The top 16 Jane Austen adaptations on screen, from Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility to Alicia Silverstone in Clueless
There are so many Jane Austen adaptations for film and TV that it is hard to keep up. But which ones are any good?
Next month, Autumn de Wilde’s big-screen adaptation of Austen’s beloved novel Emma is out on Valentine’s Day.
It stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the high-spirited protagonist Emma Woodhouse, who is a relentless matchmaker in the romantic lives of friends and family.
Also in the cast are Johnny Flynn as the dashing George Knightley, whom Emma eventually realises she loves, while Bill Nighy plays her father, Mr Woodhouse.
If the trailer is anything to go by, it looks a bit cheesy but it will no doubt attract Downton Abbey fans who can’t get enough of sagas in big ancestral homes.
Austen’s novel, which was originally published in 1815, has already been adapted for TV and into films a total of six times since 1948: three films (one of them for TV) and three mini-series.
Although memorable, the four-part BBC TV series Emma in 2009, which starred Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller, was criticised by The Independent for casting problems – mainly that Lee Miller was not convincing as a “surprising love object”. The 1996 film, starring Gwyneth Paltrow opposite Jeremy Northam, was positively received thanks to her radiant and lofty performance.
But it’s the 1996 ITV film adaptation by Andrew Davies, with Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong in the title roles, that is still considered superior by critics.
Austen wrote six full-length novels before she died – Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816) – while Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in 1818.
She began another novel Sanditon but died before it was finished. But it still managed to get turned into an ITV series last year.
There is also a short epistolary novel Lady Susan – the inspiration for the acclaimed 2006 film Love and Friendship, as well as an abandoned novel The Watsons, which so far has only been turned into a play by Laura Wade, who is better known for her stage hit Posh.
With so many Austen costume dramas on the big and small screen, we rank some of the best – as well as mention the worst.
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