Wuthering Heights 2026 is still having its moment

Of course a good many sites are reporting the news that there's a TV adaptation of Jane Eyre played by Aimee Lou Wood in the works: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, etc.

But Wuthering Heights 2026 is still having its moment. Variety reports that it's still #1 at the UK and Ireland box offices.

Warner Bros.’ “Wuthering Heights” remained at No. 1 at the U.K. and Ireland box office in its second weekend, taking £3.8 million ($5.3 million) and pushing its cumulative total to £16.2 million ($22.1 million), according to Comscore. (Naman Ramachandran)

Prague Reporter also shares the Czech box office results:

After opening in second place over Valentine’s Day last weekend, Emerald Fennell‘s Wuthering Heights suffered a minuscule 16 percent drop to rise to the top of the Czech box office charts in its second weekend of release, according to data from the Czech Film Distributors Union. The Gothic romance starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as ill-fated lovers Cathy and Heathcliff earned CZK 4.61 million to bring its two-week total to just north of CZK 13 million.

Brit + Co recommends '6 'Wuthering Heights' Adaptations to Watch After the Controversial Remake'. IOL claims that 'Emerald Fennell's bold reimagining of Wuthering Heights challenges literary traditions' but in fact simply discusses the context of the film. There's also a similar article in The Lantern. A contributor to Fashion Magazine supposedly 'Dressed as Cathy to See Wuthering Heights'. A contributor to Missing Perspectives might be one of those reading just a bit too much into the casting choices as a form of white supremacy (the fact that they know better than the actors themselves--who supposedly didn't realise they were being used for racist purposes--is pretty eloquent, we think though). A contributor to The Conversation thinks that the film's casting choices show the film's 'almost complete lack of depth'. 'From BDSM To Sordid Affairs: What Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights Gets Right About 18th Century Sex' on HuffPost.

Some more reviews:

Olivia Blake, MP, reviews it for Politics Home, giving it 3/5. (1/5 for the purists).

As a Yorkshire lass, Wuthering Heights holds a visceral place in my heart. I chose to view this new 2026 film adaptation not as the book I love, however, but as a standalone vision by director Emerald Fennell. Absolute purists will not enjoy this disconnected fantasy; it is certainly not Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. But if you suspend expectations, it is an indulgent treat.

The verdict? Emerald Fennell’s ‘make believe’ lacks the scent of windswept heather but has its own strange, man-made shine. Shallow, yes; glossy, certainly. Is it worth a watch? Yes – as long as you don’t expect the earthy style, substance, or plot of the book.

Iowa State Daily gives it and 8.5/10:

Going in, I expected something far more explicit. Instead, the film handled intimacy with surprising restraint. It was tasteful. Charged, yes, but never exploitative. There are a few moments that feel more distracting than seductive. But even that doesn’t tip into the film’s success. It just briefly pulls you out of the mood. At most, they briefly disrupt the atmosphere before it tightens its grip again. 

Wuthering Heights isn’t a comforting watch. It’s gothic in the truest senses: obsessive and morally-murky. It doesn’t glamorize love. It interrogates it. Is this what soulmates look like? Or is it what happens when two people mistake trauma for destiny? The film never gives you a clean answer. It just leaves you with the wind, the red, the silence and that love echoing in your head. Pleasure or death in Wuthering Heights are almost indistinguishable. (Savannah Stickrod-Worthen)

Echo:

I loved that I thought back to the work of the poetic Emily with a new interpretation. And that my daughter could approach an old story with a contemporary lens. And I love that women made this. And they knew they would be criticised and hung high in the town square. They’re too old. Too blonde. Too much like Barbie. Too different from the book…but they did it anyway. Unapologetic.

It made me realise why I have always found that bloody story so unsettling. Because I know what it is to be Cathy. That the darkness and shadow is not separate to me. It is me. I’m Cathy. I’ve come home.

(Only thing I would have added at the end was Kate Bush.) (Mandy Nolan)

Westport Journal gives it a 6/10.

Without revealing salient plot points, Emerald Fennell (“Saltburn,” “Promising Young Woman”) focuses on tumultuous, obsessive lust – choosing overtly erotic style-over-substance – graphically chronicled in VistaVision by cinematographer Linus Sandgren and extravagantly enhanced by production designer Suzie Davies, set decorator Charlotte Diricks, costumer Jacqueline Durran and composer Charli xcx. (Susan Granger)

Daily Iowan:

While Fennell may not have cared so much about the book-to-movie adaptation of it all, she nevertheless succeeded in making an entertaining and visually pleasing movie. (Liliana Hummel)

The Arts Fuse:

Still, much of Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is a visual treat for the armchair traveler. You get to viscerally wander those wild, craggy Yorkshire moors (or wherever the film was shot). Cue the cheesy but irresistible image of Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) riding off on a rearing steed against a flaming sunset after hearing of Cathy’s engagement to wealthy neighbor Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif). Fennell’s version of Thrushcross Grange, Linton’s estate, as a scarlet-and-gold candy box—with Cathy’s bedroom walls patterned after her skin—is preposterous but fun to gape at. As is Cathy’s elaborate, far-too-modern wardrobe, which features flounces, tinsel, and décolletage—call it Barbie Victorian. Gape is the operative word; this movie dumbs you down. [...]

There’s been much verbiage about Fennell’s in-quotes version of “Wuthering Heights” and whether it violates the spirit of the original, blah blah. There’s no reason a film adaptation can’t create a parallel version of its primary source. I’ve always thought the film of The English Patient was perhaps better than the novel, thanks to Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas—particularly the way the film clarified certain scenes that were illegible in the novel. Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is notable for its ambition, production values, and the sheer chutzpah of attempting to bring such a cherished masterwork of English literature to the screen. But none of that has resulted in a good film. (Erica Abeel)

The Watchdog:

Taking into account these clashing elements and reviews, the film has shown itself to be complex, visually extravagant and emotionally charged, but often lacking in character depth and Brontë’s overall message regarding class, identity and the destructive nature of obsessive love. (Polina Akulova)

The Sunflower:

If you want to look at something pretty, see Elordi be mildly freaky and lots of aesthetic color choices, go see the movie. If you want to see something romantic, tragic, and with the substance of the novel — particularly a layered tragedy based on the abuses society deals to its most marginalized, and how love can still grow despite this  — skip it. (Nazjai Dickson)

Rice Thresher gives 4 stars to Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights album.

When looking at “Wuthering Heights” both individually and in the context of the career Charli xcx has enjoyed, it is impossible not to love it. Though not as strong as some of her previous works, it is a spectacular addition to her catalog that is deserving of immense praise. It is a reminder that, despite whatever happens, Charli will do what she wants to do to fulfill her artistic mission and create something extraordinary along the way. (Layne Heath)

A contributor to Her Campus reviews the film as well.

Great British Life has a tempting article on 'Why you should move to Haworth in West Yorkshire'.

It’s a bright, crisp, perfect winter’s day as I cross the moors towards Haworth, and the north feels anything but grim as I take in the sweeping views before me.

This is Brontë country, a landscape immortalised by the literary sisters in the pages of their world-famous novels.

Some footpath signs to sites made famous through their association with the Brontë's books are written in Japanese and English, an indication of how popular this corner of Yorkshire is for enthusiasts worldwide.

For many who visit, this isn’t just a day out, it’s a pilgrimage - a chance to step into the world that shaped some of the greatest novels in English literature.

The charm of Haworth and the surrounding area is being appreciated by an even wider audience, thanks to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. (Felicity Macnamara)

'A Wuthering Heights-inspired weekend in Yorkshire' in The Week.