Emerald Fennel’s latest flick – an adaptation of Wuthering Heights – isn’t even out yet (it’s scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day next year), and it’s already been sending shockwaves through the internet (for more reasons than one). First and foremost, its leading duo Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are unusually picks for the literary classic, and stills from the film set have caused outrage amongst the book’s puritans. Of course, the steamy trailer soundtracked by a now-viral Charli XCX remix have also caused quite the stir too.
But if you simply need to get your fix before February, we have curated a list of films we love that match that vibe: steamy, classic, perhaps some not-so-close-to-the-source adaptations that made us re-fall in love with a story. Some were even hand-selected by Emerald Fennel herself in her own list of films to watch.
Find out pick of 16 films like Emerald Fennel;’s Wuthering Heights below.
1. Romeo + Juliet (1996)
When we think of beloved adaptations that made us rethink how a story could be told, there’s none that come as close as Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. DiCaprio and Danes are the dreamiest duo at the film’s helm, guiding us through a modernised take on the story, complete with the original Shakespearian lingo. It’s a bold and wildly polarising film, and the blueprint for a star-crossed lovers story. It’s exactly the kind of film we know would have been on Fennel’s mood board for her adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Robbie even said to press: “I went to the cinema to watch Romeo + Juliet eight times, and I was on the ground crying when I wasn’t allowed to go back for a ninth. I want it to be that.”
2. Marie Antoinette (2006)
If Luhrmann was the blueprint then Sofia Coppola’s adaptation of the life of Marie Antoinette is the runner-up. Another polarisingly modern take on a historic story – but which has also gone down in the annals of history as a piece of cult cinema. Kirsten Dunst leads the film as our titular heroine (of sorts), whose life before the revolution is retold to the soundtrack of The Cure and Aphex Twins. Very in the vein of a Wuthering Heights film soundtracked by Charli XCX.
3. Atonement (2007)
If you’ve already seen Atonement you already know how gut-wrenching this one is. You’ve got a baby Soarise Ronan (already solidifying her acting chops), themes of guilt, regret, social class conflict and the power of storytelling. It’s an epic chronicled over six decades, tracking the fallout of a family and exploring how a single false accusation has devastating, lifelong consequences.
4. Titanic (1999)
This may seem random, but Margot Robbie told press: “In one of our first conversations about this film, I asked Emerald what her dream outcome was. She said, ‘I want this to be this generation’s Titanic.” So, there you have it. It’s another epic love story of ill-fated lovers – we can see the similarities here.
5. Saltburn (2023)
If you’re looking for more of Fennel’s madness, then definitely make a pitstop at Saltburn. The 2023 film altered brain chemistry in more ways than one – and sent Sophie Ellis Bextor’s 2000s hit Murder on the Dancefloor soaring up the charts again (along with Mason and Princess Superstar’s Perfect (Exceeder)). It’s got all the Fennel-isms we’re expecting to see more of in her take on Wuthering Heights: excessive nudity, steamy romance, dramatic deaths and pop song nostalgia.
6. The Beguiled (2017)
More Sofia Coppola on the list. Surprise, surprise. But this American Southern Gothic thriller has all the same vibes – and a stellar cast to boot (Fanning, Kidman and Dunst in the lead). The story centres on an injured Union soldier, Corporal John McBurney, who seeks refuge at a secluded, all-female Southern girls’ school during the Civil War – and the seduction, jealousy and dark consequences that trail his arrival.
7. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock is a genuine ‘art movie’ – exploring the mystical, sun-drenched Australian landscape and an ethereal group of Victorian school girls. It’s haunting and sensual – themes mirrored in Wuthering Heights – following the story of a rural summer picnic where a few students and a teacher from an Australian girls’ school vanish without a trace.
8. Crash (2004)
David Cronenberg’s unsettling adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel is all about dangerous eroticism and taboo obsession. Following a group of people who become sexually aroused by car crashes, it scandalised Cannes – but, much like what we’re expecting from Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, it’s hypnotic, glossy and deeply divisive.
9. Bram Stroker’s Dracula (1992)
Francis Ford Coppola’s baroque, blood-red take on the vampire classic is basically gothic romance turned up to eleven. With operatic set design, tragic yearning and sensual excess, it reframed Dracula as a cursed lover rather than a simple monster – very Heathcliff-coded.
10. Pea d’Ane (1970)
Jacques Demy’s surreal fairy-tale musical (aka Donkey Skin) is pastel-coloured, strange and quietly disturbing beneath the sugar-sweet surface. It’s proof that classic literature and folklore can be radically stylised – exactly the sort of risk-taking that gets purists clutching their pearls.
11. Romance (1999)
Catherine Breillat’s infamous erotic drama caused uproar for its explicitness, but underneath is a bleak, obsessive love story about desire, loneliness and emotional extremity. If Fennell leans hard into the raw physicality of Wuthering Heights, this is a useful reference point.
12. The Handmaiden (2016)
Park Chan-wook’s sumptuous thriller is one of the most intoxicating literary adaptations of the last decade. Twisty, sensual and emotionally devastating, it reworks Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith into a feverish tale of obsession, power and forbidden love.
13. Random Harvest (1942)
A WWII melodrama about a soldier with amnesia who forgets the woman he loves — and unknowingly meets her again years later. It’s unbearably romantic, tragic and full of cruel coincidences, tapping into that same cosmic-level heartbreak Wuthering Heights thrives on.
14. Bluebeard (2009)
Breillat strikes again with this chilly, erotic retelling of the Bluebeard myth, starring Asia Argento as a woman drawn to a dangerously enigmatic aristocrat. It’s gothic, psychological and charged with sexual tension — catnip for fans of toxic, irresistible lovers.
15. The End of the Affair (1999)
Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel gives us wartime London, torrential rain, clandestine sex and aching emotional devastation. A love affair poisoned by secrecy, guilt and obsession? Emily Brontë would absolutely approve.
16. The Notebook
Pure romantic maximalism. Rain-soaked confessions, lifelong devotion, social barriers and the belief that love can survive absolutely everything — Nicholas Sparks’ adaptation is arguably less feral than Wuthering Heights, but it shares that operatic, soul-bond intensity.
