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What’s your favourite screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights?

7 replies

OutOnTheWilyWindyMoors · 19/09/2026 16:55

And who is your favourite Heathcliff/Cathy?
It was Ralph Fiennes in the 1992 version but I watched the 2009 version last night and Tom hardy is now my favourite Heathcliff though I don’t believe it’s the most faithful adaptation but I do appreciate that it included the second generation.
Who is yours?

TIA

OP posts:
JaneJeffer · 19/09/2026 17:47

I like the 1978 BBC adaptation

AthenaWhite · 19/09/2026 17:52

Timothy Dalton version, '71 I think.

ginasevern · 19/09/2026 18:08

To be honest, I don't think there's ever been a particularly good adaptation. I'm old and have seen them all. I've come to the conclusion that it really can't be suitably adapted for the screen. It always loses, or at least flattens, the underlying supernatural elements and the ever present wild, untamed moors. The narrative is too complex and layered and is best conveyed through words and essentially the reader's own imagination.

LollyWillow · 19/09/2026 18:24

The only adaptation I've liked has been the 2011 Andrea Arnold version - I think it got something right in the spirit and feeling of the book which is more than most of the other adaptations have managed. That said, I've never met anybody else who liked it so I think I am a lone voice! Apparently even Andrea Arnold doesn't like it...
My theory is that most us read Wuthering Heights as teenagers and those of us who love it have taken something from it which is very specific to who we were at the time we read it. No mere filmmaker is going to be able to recreate that for us.

Tortielady · 19/09/2026 18:25

I enjoyed the 1978 version, but it's a long time since I've seen it and I was a teenager when it aired.

OutOnTheWilyWindyMoors · 19/09/2026 20:35

ginasevern · 19/09/2026 18:08

To be honest, I don't think there's ever been a particularly good adaptation. I'm old and have seen them all. I've come to the conclusion that it really can't be suitably adapted for the screen. It always loses, or at least flattens, the underlying supernatural elements and the ever present wild, untamed moors. The narrative is too complex and layered and is best conveyed through words and essentially the reader's own imagination.

I agree that it’s near impossible to do it justice. I read it as a teenager too and it’s possibly my favourite book of all time but in spite of that I have enjoyed the versions I have seen so far to varying degrees, even if they’ll never really live up to the book.

OP posts:
dreamingofgoodhair · 19/09/2026 22:11

ginasevern · 19/09/2026 18:08

To be honest, I don't think there's ever been a particularly good adaptation. I'm old and have seen them all. I've come to the conclusion that it really can't be suitably adapted for the screen. It always loses, or at least flattens, the underlying supernatural elements and the ever present wild, untamed moors. The narrative is too complex and layered and is best conveyed through words and essentially the reader's own imagination.

Absolutely agree.

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