Wuthering Heights (2026 film)
Wuthering Heights (stylized with quotation marks) is a 2026 period romantic drama film written and directed by Emerald Fennell and loosely adapted from Emily Brontë's 1847 novel. The film stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, respectively, alongside Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes, and Ewan Mitchell in supporting roles.
Wuthering Heights premiered at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on January 28, 2026, and was released in theaters by Warner Bros. Pictures on February 13. The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Plot
In 18th-century England, a man is publicly hanged; his suffering and visible erection send spectators, including Catherine Earnshaw and her paid companion Nelly Dean, a lord's illegitimate daughter, into an ecstatic frenzy. Cathy’s father, the abrasive, alcoholic Mr. Earnshaw, returns to his Gothic, windswept estate of Wuthering Heights on the Yorkshire Moors one day with a young boy he rescued off the Liverpool streets. He says the lad is to be Cathy’s “pet”.
Cathy becomes protective of the boy, naming him "Heathcliff" after her deceased brother. As time goes on, the pair becomes inseparable. After they are trapped in the rain and return home late on Mr. Earnshaw’s birthday, Heathcliff assumes the blame, receiving a whipping that leaves his back permanently scarred.
Years later, Wuthering Heights has fallen into disrepair due to Earnshaw’s worsening alcoholism and gambling habits. Cathy plans on courting her new neighbor, wealthy textile merchant Edgar Linton, in order to escape Wuthering Heights' bleak environment and help bring the lowly, now long-haired and bearded, servant Heathcliff into high society, though Heathcliff is jealous and does not approve.
Cathy sees servants Joseph and Zillah having a BDSM encounter in the barn; Heathcliff finds her, keeping her silent. Later, Cathy goes off to the moors and masturbates under her skirt; Heathcliff finds her shortly after, and they later have a passionate moment.
Cathy sprains her ankle while spying on Edgar and his Romeo and Juliet-obsessed, flighty ward, Isabella, and is taken in for six weeks to heal. Edgar, smitten, proposes marriage; Cathy accepts. She returns home fancily-dressed; Heathcliff is standoffish.
While tearfully expressing to Nelly her guilt over choosing Edgar over Heathcliff, her true love, her words about how it would degrade her to marry impoverished Heathcliff, are overheard by him; however, he leaves before Cathy professes that his and her souls are entwined. Much to Cathy’s sorrow, Heathcliff, heartbroken, rides on horseback into the sunset, not returning.
Cathy weds Edgar and lives a lavish lifestyle at their home, Thrushcross Grange, her room's walls even made to resemble her skin; Isabella arranges for fine dresses for Cathy, and even makes a Cathy doll with Cathy's own hair. However, Cathy longs for Heathcliff’s return.
When he does return, five years after his departure, he is well-groomed, short-haired, and has mysteriously acquired a fortune. Rather than being happy to see Cathy, he is bitter and angry over her decision to marry Edgar, and considers marrying Isabella to make Cathy jealous.
Heathcliff purchases Wuthering Heights from Mr. Earnshaw, who dies soon after; Cathy visits and kicks her father's body, though she relents later. Heathcliff begins an intense sexual affair with Cathy. He offers to kill Edgar; she dismisses Heathcliff. Isabella, who is infatuated with Heathcliff, calls Cathy a dog in the manger, and Cathy finds the Cathy doll stabbed and bloody in the dollhouse.
After Cathy realizes Nelly knew Heathcliff was listening when Cathy said it would degrade her to marry him, she tries to banish Nelly. Nelly reveals the affair to Edgar, who forbids Cathy from seeing Heathcliff. Cathy reveals she is pregnant with Edgar’s child, and a furious Heathcliff marries Isabella out of spite; he even tells Isabella he is doing this, and she consents. The two of them enter into a BDSM relationship, with Heathcliff degrading Isabella and treating her like a dog, much to her delight, though a visiting Nelly is horrified.
Depressed over Heathcliff marrying Isabella, Cathy locks herself away in her room and starves herself. Heathcliff has Isabella send Cathy many love letters, but Nelly burns them. Cathy falls ill and miscarries. She tells Nelly she forgives her for the treason of not telling her Heathcliff overheard Cathy's hurtful words.
Nelly rescues Isabella, and reveals to Heathcliff that Cathy will die soon; he rides out on horseback to say a final farewell, only to find when he arrives that she has already passed. Heathcliff holds Cathy’s dead body and begs her to drive him mad and not give him peace as long as he should live without her. He remembers the time after his beating when they were children, atop a bed, when Cathy comforted him and smiled as he promised to never leave her.
Cast
- Margot Robbie as Catherine "Cathy" Earnshaw
- Charlotte Mellington as young Catherine Earnshaw
- Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff
- Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff
- Hong Chau as Nelly Dean
- Vy Nguyen as young Nelly Dean
- Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton
- Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton
- Martin Clunes as Mr. Earnshaw
- Ewan Mitchell as Joseph
In July 2024, filmmaker Emerald Fennell announced that she would write and direct an adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. In September 2024, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi were cast as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, respectively, with Robbie also producing under her label LuckyChap Entertainment alongside financer MRC. Robbie previously produced Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023), the latter of which starred Elordi.[4]
A bidding war in October led Netflix to bid $150 million for the distribution rights.[5] Warner Bros. Pictures, with whom LuckyChap has a first-look deal and made Barbie (2023), ultimately won the rights with a significantly lower offer of $80 million after granting Fennell and Robbie's wishes for the film to have a theatrical release and a significant marketing campaign.[6][5]
Elordi had been contemplating taking a hiatus from acting before Fennell offered him the lead role without having to audition.[7] The decision to cast a white actor as the racially ambiguous Heathcliff, described as resembling a "dark-skinned gipsy" or "Lascar" in the novel, sparked controversy.[8] In November 2024, Hong Chau, Alison Oliver (who starred in Saltburn), and Shazad Latif joined the cast.[9] In March 2025, Charlotte Mellington, Owen Cooper, and Vy Nguyen (all three making their film debuts) were announced as playing young Catherine, Heathcliff, and Nelly.[10] In September 2025, Fennell defended her decision to cast Elordi, stating that he "looked exactly like the illustration of Heathcliff on the first book that I read."[11
Filming
Principal photography took place in the United Kingdom from late January to early April 2025, using 35mm VistaVision cameras. Filming occurred at Sky Studios Elstree, with location shooting in the Yorkshire Dales including the valleys of Arkengarthdale and Swaledale, the village of Low Row, and the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Linus Sandgren was the cinematographer. During the first week of filming, Elordi accidentally gave himself a second degree burn when he stepped back against a steaming hot brass knob while taking a shower and had to go to the hospital.
Music
Anthony Willis composed the score for the film, after having worked with Fennell on Saltburn, with Charli XCX contributing an album of original songs.[17][18] The lead single, "House" featuring Welsh musician John Cale, was released on November 10, 2025,[19] alongside a music video directed by Mitch Ryan.[20] A second song, "Chains of Love", was released on November 13, coinciding with the film's theatrical trailer, which also featured the song.[18] A third single, "Wall of Sound", was released on January 16th.[21]
Influences
In preparation for creating Wuthering Heights, Fennell rewatched some of her "favorite 'love stories', ones that challenged, subverted, even obliterated the conventions of the genre". The films listed by Fennell as influences for Wuthering Heights were Random Harvest (1942), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Donkey Skin (1970), The Night Porter (1974), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Crash (1996), Romeo + Juliet (1996), The End of the Affair (1999), Romance (1999), Bluebeard (2009), The Handmaiden (2016), and The Beguiled (2017).[22]
Marketing
The film's first trailer and poster, the latter of which paid homage to Gone with the Wind (1939), were released online on September 3, 2025, after promotional billboards appeared in multiple cities, including New York City, London, and Los Angeles.[23] The film's title treatment was designed by Chips, a design studio based in Brooklyn, New York. It is based on a poster from an earlier adaptation Wuthering Heights (1920), starring Milton Rosmer.[24]
The film's title is stylized with quotation marks. Fennell stated that "any adaptation of a novel" should be enclosed in quotation marks: "The thing for me is that you can't adapt a book as dense and complicated and difficult as this book. I can't say I'm making Wuthering Heights. It's not possible. What I can say is I'm making a version of it."[25] On January 20, 2026, Elordi and Robbie were announced as the cover stars of Vogue Australia's February 2026 issue.[26]
Release
On January 28, 2026, Wuthering Heights had its world premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.[27] Wuthering Heights is scheduled for release in the United States and the United Kingdom on February 13, 2026, on the eve of Valentine's Day.[28] It is slated to release in IMAX cinemas.[29]
Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, Wuthering Heights is scheduled to be released alongside Crime 101 and Goat, and is projected to gross $50–55 million from 3,600 theaters in its four-day opening weekend.[2]
Critical response
Wuthering Heights was met with mixed reviews from critics.[30][31] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 65% of 164 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Liberally adapting Emily Brontë's classic story with a heavy dose of carnality and chic stylization, Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights might not be the stuff of high literature but it is a visually vibrant pleasure."[32] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 57 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[33]
David Sims of The Atlantic called Wuthering Heights a "heaving, rip-snortingly carnal good time."[34] By contrast, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described the film as "an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire."[35] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle concluded, "Fennell boxes herself in. By giving Cathy and Heathcliff an intense sex life, she gets them ready for the next step[,] but there can’t be [one], because this is 'Wuthering Heights.' ... So she gives away all the story’s power of spiritual and sexual longing without gaining a thing[.]
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