The Best Jane Austen Movie and TV Adaptations

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Austen purists love to compare the 1995 miniseries to the 2005 remake. By nature of being a series rather than a film, the ’90s version was able to really dive into the source material — and give us a very broody Firth as Mr. Darcy.

The British limited series starred Jennifer Ehle as a dignified, poised Elizabeth and cemented Firth’s status as a sex symbol. This version also likely kicked off the modern fervor for Austen adaptations.

You also simply haven’t lived until you’ve seen Firth emerge from a lake in a white shirt.

Watch Pride and Prejudice on Hulu

Clueless (1995)

Stop watching this modern retelling of Emma? As if!

High school is the perfect setting for the tale, which follows Cher (Alicia Silverstone) — who represents Austen’s heroine, Emma Woodhouse — as she navigates high school, plays matchmaker for everyone from her teachers to her new friend Tai (the late Brittany Murphy) and fights with her ex-stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd).

Though it takes place in Los Angeles in the ’90s, the film sticks pretty close to the source material in terms of the plot. After all, Cher falling for Josh is just as weird as Emma and the much older, like-a-brother-to-her, Mr. Knightley (in the book, he’s 17 years her senior).

Watch Clueless on Netflix

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

The year 1995 was a big one for Austen fans. Directed by Ang Lee, Sense and Sensibility follows Elinor and Marianne Dashwood (Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, respectively), sisters who are forced to seek financial security through marriage. Their suitors? The dreamy Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant) and the stoic, sympathetic Colonel Brandon (the late Alan Rickman).

However, the course of love never runs smoothly, and there are a few missteps along the way, including through the gorgeous but deceiving Mr. Willoughby, played by Greg Wise.

Thompson won an Oscar for her screenplay adaptation, and both she and Winslet earned acting nominations.

Watch Sense and Sensibility on Amazon Prime Video (to rent or buy)

Emma (1996)

A year after Clueless was released, Gwyneth Paltrow picked up the mantle of Emma Woodhouse, a matchmaker in Victorian England who set up people in her social circle before marrying George Knightley (Jeremy Northam). Paltrow’s Emma had a swan-like grace and beauty, proving there are numerous ways to interpret the nuanced character.

Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, Emma starred other big names like Toni Collette, Alan Cumming and Ewan McGregor. The film made $22 million in its theatrical run, and composer Rachel Portman won an Oscar for the score.

Watch Emma on MG

Mansfield Park (1999)

The witty romantic dramedy kicks off with a young Fanny Price (Hannah Taylor Gordon) — who comes from a poor family — being sent away to live with her wealthy uncle and his wife and children, then jumps forward to the spirited writer in her twenties. Adult Fanny (Frances O’Connor) is treated unfairly by her relatives, save for her cousin Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller). The real wrench in her life, however, comes with the arrival of worldly siblings Mary (Embeth Davidtz) and Henry Crawford (Alessandra Nivola), especially when Fanny’s uncle tries to marry her off to Henry.

The 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park features notable departures from Austen’s 1814 novel, including bringing colonialism and slavery to the forefront, adding in a few scenes that would be considered scandalous in the author’s time and making the film’s heroine more like Austen herself.

Watch Mansfield Park on MGM+

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

Firth returned to the world of Austen to take on the role of barrister Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary, a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice starring Renée Zellweger as the titular heroine, Bridget Jones. The 2001 film follows chainsmoking Bridget on her quest to find love — and quit smoking and drinking along the way. Bridget chronicles her juggling act between two love interests, Mark and her boss Daniel Cleaver (Grant), in her diary.

“I find her so endearing … her self-deprecating sort of determination,” Zellweger said of Bridget on Sirius XM’s The Jess Cagle Show in 2022. “I love her.”

The 2004 sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason also draws inspiration from Austen, though in a loose interpretation of the 1817 novel Persuasion. (Two more movies followed, 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby and 2025’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, but neither is specifically Austen-based.) The Bridget Jones character originated in an unbylined fictional column by Helen Fielding for the U.K. newspaper The Independent in the ’90s, which later became the 1996 novel Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Bride and Prejudice (2004)

A Bollywood take on Austen’s beloved Pride and Prejudice, Bride and Prejudice stars Aishwarya Rai as an Indian woman named Lalita Bakshi, the Elizabeth Bennet character, and Virgin River’s Martin Henderson as a wealthy American man named Will Darcy.

This 2004 adaptation updates the source material by exploring the hurdles of an interracial relationship, while maintaining the social class and economic status issues from the novel and adding lovely, joyous musical numbers.

Watch Bride and Prejudice on Amazon Prime Video (to rent or buy)

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Knightley has become the Queen of the Period Romance, so with the actress at the helm of the 2005 adaptation, the film really plays up the tension between Elizabeth and Darcy (Macfadyen). It’s a fervently romantic take on the novel (how does Macfadyen come out of the mist or rain that often?), with satisfying scenes and dreamy lighting.

Watch Pride & Prejudice on HBO Max

Persuasion (2007)

A historical adaptation of Austen’s 1817 novel of the same name, the 2007 British TV film captures the quiet pining for a second chance at love. The novel’s heroine, Anne Elliot (Sally Hawkins), is persuaded (eh? eh?) to break off her engagement with Captain Frederick Wentworth (Rupert Penry-Jones), only to be reunited with him years later. Hawkins received acclaim for her appealing, vulnerable take on Anne.

Watch Persuasion on Amazon Prime Video

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

In the heyday of YouTube vlogging, we were gifted this fast-paced, addictively retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Created by Hank Green and Bernie Su and starring Ashley Clements as Lizzie Bennet, this series adaptation stays true to the original while freshening the storylines and reimagining some of the relationships.

In this digitally-focused take, Lizzie is a grad student in modern-day California who lives at home with her sisters, Lydia and Jane, and their marriage-focused mom, and Mr. Darcy is the CEO of a software development company. The drama unfolded across 100 four-minute video blogs and required following multiple social media platforms — including YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram — to follow the full story.

Watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube

Austenland (2013)

Austen superfans — and anyone obsessed with a period piece — may see themselves in Jane Hayes (Keri Russell), who finds it impossible to meet a real-life gentleman who lives up to her idealized version of Mr. Darcy. After a breakup, she signs up for the total Austen experience at a themed British resort. As luck would have it, while living like a character out of an Austen novel, Jane meets a standoffish man who initially comes off as rude and pretentious. You see where this is going …

The 2013 film, also starring Jane Seymour and the always hilarious Jennifer Coolidge, includes nods to Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and a piano rendition of Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.”

Watch Austenland on Amazon Prime Video (to rent or buy)

Death Comes to Pemberley (2013)

Based on P.D. James’ 2011 novel of the same name, Death Comes to Pemberley features characters from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and begs the question: What happens if we put them all in a murder mystery?

Watch Death Comes to Pemberley on Amazon Prime Video (to rent or buy)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

This movie is like someone watched the 1995 and 2005 versions of Austen’s novel and said, “Eh, it’s good, but you know what’s missing? Zombies!”

Starring Lily James as Elizabeth Bennet, the film imagines a world in which the Bennet sisters are trained to fight off zombies, even as their mother continues to worry about securing advantageous matches for them.

Watch Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on Amazon Prime Video (to rent or buy)

Love & Friendship (2016)

Written and directed by Whit Stillman, the 2016 film is based on Lady Susan, an epistolary novel Austen wrote before she was 20, published posthumously in 1871. (Austen died in 1817 at age 41, and the film borrows its title from one of her short stories, “Love and Friendship.”) While not one of her more significant works, the story is an unusual one in the Austen canon.

The film follows the deliciously immoral, widowed Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale), who maneuvers, deceives and seduces her way through London and across her relatives’ country estates in an effort to find a wealthy husband for herself and her daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark). Unlike how many women in older novels were treated, however, Lady Susan isn’t punished for her ways, but rather comes out as happily as any of the story’s more virtuous characters, including Frederica, for whom Lady Susan displays no maternal love. In the end, Lady Susan even ends up in a throuple of sorts.

While Love & Friendship isn’t cynical, which would make the tone decidedly un-Austen, the film is slyer and sharper than many adaptations of her work.

Watch Love & Friendship on Amazon Prime Video

Sanditon

Austen’s unfinished, 11-chapter manuscript by the same name served as inspiration for the British TV series, using the author’s work as the jumping-off point for the Sanditon characters across three seasons.

The show — which aired on PBS in the U.S. — revolves around spirited Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams), who finds herself in the fictional seaside town of Sanditon and is surprised by how devious the townsfolk turn out to be. Theo James starred on season 1 as Charlotte’s love interest (and one of Austen’s broody heroes, of course), Sidney Parker. Though James departed after the season finale, there’s plenty of Parker family drama that unfolds for the remainder of the historical drama.

Watch Sanditon on Amazon Prime Video

Emma. (2020)

There’s just something delightful about Anya Taylor-Joy’s take on the meddling, busybody heroine Emma and Johnny Flynn’s swoony Mr. Knightley!

While Austen’s Emma has been retold and reimagined many times, the 2020 Oscar-nominated version captures the depth of each character excitingly. After all, it’s hard not to relate to Knightley confessing his love — “If I loved you less, then I might be able to talk about it more?” — and Emma promptly getting a nosebleed.

Watch Emma. on Peacock

Fire Island (2022)

Written by and starring Joel Kim Booster, the Hulu rom-com is a modern take on Pride and Prejudice, inspired by a real-life trip to New York’s Fire Island.

“On my first trip to Fire Island, the book that I brought was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen,” Booster recalled in a behind-the-scenes featurette shared exclusively with PEOPLE. “Her observations about class and society did scan onto my experience being on this island, seeing how gay men did the same things within our own community.”

Rather than the Bennet sisters, Fire Island focuses on a house full of romantically frustrated queer men. Directed by Andrew Ahn, the movie really plays up the comedy. How could it not with a cast that includes Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho, Matt Rogers and James Scully?

Watch Fire Island on Hulu

Persuasion (2022)

The 2022 Netflix adaptation of Persuasion stars Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot in a modern take on the Austen classic.

Anne is stuck in a love triangle between the one who got away, Captain Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) and blunt opportunist (and her distant cousin) William Elliot (Henry Golding), who isn’t shy about his attempts to seduce Anne or his intentions to inherit the family fortune.

“I think he’s far less complicated than we would imagine he is,” Golding told Town & Country of William in 2022. “He’s one of those people who knows what he wants and is going to mold the universe to his will. Within the story, he has his goal, and he’ll do anything to get it — or to get into the pants of his prospective target. For me, it was a joy to know that, as much as the character goes through, he’s not going to end up with [the] lady. I could just have fun with that.”

The film is the directorial debut of acclaimed theater director Carrie Cracknell and also stars Richard E. Grant, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Mia McKenna-Bruce.

Watch Persuasion on Netflix