steadily builds towards the chorus. “Shattering like glass/ Yes, they’re breaking up my heart/ The chains of love are cruel.” (Liberty Dunworth)
1/91939The first version of Emily Brontë's story – that had sound – was released in 1939, 92 years after the book was released. The film stars Merle O'Brien as Catherine Earnshaw and Oscar-winner Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff. The adaptation is beloved and was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role.2/91954Wuthering Heights crossed international borders in 1954 when director Luis Buñuel created the film Abismos de pasión. The 91 minute adaptation renamed the classic characters – instead of Catherine, Irasema Dilián starred as Catalina, and instead of Heathcliff, Jorge Mistral portrayed Alejandro.3/91966Hollywood isn't the only industry obsessed with Emily Brontë's work. In 1966, Bollywood created its first adaptation of Wuthering Heights with Dil Diya Dard Liya. The film is 169 minutes and features several songs. While it wasn't initially well received, it is a fun version of the dark romance.4/9197031 years after Laurence Olivier's Wuthering Heights, the next version was released. The adaptation is directed by Robert Fuest and stars Timothy Dalton – a.k.a. James Bond – as Heathcliff. Unlike the 1939 version, the only nomination this version received was a Golden Globe for Best Original Score, but it is still a fun adaptation!5/91985The French took on Wuthering Heights in 1985. Director Jacques Ribette's version is set in 1930s southern France and features relatively unknown actors Fabienne Babe as Catherine, Lucas Belvaux as Heathcliff, and Olivier Cruveiller as Catherine's brother.6/91988Wuthering Heights is beloved across the globe. Three years after the French version, Japanese director Yoshishige Yoshida adapted Emily Brontë's story. The film is set in medieval Japan and was shown at the Cannes Film Festival that year.7/91992Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was released in 1992 and starred a young Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff. The adaptation was his first feature film. Peter Kominsky's version of the classic tale stirred up a bit of drama as it omitted the second generation of the story with the children of Cathy, Hindly, and Heathcliff.8/9201119 years after Ralph Fiennes' version of Heathcliff, the next adaptation hit theaters. Directed by Andrea Arnold, the 2011 adaptation starred Kaya Scodelario as Catherine and James Howson as Heathcliff, who was the first Black author to play the character, fitting the original description of him in Brontë's story.9/92022The most recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights was released three years ago. While not well received, the 2022 version stars German-American actress Jet Jandreau as Catherine and Bryan Ferriter as Heathcliff. (Tess Hill)
11Wuthering High School (2015)When it comes to the 2015 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, I’ve just one word for it: abomination. This version, known as Wuthering High School, modernized the entire story and set it in a California high school, which immediately removes the gothic atmosphere that defines the classic novel.Plus, the characters, relationships, and themes feel watered down, and the 88-minute runtime rushes through important emotional moments. Not that anyone was dying for this modernized take, but it literally changed almost everything, from setting to tone to character motivations, leaving barely anything from the original story.Naturally, it is widely viewed as the weakest version, mainly because it abandons the novel’s tragic depth and haunting intensity.10Wuthering Heights (2003)Next in line is the 2003 MTV adaptation that once again transformed the story into a modern musical, featuring a rock-themed reinterpretation of Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship. I literally don’t see the necessity of such adaptations, but it is what it is. Set around a lighthouse instead of the Yorkshire moors, the film overall takes major creative liberties.And that’s what made this film feel more like a teen melodrama than a gothic tragedy. Not to mention, while the musical elements are unique, they also distract from the emotional turmoil at the heart of Brontë’s novel. So all I can say is, this adaptation strays far from the book’s structure, themes, and character arcs.That’s what resulted in a loose retelling rather than a faithful portrayal, receiving mixed reception and limited impact.9Wuthering Heights (1967)Well, the 1967 TV adaptation did bring the novel to life with a theatrical style common for BBC productions of the era. And it also included more scenes from the book than earlier versions. But its stage-like sets, long dialogue sequences, and slow pacing made it feel dated today. Even the emotional weight of Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship doesn’t fully land.And that’s partly due to limited production design and filming techniques. So, although it followed the novel’s outline more closely than some versions, I believe it still simplified major plotlines and character developments. Perhaps that’s the reason why this adaptation remains one of the lesser-known versions.Basically, it’s not the worst, but it’s not the best version of Wuthering Heights either.8Wuthering Heights (1962)Yet another adaptation from the 60s; in fact, this one came before the TV adaptation, and still it managed to be better than the above-mentioned ones. This 1962 version focused primarily on the first half of the novel, emphasizing Catherine and Heathcliff’s tumultuous childhood and early adulthood.However, with limited sets and mostly indoor scenes, while the film captured the emotional conflict, it missed the wildness of the moors, which are essential to the book’s mood. Plus, while the performances felt strong, the production seemed restrained and lacked the intensity of the full story.Not to mention, it also omitted the second-generation storyline, which is crucial to understanding the novel’s themes of revenge and redemption. But overall, despite the faults, I felt like this one remains a solid early televised interpretation.7Wuthering Heights (1958)To be honest, this is one of the oldest adaptations of Emily Brontë’s novel, which often sparks comparisons with the 1939 adaptation. But sadly, this one doesn’t stand a chance due to its lack of atmospheric authenticity, a not-so-compassionate portrayal of Heathcliff, and a feeling that it deviates too much from the source material.But then, if I come to the performance, while some of the cast members have been praised for their strong and emotional delivery, the overall consensus is that the film failed to capture the novel’s essence. Not to mention, even the gothic atmosphere of the story seemed largely absent.So in the end, I guess the only good thing about this version is that it’s one of the few surviving television performances of Richard Burton, who played Heathcliff.6Wuthering Heights (2009)Okay, so here’s where the good stuff begins. The 2009 two-part TV adaptation offered one of the more emotionally charged depictions of Heathcliff and Catherine, which was only amplified by the actor’s strong performances and atmospheric locations. This version expanded the story across two episodes, allowing more time to explore the second generation than most film adaptations.A still from Tom Hardy’s adaptation of Brontë’s novel | image: British ITVIn my opinion, while this version took certain creative liberties, especially in character interpretation, it also captured the passionate, destructive energy of the novel. The moors and settings feel authentic and add to the gothic tone. Also, a fun fact: this one starred Tom Hardy as Heathcliff.Naturally, it is widely appreciated for its raw intensity and slightly more complete approach to Brontë’s multi-layered narrative.5Wuthering Heights (2011)Like I mentioned earlier, we’re already in the finer territory of Wuthering Heights adaptations. This 2011 film is yet again another visually striking version that focuses on realism, harsh landscapes, and raw performances. Shot with a handheld, almost documentary-like style, it highlighted Heathcliff and Catherine’s childhood in greater depth than most versions I’ve mentioned so far.Plus, the film deliberately used natural lighting and bleak imagery to capture the unforgiving world of the novel. But one thing that still hurts is how this version has spent less time on the second-generation story, meaning it doesn’t fully encompass Brontë’s complete narrative structure. But looking on the positive side, the 2011 movie won the Best Cinematography Award at the Venice Film Festival.So, while unconventional for its bold artistic choices, this one stands out for emotional realism.4Wuthering Heights (1970)So, this is my personal favorite, which I watched while reading the novel. And honestly, it didn’t disappoint. The 1970 adaptation stars Timothy Dalton and presents one of the most faithful renditions of the first half of Emily Brontë’s love story. It stays close to the source material, maintaining the tragic complexity of Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship.Plus, the film also leans heavily into the gothic mood, using dark, dramatic visuals and an emotional score that earned a Golden Globe nomination. Sadly, although the film omitted the second-generation plot, it captured the intense, destructive passion at the heart of the story.So, with strong performances and atmospheric production, it remains a respected adaptation and one of the best classic interpretations of the novel.3Wuthering Heights (1939)Despite my preference towards the 1970s version, I can’t deny that there are actually better adaptations of Wuthering Heights, like the 1939 film, which is considered a classic Hollywood adaptation of the novel, famous for its stunning black-and-white cinematography and emotional performances.So much so that this one even received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won the Oscar for Best Cinematography. But sadly, while the film only adapts the first part of the novel and ends with Catherine’s death, it captures the dramatic, doomed romance in a way that shaped how generations of viewers understood the story.Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon delivered iconic portrayals of Heathcliff and Catherine. And lastly, I believe that despite simplifying the plot, the film’s atmosphere, music, and emotional power compensated for it, turning this into one of the best adaptations.2Wuthering Heights (1998)By far, the 1998 TV adaptation stands out as the second best version of the novel’s onscreen imagination, because of its lush cinematography, emotional storytelling, and its devotion to accuracy. Plus, this adaptation also embraced the darker, more gothic elements of the novel, presenting Heathcliff’s obsession and Catherine’s conflict with striking intensity.Not to mention, the pacing felt so fine that it allowed key events to unfold naturally, without rushing emotional development. The only disappointment that several fans have shown is regarding the casting. So while the cast isn’t universally loved, their performances do capture the novel’s sorrow, trauma, and generational cycles. And due to the film’s eye for accuracy, the novel remained intact.And together, it made this version widely regarded as one of the most atmospheric and emotionally faithful interpretations of Brontë’s work.1Wuthering Heights (1992)People’s opinions might vary on this one, but I truly believe this is the most faithful retelling of Wuthering Heights. Why? Because the 1992 version not only stays true to Brontë’s novel, but it was also the first adaptation to include the second-generation storyline that most films skip. Therefore, by giving equal weight to the younger Earnshaws and Lintons, it mirrored the book’s structure and themes in a better way.Plus, the movie is also praised for its lush cinematography, emotional storytelling, and memorable performances by Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. Yep, this one featured Fiennes in his youth as Heathcliff, completely stunning audiences. Sadly, this one won no awards or appreciation. (Krittika Mukherjee)
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