Following in the footsteps of William Wyler, Andrea Arnold, and numerous other filmmakers, “Promising Young Woman” breakout Emerald Fennell tries her hand at adapting Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 novel about sadomasochistic obsession. The new “Wuthering Heights” stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff, in a rendition described as “this generation’s ‘Titanic’” by the filmmaker and female lead, who’s also an executive producer. Although the idea of adapting Brontë’s story into a romantic spectacle hasn’t won over bibliophiles in the run-up to its release, the film is sure to attract quite a crowd when it comes out on Valentine’s Day weekend thanks to its glamorous stars, striking visuals, and cleverly enraging marketing campaign. (Elaina Patton)
Filmmaker Emerald Fennell sent Ms. XCX a copy of the script to her adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, hoping she might contribute a song. Charli responded that she’d like to take a shot at a full album/score. “I wanted to dive into persona, into a world that felt undeniably raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured, and full of actual real sentences, punctuation and grammar,” she wrote on Substack. “I was fucking IN.” Her primary collaborator for the unlikely follow-up to Brat was producer/songwriter Easyfun, and they were inspired by a quote from John Cale saying that the main rule for Velvet Underground songs was to be “elegant and brutal”—so much so that they enlisted Cale for the first single from Wuthering Heights, the foreboding “House.” (Alan Light)
Lynn Hirschberg: Did you have trouble shaking the role after you finished filming?J.E.: The body design and the feeling that I had was so specific for about six months. Getting back into the world is always a task when you’ve been living in a circus state for so long. When I was shooting Wuthering Heights, there was a scene where my response to something was “Ugh,” which was from Frankenstein. It did take me a while to realize that I shouldn’t just gesture at things and grunt.
Saby said: "I’m preparing filming for short horror movie to be set in Haworth based around the Brontë sisters. " (Daryl Ames)
Haworth, West YorkshireThe last recommendation is a historical village in the north of England. The travel expert added: “Finally, Haworth, located in West Yorkshire, is my sixth recommendation for anyone seeking a quiet, cosy start to 2026. Best known for being the home of the Brontë sisters, the village and surrounding moorlands are incredibly atmospheric at this time of year."Here, people can explore the cobbled, Victorian streets or plan a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, before warming up in one of Haworth’s traditional pubs after a crisp winter walk. There’s plenty to keep you occupied in this cosy village, without the usual busyness that comes with more well-known cities, such as London.“
It comes as Expedia predicts an increase in travel to Yorkshire in 2026 ahead of Emerald Fennell's upcoming film, Wuthering Heights, based on the work of Emily Brontë. (Marti Stelling)
Giorgia DiTommaso, Università degli Studi di Padova2024/2025Heroines of 19th-century literature have always been role models to follow for many women. Thanks to their bold personality and their desire for independence, they helped shape women’s mentality towards the recognition of their rights. The aim of the thesis is to compare the main characters of some of the greatest novels of the 19th century: Jane Eyre from the eponymous novel by Charlotte Brontë, Jo March from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, focusing on metaphorical landscapes and settings, feminism and independence and the role of imagination. In particular, the thesis also analyses the life and times of the authors, offering a careful portrayal of the male oppressive society of the period in which they lived and how this reality is reflected in their novels. Moreover, by examining their respective national literatures – British, American and Canadian-- the thesis investigates the reasons that led the authors to write their novels and considers whether they might have influenced one another. Finally, through the analysis of the most recent film and TV series adaptations, the study explores how these heroines have evolved over the centuries and how they have been reinterpreted and modernized by our contemporary society.
Brigita Morkute, University of Iceland2025This thesis examines the role of the natural world in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, focusing on how Emily and Charlotte Brontë employ nature to explore forms of female subjectivity. It situates both novels within the Gothic tradition, a genre that historically offered women writers a mode for articulating female fears, desires, and constraints, often in encoded or symbolic ways. Modern feminist criticism has frequently turned to Gothic fiction for this reason, making the Brontës’ works especially productive sites for analysis. The study argues that Wuthering Heights presents the repression of Catherine Earnshaw-Linton through both its imagery and narrative form. Catherine’s confinement indoors, her limited access to the natural world, and the narrative’s reliance on the mediating voices of Nelly Dean and Mr. Lockwood collectively underscore her lack of agency within the patriarchal structures of the nineteenth century. The novel’s layered, external narration mirrors Catherine’s fragmented subjectivity, emphasizing how her inner life is misrepresented, silenced, or obscured. In contrast, Jane Eyre grants its heroine a first-person narrative voice, allowing Jane to articulate her psychological and moral development directly. Her recurrent movements away from oppressive environments mark the stages of her growing autonomy, and nature becomes a crucial ally in expressing, validating, and guiding her interior life. Whereas Catherine’s disconnection from the natural world signals her repression, Jane’s deep attunement to nature supports her journey toward self-determination. Both novels employ Gothic monster-figures to explore female subjectivity in different ways. In Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason’s death functions as a catalyst for Jane’s symbolic rebirth, while in Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s spectral return reveals that suppressed female agency resists containment even in death. Read together, the novels illuminate how the Brontës use nature and Gothic conventions to interrogate the possibilities and limitations of women’s autonomy in the Victorian era.
On Thursday, October 23, author Jane Hamilton hosted a conversation about her newest release, “The Phoebe Variations.” A coming-of-age story inspired by “Jane Eyre,” it depicts the titular protagonist as she meets her biological family upon encouragement from her adoptive mother. (Evan Randle)
by Jane HamiltonZibby MediaEAN: 9798991140287Seventeen-year-old Phoebe was never interested in her birth family. But on the cusp of her high school graduation, her adoptive mother, Greta, insists on a visit to meet her biological parents and siblings. The encounter is a jolt, a revelation that derails Phoebe.With the help of her best friend Luna, Phoebe runs away—as far as their friend Patrick O’Connor’s chaotic home, where she hopes to go unnoticed among his thirteen siblings. But when Phoebe asks Patrick to chop off her hip-length hair, she’s suddenly transformed. Patrick’s older brothers can’t help but notice the striking, Peter Pan–like stranger who has suddenly appeared in their midst.What starts as an adolescent rebellion soon spirals into a whirlwind of self-discovery and unexpected connections. As she grapples with her shifting identity and strained relationships, Phoebe must navigate the tumultuous road out of girlhood and chart a new and unknown course.
Ahead of Bridgerton season 4, Hannah Dodd spilled on her current reading list, which includes a few buzzy titles that are coming to the screen! (...)Wuthering Heights follows Cathy and Heathcliff, who grow up together and begin to feel a very strong bond, but whose class divide threatens to keep them apart forever."I feel like I should be embarrassed that I haven't actually read that," Hannah admits. (Chloe Williams)
News outlets and websites that are excited to see Wuthering Heights 2026: East Bay Times, El Observador (Costa Rica), Netflix Junkie, The Wing, Cineworld, ScreemHub Australia, The Star, Primicia, El Periodiquito, Exclaim!, inStyle, El Periódico, Porta da Estrella, IGN Deutschland, CNN...
Charli XCX makes her big return not with an electropop club classic, but an album born from working with director Emerald Fennell on her new film adaptation of the classic Emily Brontë novel. Wuthering Heights is subdued and blown-out, lusty and lonely, whispering up close and screaming far away; its opening track “House” featuring Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale puts those contrasts into context. So does “Chains of Love,” the more straightforward pop single, where pangs of desire ring out in blemished forms. (Nina Corcoran)
Filmmaker Emerald Fennell sent Ms. XCX a copy of the script to her adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, hoping she might contribute a song. Charli responded that she’d like to take a shot at a full album/score. “I wanted to dive into persona, into a world that felt undeniably raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured, and full of actual real sentences, punctuation and grammar,” she wrote on Substack. “I was fucking IN.” Her primary collaborator for the unlikely follow-up to Brat was producer/songwriter Easyfun, and they were inspired by a quote from John Cale saying that the main rule for Velvet Underground songs was to be “elegant and brutal”—so much so that they enlisted Cale for the first single from Wuthering Heights, the foreboding “House.” (Alan Light)
Or Parade, NME, Brooklyn Vegan...
Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights has been adapted various times over the years, but Emerald Fennell, director of Saltburn, is set to bring forth a deeply erotic and perverted version, where there’s no doubt that her take on the tale of doomed romance, violence, and generational trauma will be laden with shock for the sake of it.Saltburn had as much depth as a bathtub, which she filled with cum-infested water in the name of her supposedly perverse tirade on mainstream cinema, and if the trailer for Wuthering Heights is anything to go by, this’ll be a similar deal, only this time she’ll be destroying precious source material in the process. The internet has been up in arms for a while over the casting of Margot Robbie as Cathy and especially Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, not least because the character isn’t meant to be white or pretty, so while we can hope Fennell may pull a Sofia Coppola and surprise us with the anachronistic choices, including a Charli XCX soundtrack, it’s not looking very promising for the young-ish woman. (Aimee Ferrier)
“Heeeeeeathcliffff, it’s meeeee, Cath-yyyyy, I’ve come home, I’m so cold!!!” Emily Brontë’s novel of love and death on the Yorkshire moors gets yet another adaptation — but this time, Promising Young Woman/Saltburn filmmaker Emerald Fennell is behind the camera, and she’s got two super-hot A-listers playing every bibliophile’s favorite pair of doomed lovers. (No disrespect, Romeo and Juliet!) Jacob Elordi, a.k.a. the star of Euphoria, Frankenstein, and your dreams, should bring the brooding sensuality as Heathcliff, and Margot Robbie, a.k.a. Barbie, Harley Quinn, and three-time Oscar nominee, puts her hand to her dampened-with-lust brow as gothic-lit’s first couple. We’ve heard rumors that whenever you watch the trailer online, any kettle within 100 yards of your laptop will simply start boiling of its own accord. (David Fear)
Okay, some lit majors know this one, but it deserves mainstream recognition as the brilliant prequel to Jane Eyre that completely reframes Brontë’s “madwoman in the attic.” Rhys gives voice to Bertha Mason, reimagined as Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress destroyed by patriarchal cruelty and colonial violence in Jamaica. The novel’s dreamlike prose and postcolonial perspective transformed how readers understand the original text. Despite winning the W.H. Smith Literary Award, it remains overshadowed by the canonical text it challenges, with BookScan data from 2023 showing Jane Eyre outselling it roughly fifty to one. (Matthjias Binder)
When 'Jane Eyre' was published in 1847, it unsettled readers who expected female characters to be compliant, grateful, and quietly resigned to their circumstances. Charlotte Brontë offered something far more disruptive. Jane Eyre was poor, plain, orphaned, and socially insignificant, yet she insisted on dignity, moral agency, and emotional equality. Nearly two centuries later, that insistence still feels radical. Not because Jane shouts or rebels flamboyantly, but because she refuses to compromise her inner authority. (Girish Shukla)
Cannon Beach Gazette informs that the Cannon Beach Reads book club includes Jane Eyre in its 2026 selection.
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by Meredith Leigh BurtonISBN-13 : 979-8993651811January 6, 2025What if Jane Eyre were blind and lived in the rural South during the Great Depression, World War II and the 1950’s? This inverted story, inspired by a beloved classic, explores these questions and many more.Growing up in the oppressive home of her Aunt Richards, Janice is stifled by condescending attitudes and flagrant disregard. She finds solace helping the household servants as they, too, are belittled. Janice especially enjoys the company of Gustav, her aunt’s servant, who is often mistreated because of the color of his skin.When a harrowing event forces Janice to take an unexpected journey, doors are opened and opportunities are revealed. As Janice navigates school years of both triumphant and tragic times, helps with the war effort and makes both friends and enemies, her dark past lurks in the shadows.When Janice accepts a position to teach a precocious and rambunctious little girl who is also blind, the malevolent events of her past prove to have shocking connections with her brusque and mysterious employer. Hidden passions, danger and self-discovery await in this account of a strong woman who will stop at nothing to protect the ones she has grown to love. Yet true love often means letting go. A story of confronting adversity, hidden secrets and forbidden love, Janice Everet will make you see Charlotte Brontë’s classic with new eyes.
Janice Everet is a Southern gothic historical romance that retells Jane Eyre through the perspective of a blind heroine growing up in the 1930s American South. What was the inspiration for this creative and intriguing retelling of the classic story?Janice Everet was my first attempt at a historical fiction novel, and it was a true joy to write. I chose to retell this story because, as much as I love Charlotte Brontë’s book, I found the idea of blindness being used as a sort of test or punishment to be both frustrating and sad. I am blind myself and wanted to depict a more affirming exploration. Also, my editor and friend, Stephanie Ricker, gave me the idea to explore Jane Eyre from my own perspective. Like Janice, I find solace in stories, and I love walks in nature. I am also a person who had to learn assertiveness, as I was very passive growing up. (...)Janice is based on the character of Jane Eyre, but you have added your own unique twist to this classic character. Are there any emotions or memories from your own life that you put into your character’s life?Yes, this novel does explore some difficult topics, but Bronte’s original work explores abuse as well. What I love about the original Jane Eyre is that it is a story about a woman who defies her society’s expectations, but she does so in a humble way. So many books portray “strong” women as girl bosses or Mary Sues (people who don’t struggle or who are insufferable to be around). I wanted to portray a strong woman who is also quiet and humble, but who does not allow others or her disability to define her.
Rising star Owen Cooper and Saltburn's Jacob Elordi were captured congratulating each other for their respective wins on Sunday night. Jacob, who won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Frankenstein, smiled from ear to ear as he reunited with his Wuthering Heights co-star Owen, who picked up the going for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his role in Adolescence.The two actors are set to share the big screen in February in Emerald Fennell's hotly anticipated adaptation of Emily Brontë's gothic classic Wuthering Heights. Jacob stars as Heathcliff opposite Margot Robbie's Catherine Earnshaw, while Owen portrays a younger version of Heathcliff.With an all-star cast, this bold reimagining of the much-loved tale, which is released just in time for Valentine's Day on 13 February, is set to be one of the biggest films of 2026. (Nicky Morris)
HeathcliffFresh from his turn as a disconcertingly hunky humanoid in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi will spend 2026 cementing his position as one of Hollywood’s few bona fide gen Z leading men. In the spring, he’ll front Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic thriller The Dog Stars (in cinemas 27 March), but first he reunites with Saltburn writer-director Emerald Fennell for her gleefully irreverent, erotic take on Wuthering Heights (13 February). Starring opposite fellow Aussie Margot Robbie, all eyes will be on Elordi’s Heathcliff, whose transformation from rural waif to gentleman brute will be soundtracked by Charli xcx and bestowed upon the world just in time for Valentine’s Day. (Rachel Aoresti)
Although not explicitly named, Brussels was the inspiration for the setting in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette. Brontë’s experience studying and later teaching at a girls' school, Pensionnat Heger in 1842-1843, profoundly shaped the novel, both emotionally and artistically.The story follows Lucy Snowe, an Englishwoman who moves to a fictional city, Villette. There she teaches at a girls' school while navigating isolation, emotional repression, religious conflict and ambiguous romantic attachments.
Wuthering Heights | Warner Bros.Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $20M – $25MDirector Emerald Fennell follows up on the specialty success of edgy titles Promising Young Woman and Saltburn with an adaptation of Emile Brontë’s celebrated novel, timed to release over Valentine’s Day weekend.
More websites are talking about the film (or the soundtrack). The Hollywood Reporter, The Huffinton Post, The Fashion Journal, Muzikalia, Diario de Colima, Forbes Argentina, inkl, El-Balad, CNews, Moviebreak, Techradar, Daily Maverick, Vogue Australia,...
Brontë fans may have been puzzled by the trailer for Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” which bills the film as “inspired by the greatest love story of all time.” The tragic novel teems with passion, yes, but also with cruelty, obsession, classism and revenge — and of course those mists that roll across the moors, cloaking this Gothic masterpiece in an otherworldly aura. (Jennifer Harlan)
El próximo febrero llegará a los cines la nueva versión de 'Cumbres borrascosas', inspirada en la novela de Emily Brontë y dirigida por Emerald Fennell y con Margot Robbie y Jacob Elordi como protagonistas. 'Brontëana' (Garbuix Books), de Paulina Spucches, viaja a Yorkshire para hablar de las Brontë, sobre todo de la hermana pequeña, Anne, autora de Agnes Grey y La inquilina de Wildfell Hall. (Ana Fernández Abad) (Translation)
Elise Dumpleton: Hi, Sadie! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?S.T. : Hi! I’m the author of Tidespeaker, a gloomy, gothic YA Fantasy about a girl with the power to command the tides who secures a position serving a noble family on an isolated tidal island, only to learn that her best friend drowned there and her new employers are hiding dark secrets. My writing draws on my own experiences as an undiagnosed neurodivergent teen—I eventually got an autism diagnosis in my thirties—as well as various literary inspirations including the works of Jane Austen and the Brontës. When not writing fiction, I write marketing copy, play classic CRPGs, and wrestle with my out-of-control to-read pile! I live in the UK with my family.
Pendant mes vacances, j’ai relu – ou peut-être lu car je n’en avais pas grand souvenir – Hurlevent, l’unique roman de l’écrivaine anglaise Emily Brontë, publié sous pseudonyme masculin en 1847 sous le titre original Wuthering Heights. Un livre absolument incroyable quand on songe au contexte dans lequel il a été pensé et écrit, un livre hanté, effroyable, d’une noirceur et d’une étrangeté exceptionnelles. (Lucile Commeaux) (Translation)
Sónia Aires Lima, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa Centro de Estudos Anglísticos da Universidade de LisboaMedievalista, (39), 171–196Nenhum período histórico existe em completo isolamento dos demais. Os acontecimentos interligam-se e as ideias transitam ao longo do tempo. Apesar de aparentemente distante, a voz dos antepassados manifesta-se através de tradições, simbolismos ou da continuidade de aspetos fundamentais da condição humana, que permanecem, em certa medida, inalterados. Tal é o caso da Idade Média, frequentemente percebida como remota, mas que, em momentos específicos, revela uma surpreendente proximidade com questões contemporâneas.Este artigo analisa a posição social da mulher, destacando padrões de restrição de movimentos, dúvidas sobre as suas capacidades físicas, morais e intelectuais, e uma misoginia, ora velada, ora explícita, que atravessam tanto a Alta Idade Média como o período vitoriano. Apesar da distância temporal, ambos os contextos refletem sociedades estruturadas por dinâmicas patriarcais semelhantes.A literatura, em particular a poesia, constitui neste estudo um instrumento essencial para a compreensão de modelos sociais e culturais. A poesia anglo-saxónica de voz feminina e a juvenilia de Anne Brontë, especialmente a poesia de Gondal, exploram questões de género e poder, refletindo tensões culturais que ecoam conceções medievais e vitorianas. O universo poético evidencia o potencial da literatura para transcender barreiras temporais, revelando padrões sociais persistentes e desafiando normas culturais estabelecidas.
Nothing beats a classic Brontë adaptation, in our humble opinion. There’s just something timeless about the three sisters’ novels. Sure, we might not be traipsing up and down the moors, wailing about our heartbreak — but we are posting TikToks about it and surviving the horrors of dating apps. We might not discover an ex-wife locked in the attic, but honestly, who hasn’t dated someone who complains about their “psycho ex” and is definitely the problem themselves?There’s one very exciting new Wuthering Heights adaptation on the way — by our girl Emerald Fennell, the woman behind Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. But while we wait, here are some of the best Brontë adaptations and where to find them. (Fleurine Tideman)
‘Masterpiece’ period drama based on the Brontë sisters is ‘best adaptation of all time’This TV film aired in 2016 and has proved popular to this day.If you are looking for a period drama to sink your teeth into before heading back to work, look no further. To Walk Invisible is a British television film about the Brontë family, which aired on BBC One on December 29, 2016. (Mooly Toolan)
Haworth & Stanbury (...)The bleak Pennine landscape has hardly changed since the days of the Brontës, but an exception is Lower Laithe Reservoir, dating from 1925. Start from the hilltop square, pass the church, and turn left to pick up a sign for the Brontë Falls. (Roger Ratcliffe)
While everyone is focused on the Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros., there is an entire slate of movies set to be released in 2026, and they will be here before we know it. One of them that has already caused quite the uproar is Emerald Fennell's new film, which is specified as 'inspired by' the book of the same name, "Wuthering Heights". The marketing appears to be leaning into that Valentine's Day release day much in the same way we saw the marketing for 50 Shades of Grey. Say what you want about that movie, I certainly have, but it did well on its opening weekend, even if the drop off was pretty harsh.This one has a big question mark hanging over it. If it resonates with its intended audience, we could be looking at a film with some serious legs. If it doesn't, there really isn't much of a "backup" audience, per se. At the moment, there isn't a lot about "Wuthering Heights" that feels like it could draw in someone who doesn't like this genre. Much like horror, fans of period romance and bodice rippers specifically are very loyal, but the 'inspired by' thing might keep some of the hardcore lit nerds away. Marketing is starting to kick off with a new TV spot celebrating the new year. (Katilin Booth)
The film is also featured in Mirror, Metro, Metro (again), The Federal, Telva, Últimas Noticias, MDZ...
Thursday 8 JanuaryThis Cultural LifeRadio 4/BBC Sounds, 11amThree-time Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro is John Wilson’s guest this week. As one of the most imaginative filmmakers working today, the Mexican director of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water cites a kaleidoscopic range of influences, from cinematic giants such as Luis Buñuel and Stanley Kubrick to Japanese manga comics, Jane Eyre and the literary output of HP Lovecraft.
This new and bespoke 40-piece Mini Jigsaw puzzle is exclusive to the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The design features artwork of the Parsonage by Ramlah Qureshi and includes unique jigsaw pieces inspired by the Brontës!
Will Wuthering Heights be the most beloved film of 2026, or the most reviled?Who better to entrust the adaptation one of literature’s most celebrated works to than Miss Marmite herself, Emerald Fennell? Well, arguably many, many people, but there is a certain boldness from Warner Bros in handing the Saltburn director the reins to their Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi-starring Wuthering Heights (13 February) – not least because she has immediately used them in an S&M bondage scene. Expect that and plenty of other moments that will make the Brontë purists blanche in a movie event that will dominate the discourse like no other. If nothing else, its soundtrack should be strong, featuring a suite of glowering gothic songs from Charli xcx, part of a big movie year for the hyperpop star: she’s also acting in a number of upcoming dramas, including The Moment, a mockumentary loosely based on her Brat tour. (Gwilym Mumford)
Well done to Samantha Ellis for recognising that Wuthering Heights is not a conventional love story, nor was it ever meant to be (‘It’s no romcom’: why the real Wuthering Heights is too extreme for the screen, 28 December). If it had been published in Greek, contemporary critics would have hailed it as comparable with Aeschylus, since the structure is in three, not two, parts – like a classical Greek tragedy, the revenge/resolution comes at the end.The parallels include Lockwood and Nelly Dean narrating most of the story, much as a Greek chorus would do; most (though not all) of the violence takes place offstage; the setting is otherworldly at times, but relatable to the audience; the wellspring is Heathcliff and Cathy declaring their unity at a very young age and claiming to be damned for it. Which they are, thus tempting fate.The whole should be filmed as a trilogy – novels of the 19th century were often referred to as a three‑volume novel, as that was the convention even for gothic horror.John StarbuckLepton, West Yorkshire
1. Wuthering HeightsEmerald Fennell's bold take on Emily Brontë's 1847 novel is already one of the year's most divisive films. The trailer alone evoked both fascinated anticipation and pearl-clutching resistance. On social media, Brontë purists have objected to everything from the film's raw sexiness to its casting, complaining that Margot Robbie is too old to play the teenage Cathy and Jacob Elordi too white to play Heathcliff, described in the book as "dark-skinned". But Fennell, who proved herself to be a daring original with Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, knew she was taking an iconoclastic approach. "I wanted to make something that was the book that I experienced when I was 14," she has said, describing it as "primal, sexual". Her version of those two doomed, passionate lovers is also stylised, with bright-red costumes and red-orange skies. Owen Cooper of Adolescence plays the young Heathcliff and Hong Chau is Cathy's loyal maid, Nelly. And if you don't feel like channelling your inner teenage girl, the year brings a more traditional adaptation of a 19th-Century classic, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as Elinor Dashwood in the story of marriageable sisters and their pursuit of love. (Caryn James)
Wuthering HeightsUK release date: 14 February 2026The Emerald Fennell remake of Emily Brontë’s gothic tragedy Wuthering Heights made headlines earlier this year when the trailer depicted Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in leading roles as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. It is dubbed as a more adventurous take on the classic – we’d expect nothing less from the director of Saltburn – which could offer a refreshing alternative to the roster of film adaptations that have come before. (Annie Lewis)
Wuthering HeightsFans of Saltburn and Emily Brontë will be pleased to know that Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is set for release in February. A bold and original imagining of one of the greatest love stories of all time, Wuthering Heights stars Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, whose forbidden passion for one another turns from romantic to intoxicating in an epic tale of lust, love and madness. The film, which was filmed in Yorkshire and features music by Charli XCX, also stars Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver and Owen Cooper. > In UK cinemas on Feb 13. (Laura Reid and John Blow)
8 Go Yorkshire!I may be biased, being from Hull, but I’m calling it now that Yorkshire will be a hotspot for staycations next year. Thanks to Emerald Fennell’s new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights (in cinemas from 13 February), starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, it’s predicted that international visitors and Brontë enthusiasts will be running for the Dales. See you on the train there. (Hannah Skelley)
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Helen MacEwanPushkin PressISBN: 9781805680345November 2025‘Brussels is my promised land’ Charlotte BrontëA fascinating look at a crucial turning point in the Brontë sisters’ livesIn 1842, five years before they would become bestselling authors, Charlotte Brontë and her sister Emily arrived in Brussels. They were there to improve their French and German, but the years they spent in a pensionnat being taught by the charismatic Constantin Heger would do much more than polish their languages. It was a crucial turning point for both their writing and their personal lives. Each came away from Brussels a more mature and capable artist; Charlotte, having fallen lastingly in love with Heger, left with a broken heart and the inspiration for two novels, The Professor and Villette.Based on the Brontës’ essays and Charlotte’s letters and novels, as well as research into the Brussels of the time, this is a fascinating look at a formative period in the lives of two great writers. Tracing the influence of their Brussels years through their writing, MacEwan gives us insight into their artistic formation, and paints a vivid picture of the bustling 19th-century city that opened the sisters’ eyes to life beyond Haworth Parsonage.
The author herself has shared this image of the book on display at Hatchards' St Pancras. Which is a nice touch as it is quite near the Eurostar London-Paris station: "I like to think of travellers buying it on their way to Brussels, following in Charlotte and Emily Brontë's footsteps even though the means of travel are so different today."
Join historian Greg Jenner for a fast-paced, funny and fascinating journey through the lives of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, three literary legends whose tragic family story inspired some of the greatest novels of the 19th century.This episode of Dead Funny History is packed with jokes, sketches and sound effects that bring the past to life for families and Key Stage 2 learners. From their Yorkshire parsonage to their tiny books written in doll-sized handwriting, the Brontës were bursting with creativity. But their lives were also filled with heartbreak, illness and rejection.Discover how the sisters used gender-neutral pen names to get published, how their brother Branwell tried (and mostly failed) to join in, and how their novels, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, were shaped by their real-life experiences as governesses, teachers and grieving siblings.Expect parodies, sketch comedy, and a quiz to test what you’ve learned. There’s a mournful bell for every tragic twist and a goat who’s surprisingly good at literary criticism. It’s history with heart, humour and high production value. Perfect for curious kids, families, and fans of You’re Dead To Me.Written by Jack Bernhardt, Gabby Hutchinson Crouch and Dr Emma NagouseHost: Greg JennerPerformers: Mali Ann Rees and John-Luke RobertsProducer: Dr Emma Nagouse
Why you should watch: Fans of Wuthering Heights, the novel, will have to come to terms with Emerald Fennell’s (Promising Young Woman) adaption of Emily Bronte’s novel. Judging by the trailers, it seems Fennell has taken a fair few creative liberties, with the film looking to be far more romantic than the book itself. But, also based off the trailers, there is a wonderful, eye-catching visual style to the film that’s hard not to be intrigued by, as well as having Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the lead roles. Whether or not it’s a faithful adaption, you can be sure it’ll be one of the more ambitious romance films of the past few years. (Felix Hughes)
Wuthering Delights Café & Bistro opened in Thornton after Jonathan and Paul Addy‑Armitage transformed the former Christophe’s Coffee House. The new café serves breakfasts, lunches and sweet treats in the Brontë village.
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Wuthering Heights, the new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel by Emerald Fennell, has so far brazened out the kind of social media firestorm over the ethnicity of its Heathcliff that might have scuppered it in a pre-Trump universe.
Norwich Evening News and others report that Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever will come to Gorleston in 2026. "Book Quotes For A New Year That Feels Like Turning The Page" including one from Jane Eyre in Times Now News. AnneBrontë.org celebrates the new year.
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Bos Theaterproducties presentDe Onverwoeste Zusters van Hoogezand-Sappemeer (The Indestructible Sisters of Hoogezand-Sappemeer)based on an idea Ilse Warringa and Rop VerheijenScript by Ilse WarringaDirected by Leopold WitteWith Ilse Warringa, Rop Verheijen, Eva van Gessel, Leopold Witte, and Margôt RosAfter the success of De Ongeplukte Zusters van Almere County, based on the work of Jane Austen, the creators now present De Onverwoeste Zusters van Hoogezand-Sappemeer, inspired by the lives of the literary sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë.A passionate musical comedy about attraction, revenge, sisterly love, and the age-old yearning for recognition, even in the afterlife. And all the while, the ghost of the wildly handsome Heathcliff, from Emily's novel Wuthering Heights, continues to haunt…The cast includes comedians Ilse Warringa, Rop Verheijen, Eva van Gessel, Leopold Witte, and Margôt Ros, promising another humorous and musical evening that pokes fun at the male norms of both the 19th and 21st centuries. The beautiful poems of the Brontë sisters are set to music by Bart Rijnink, and Leopold Witte directs.The three Brontë sisters—along with their perpetually drunken brother and absent father—reflect entertainingly on their lives in Yorkshire, Northern England, circa 1847. A life filled with competition, typhus, tuberculosis, consumption, and jealousy, where there was little to laugh about. The sisters spent their days writing—now world-famous—stories and poems, under male pseudonyms, because literature, after all, was not for women.Their urge for artistic freedom and recognition was so overwhelming that even now, in death, the sisters compete with each other for the best story and the most success. To banish the ghosts of the past, their history must be relived. While Emily seeks refuge in romantic tales of stormy heaths, all-consuming passion, and fiery, doomed love in Wuthering Heights, Charlotte and Anne keep things a bit closer to home, because that—still!—is more understandable and therefore sells better. But how much more must be reenacted before they dare to face their past? The sisters learn to live with death by reconciling themselves with their lives and with each other, so thankfully, there's plenty to laugh about again.
Haworth, YorkshireEmily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights may have been published more than 150 years ago, but it’s about to have a major cultural moment in 2026 thanks to Emerald Fennel’s hotly-anticipated adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Given her last film Saltburn divided viewers, it’s not sure how much her film will stick to the original text - however without a doubt it will introduce the book to new audiences.To celebrate the release of the film, why not make a pilgrimage to the home of the Brontë sisters in Haworth, West Yorkshire. Here you can visit the house where Emily grew up with her sisters Anne and Charlotte, along with their brother Branwell, which is now the Brontë Parsonage Museum.Dive even deeper into the world of Wuthering Heights and embark on a hike to Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse, said to be the inspiration for the Earnshaw home in the novel. You’ll have to head further north to see any filming locations, though, as scenes for the new Wuthering Heights were shot in the Yorkshire Dales. (Liv Clarke)
Oyinkan Braithwaite Would (Nervously) Invite Charlotte Brontë to Dinner (...)Scott Heller: You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?O.B.: Toni Morrison, certainly — though I’d be far too intimidated to say much in her presence. Perhaps Charlotte Brontë, fingers crossed she isn’t racist (it was a different time). I could accept her being stunned, and I would fully expect confused — she did die two centuries ago, after all — but I don’t think I could bear disgusted. And my third would be Malorie Blackman, whose mind I’m deeply curious about.
The year 2025 has been one of the most memorable in Bradford’s recent history. The famous political quote, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen...” feels particularly apt for a city that fumbled sleepily through the fist couple of decades of the new millennium, to then experience the most frantic 18 months a quarter of the way into it.This was thanks in large part to scooping the prestigious UK City of Culture title. From huge new cultural venues and a brand-new central market, to more modest (but equally welcome) additions like new toilets for the Brontë Parsonage, 2025 has been a year of renewal and refreshment for the city’s cultural and heritage attractions. (Si Cunningham)
Starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, the casting alone has provoked outrage from purists, and that’s before we even get to a shot in which Cathy appears to be wearing a dress made of red PVC. The director of Saltburn was never going to make a strait-laced adaptation of a literary classic. We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see the film in all its smouldering, bodice-ripping glory. (Wendy Ide)
Emerald Fennell, the Oscar-winning creator of Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, now takes on her biggest project yet: an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel, with Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as the smouldering, saturnine alpha hero himself, Heathcliff. A mild culture war has already begun with Fennell casting a white actor as Heathcliff, a character Brontë described as “dark-skinned”, while Andrea Arnold cast mixed race actor James Howson for her version in 2011. (It wasn’t an issue for William Wyler in 1939 who cast Laurence Olivier.)
What’s left to say about Wuthering Heights? Plenty, apparently. After seven major movie adaptations, including versions by William Wyler, Peter Kosminsky and Andrea Arnold, along comes Saltburn’s posh provocateur Emerald Fennell. She has a white-hot cast that includes Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, a disruptor’s instincts and a teasing trailer that suggests this Brontë version will be a thumpingly delirious pop-art fever dream. (Kevin Maher, Ed Potton and Jonathan Dean)
A messy bed, a 1,000-year-old embroidery and Heathcliff bedding Cathy await the nation this year.Tracey Emin’s notorious artistic creation wakes from slumber in February, before the Bayeux Tapestry’s return to its homeland in the summer and just before what is expected to be a very 21st-century adaptation of Wuthering Heights.Emerald Fennell’s interpretation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff, is due to hit cinemas — provided the small-screen giant Netflix currently taking over Hollywood studios allows the big screen still to exist. (David Sanderson)
“Aggressively provocative” was the verdict of one viewer at a test screening: this is not Brontë for the easily shocked. Writer-director Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) has already scandalised purists by casting Hollywood stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff and complaints about the anachronistic costumes and set design are piling up. However successfully Fennell’s gambits pay off, it is certain to be one of the year’s biggest talking points – and seems to be gunning hard for the “BookTok” demographic, not least because of its hyperpop soundtrack with a dozen original songs by Charli XCX. (Robbie Collin and Tim Robey)
Those howls in the moors are literature fans fighting over whether this reimagining of Emily Brontë’s 1847 gothic romance will be confoundingly misguided or bodice-rippingly good. Either way, the latest provocation by Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman,” “Saltburn”) is already triggering a reaction just from its trailer which boasted images of lobsters in top hats, Margot Robbie in period-scrambling red sunglasses and Jacob Elordi licking a wall. Tepid is not Fennell’s thing. But so far, Fennell tends to be my thing — I admire directors who are game to take salacious swings. Will her ‘Wuthering Heights’ wind up being a juicy but familiar adaptation of the obsessive love affair between newlywed Cathy and her rich and cruel neighbor, Heathcliff? Or should audiences be reading into the suspicious air quotes around the title? A Valentine’s Day-adjacent opening hints it wants to make audiences hot and bothered. (Amy Nicholson)
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A major new exhibition celebrating one of the most influential artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries opens in Cheltenham on January 30.Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature will be on display at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, bringing together three of the artist’s most ambitious and profound series of works in printmaking.Portuguese-british artist Paula Rego (1935–2022) was widely recognised as one of the great printmakers and visual storytellers of her time.Her work is known for its striking imagery and narrative depth, often drawing on literature, folklore and lived experience to explore themes of power, imagination, innocence and cruelty.The exhibition presents three major print series created across a pivotal decade of Rego’s career: Nursery Rhymes, Peter Pan and Jane Eyre.These works reinterpret familiar stories from English literature, transforming well-known tales into complex and often unsettling scenes that challenge traditional ideas of childhood, morality and authority.From menacing figures brought to life through children’s nursery rhymes, to hallucinatory depictions of Neverland, and the turbulent emotional relationships found in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Rego’s prints invite audiences to look again at stories they may think they know.
As 2025 drew to a close, the feeling of living through end times intensified. We witnessed how the banality of evil—so eloquently described by Hannah Arendt during Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem— migrated from perpetrators to victims, becoming state doctrine to rationalize the systematic elimination of enemies. Vengeance and cruelty emerged as new standards of conduct, applauded by America and met with the acquiescence of much of the Western democratic world.
We’ve watched the post–World War II global order collapse, with Russia slowly but irreversibly sliding back toward tsarist grandeur and the suppression of dissent, while the United States threw out the rulebook, stared into the totalitarian abyss, and embraced its reflection in accelerating isolationism. The serpent’s egg, slowly incubated since the 2007 crisis, has now hatched worldwide—in Argentina, Hungary, Italy, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Poland, Slovakia, India... Only a miracle could prevent the next electoral cycle from bringing to power in Germany, the UK, France, or Spain the very groups eager to dismantle everything it took decades to build during the twentieth century.
These populist movements, backed (and hacked) by techno-feudal lords inheriting the post-capitalist era, will complete what the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century neoliberals and progressives handed them on a silver platter: the reshaping of the welfare state into the dystopia of AI dictatorship. Think of it as a Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat, but without the proletariat (now replaced by social media users), and without Marx, but with Bezos or Musk instead.
The left never saw it coming, too busy waging Byzantine battles over pronouns and chromosomes. Some remain trapped there still, oblivious to the revisionist hurricane now engulfing everything, unaware that the grassroots supporters who once sustained progressive discourse were long ago expelled from the paradise of political correctness by the very people now lamenting the rise of populism.
The barbarians have reached our shores, and as we lick our wounds, we’d do well to remember Martin Niemöller’s words: ”First they came for the you-know-who, and I did not speak out, because I was not a you-know-who.” Exaggerated? It’s enough to read what one of the gurus of the transition to technofeudalism thinks: Peter Thiel, probably one of the most powerful people you’ve never heard of and one of the biggest donors to the MAGA golden boy J.D. Vance. Without mincing words: ”I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
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The Last Wolf of Thornfield (April) by Polly J. Mordant where Jane Eyre is retold as a werewolf story and a detective time travel story with a Bronté twist: The Haunting of a Brontë (June) by Amelia Blackwell, completes the literary panorama.On the stage, the Brontë season begins with a revisitation of Gin & Gothic: A Brontë rocktale (first premiered in Denver in 2024), now in Boulder (January). Several productions of different Jane Eyre adaptations will be performed: In Kenilworth, the Catherine Prout adaptation (February); the Polly Teale adaptation will be performed in Stamford (March), Brighton (May), and Birmingham (July). A new adaptation by Emma Watson will be performed in Coffs Harbour (Australia) (March), and another by Erin Shields will be premiered in Ottawa in October, and the This is My Theatre company will tour England with their own adaptation. The Gordon & Caird musical will appear in Arlington, Cleburne, or Widnes, but the big event will be the Manhattan Concert Productions concert at Lincoln Center in New York (February). Polly Teale's Brontë will be produced in Whitfield (May) and in Wigan (October). Another (very different) take on the Brontë biography is Sarah Gordon's Underdog. The Other Other Bronté Sister,%20(1).jpg)
which premiered at the National Theatre in 2024 and is now being taken to regional stages: in Chorley (February), Northwich (April), Banbury (June), and Coventry (September). Jodi Mand's Brontë: A World Without continues to be performed in Canada, now in Scarborough, ON (July). The Lucy Gough adaptation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall will be performed in Aberystwyth (March). Meanwhile, the Bos Theaterproducties company will continue touring the Netherlands with their musical farce De onverwoeste zusters van Hoogezand-Sappemeer (January-February).
At the time of writing this, the Brontë Parsonage Museum has not announced what this year's exhibition will be. We do know, though, that the Brontë Birthplace will have an exhibition of pictures by the photographer Garret Wilde.
As we always say, this is what we know. And we know that we don’t know many things that will pop up throughout the year. All of these, the ones we know and the ones we don’t, will surely make 2026 a very Brontë year.
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