Wuthering Heights
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Emerald Fennell
Screenplay by Emerald Fennell
Based on Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Linus Sandgren
Edited by Victoria Boydell
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates
Running time
136 minutes[1]
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
Language English
Budget $80 million[2]
Box office $197.2 million[3][4]

Wuthering Heights (stylized with quotation marks) is a 2026 romantic period drama film produced, written and directed by Emerald Fennell. Loosely based on the 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, the film was intended by Fennell to "recreate the feeling of a teenage girl reading this book for the first time."[5] Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi respectively star as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, 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, California on January 28, 2026, and was released in the United Kingdom and United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on February 13. The film received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed $197.2 million worldwide.

Plot

In 1771, 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 become inseparable. After they are trapped in the rain and return home late on Mr. Earnshaw's birthday, Heathcliff assumes the blame and receives 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 to court her new neighbor, wealthy textile merchant Edgar Linton, to escape Wuthering Heights' bleak environment and help bring the lowly servant Heathcliff, now long-haired and bearded, into high society, though Heathcliff is jealous and disapproves.

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 is smitten by Cathy and proposes marriage, which she accepts. She returns home fancily dressed; Heathcliff is standoffish.

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, but Cathy rejects Heathcliff's kiss.

While expressing to Nelly her guilt over choosing Edgar over Heathcliff, Cathy's words about how it would degrade her to marry impoverished Heathcliff are overheard by him. However, he leaves before Cathy professes that their souls are entwined. Much to Cathy's sorrow, the now heartbroken Heathcliff rides on horseback into the sunset.

A year later, Cathy marries Edgar and lives a lavish lifestyle at their home, Thrushcross Grange, where her room's walls made to resemble her skin. Isabella arranges for fine dresses for Cathy and makes a Cathy doll with Cathy's own hair. However, Cathy longs for Heathcliff's return.

Years later, Cathy is pregnant with Edgar's child. Heathcliff returns five years after his departure. He is well-groomed and 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. Isabella, who is infatuated with Heathcliff, lashes out at Cathy after she tells her that Heathcliff is not good for her. Soon, Cathy finds the Cathy doll stabbed and bloody in the dollhouse. Heathcliff begins an intense sexual affair with Cathy.

After Cathy realizes Nelly knew Heathcliff was listening when Cathy said marrying him would degrade her, she tries to banish Nelly. Nelly reveals the affair to Edgar, who forbids Cathy from seeing Heathcliff. Cathy reveals her pregnancy to Heathcliff, who claims to not mind, before having sex with her. He offers to kill Edgar, which Cathy rejects, and she dismisses him. Furious, Heathcliff enters into a loveless, BDSM relationship with Isabella, who understands the terms of the relationship and Heathcliff's motivations for starting it and consents to participation. Heathcliff degrades Isabella and treats her like a dog, horrifying a visiting Nelly.

Depressed over Heathcliff marrying Isabella, Cathy locks herself in her room and starves herself. Heathcliff has Isabella send Cathy love letters, but Nelly burns them. Cathy becomes septicemic from the long-untreated miscarriage. She tells Nelly she forgives her treason of not telling her that Heathcliff overheard Cathy's hurtful words.

Nelly rescues Isabella and reveals to Heathcliff that Cathy is dying. He rides out on horseback, only to find when he arrives that she has already died. Heathcliff holds Cathy's dead body and begs her to drive him mad and not give him peace as long as he should live. 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

  • Charlotte Mellington as young Catherine Earnshaw
  • Vy Nguyen as young Nelly Dean

Production

Development and casting

Writer–director Emerald Fennell and actress Margot Robbie also produced the film.

In July 2024, filmmaker Emerald Fennell announced that she would write and direct an adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.[6] 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.[7] For her approach to adapting Brontë's novel, Fennell decided against a faithful retelling of its story, stating that her main intention was to "try and recreate the feeling of a teenage girl reading this book for the first time."[5]

A bidding war in October led Netflix to bid $150 million for the distribution rights.[8] 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.[9][8]

Elordi had been contemplating taking a hiatus from acting before Fennell offered him the lead role without having to audition.[10] 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.[11] 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."[12] In November 2024, Hong Chau, Alison Oliver (who starred in Saltburn), and Shazad Latif joined the cast.[13] 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.[14]

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.[15][16][17] Linus Sandgren was the cinematographer.[18] 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.[19]

Music

Main articles: Wuthering Heights (soundtrack) and Wuthering Heights (score)

Anthony Willis composed the score for the film, after having worked with Fennell on Saltburn, with Charli XCX contributing an album of original songs.[20][21] The lead single, "House" featuring Welsh musician John Cale, was released on November 10, 2025,[22] alongside a music video directed by Mitch Ryan.[23] A second song, "Chains of Love", was released on November 13, coinciding with the film's theatrical trailer, which also featured the song.[21] Two further singles were released, "Wall of Sound" on January 16, 2026,[24] and "Always Everywhere" on February 13, the same day as the album.[25]

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).[26]

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.[27] 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.[28]

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."[29] On January 20, 2026, Elordi and Robbie were announced as the cover stars of Vogue Australia's February 2026 issue.[30]

Release

On January 28, 2026, Wuthering Heights had its world premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre.[31] Wuthering Heights was released in the United States and the United Kingdom on February 13, 2026, on the eve of Valentine's Day.[32] It is slated to release in IMAX cinemas.[33]

Reception

Box office

As of March 3, 2026, Wuthering Heights has grossed $73.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $123.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $197.2 million.[4]

In the United States and Canada, Wuthering Heights was released alongside Crime 101, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, and Goat, and was projected to gross $50–55 million from 3,600 theaters in its four-day opening weekend.[2] The film grossed $11 million on its first day, including $3 million in previews.[34] It went on to debut at $37.5 million over the four-day Presidents' Day weekend, topping the box office but finishing below expectations.[35] In its second weekend, the film grossed $14.2 million, finishing second place behind Goat.[36]

Critical response

Metacritic review breakdown

Positive
​
23 (40%)
Mixed
​
29 (50%)
Negative
​
6 (10%)

Wuthering Heights was met with mixed reviews from critics.[37][38] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 58% of 322 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."[39] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 58 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[40] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[41]

David Sims of The Atlantic called Wuthering Heights a "heaving, rip-snortingly carnal good time".[42] By contrast, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described the film as "an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire".[43] 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."[44] Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail stated that "no amount of meticulously composed shots trained on aspic-entombed prawns or freakishly large glazed strawberries can distract from the gaping holes in absolutely everything else on the screen, including its frequently drenched stars".[45]

References

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  3. ^ "Wuthering Heights". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 4, 2026.
  4. ^ a b "Wuthering Heights — Box Office and Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved March 4, 2026.
  5. ^ a b The Run-Through with Vogue; Vogue (February 18, 2026). Emerald Fennell: Adapting "Wuthering Heights" & Crushing Eggs. YouTube. Event occurs at 8:14. Retrieved February 22, 2026.
  6. ^ Mitchell, Harriet (July 13, 2024). "Emerald Fennell reveals next movie following Saltburn success". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on July 13, 2024. Retrieved July 13, 2024.
  7. ^ Kroll, Justin (September 23, 2024). "Margot Robbie And Jacob Elordi To Star In Emerald Fennell's Adaptation Of Wuthering Heights From MRC And LuckyChap". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Belloni, Matthew (October 11, 2024). "What I'm Hearing: A New Oscars Plan, Netflix's Wuthering Bid & Bela's Book". Puck. Retrieved October 13, 2024.
  9. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr (October 24, 2024). "Warner Bros' Global Theatrical Commitment Wins Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights; Margot Robbie & Jacob Elordi Star In MRC Package With LuckyChap Producing". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
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  21. ^ a b Strauss, Matthew (November 13, 2025). "Charli XCX Announces New Album Wuthering Heights, Shares New Song "Chains of Love"". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 13, 2025.
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  41. ^ "Home". CinemaScore. Retrieved February 14, 2026.
  42. ^ Sims, David (February 9, 2026). "An Erotically Untamed Take on Wuthering Heights". The Atlantic. Retrieved February 9, 2026.
  43. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (February 9, 2026). "Wuthering Heights review: too hot, too greedy adaptation guarantees bad dreams in the night". The Guardian. Retrieved February 9, 2026.
  44. ^ LaSalle, Mick (February 10, 2026). "Emerald Fennell's sexed-up 'Wuthering Heights' just hangs limp". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved February 12, 2026.
  45. ^ Hertz, Barry (February 10, 2026). "Garish and silly 'Wuthering Heights' strands Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi on the moors forevermore". The Globe and the Mail. Retrieved February 15, 2026.