The discourse about Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has been continuous since the trailer dropped last fall. The casting of Margot Robbie as eighteen-year-old Cathy. The casting of Jacob Elordi as a Heathcliff that Emily Brontë explicitly described as “dark-skinned” in the novel’s first chapter. The Charli XCX-soundtracked Valentine’s Day marketing campaign that sold the film as a steamy rom-com when the book is famously a tale of obsession, revenge, and class violence. The decision to put the title in quotation marks because Fennell said no one can actually adapt a book like Wuthering Heights, you can only make “a version of it.”
None of it has slowed the movie down. “Wuthering Heights” grossed $241.3 million worldwide on an $80 million budget, became the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2026 to date, hit HBO Max on May 1, and within twenty-four hours of streaming debut was the #1 film globally on the platform across thirty-two countries.
So now is the moment to acknowledge that whatever you think about Emerald Fennell’s adaptive choices — and there is no neutral position about Fennell’s adaptive choices — Wuthering Heights has won. It is the rare R-rated literary adaptation in 2026 that has out-performed everyone’s box-office projections, picked up real audience love (76% on Rotten Tomatoes) alongside a more reserved 58% critics score, and now arrives on HBO Max as a streaming event film rather than a streaming arrival.
For those who haven’t kept up: the film is, technically, an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel about Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the doomed lovers of the Yorkshire moors. Fennell’s version, in practice, is closer to a kind of fever-dream remix of the source — a film built around what Fennell described as the experience of being a teenage girl reading the book for the first time, anachronistic flourishes and all. THR’s David Rooney called it Fennell’s “most purely entertaining film — pulpy, provocative, drenched in blazing color and opulent design… Wuthering Heights for the Bridgerton generation.” The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “an emotionally hollow, bodice-ripping misfire.” Both are, in their way, correct, depending on the day and the viewer.
The supporting cast is exactly as star-studded as a Fennell film tends to be: Hong Chau as Nelly Dean, Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton, Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton, Martin Clunes as Mr. Earnshaw, Ewan Mitchell as Joseph. The Charli XCX soundtrack delivered four singles and an album. The Anthony Willis score is the same Anthony Willis who did Saltburn, which gives you a pretty clear read on the tonal lane Fennell is operating in.
What’s most interesting about Wuthering Heights‘ streaming performance is that the film, despite its theatrical success, was a strong word-of-mouth movie. It dominated cinemas for two weeks until Scream 7 knocked it from the top spot, then sustained on long tail. Audiences who weren’t sure about the casting or the Fennell-ification of a beloved novel went anyway, told friends to go anyway, and apparently are now telling their HBO Max subscriber friends to queue it up.
If you missed it in theaters because you decided the discourse was telling you not to bother, this is now a no-cost decision. “Wuthering Heights” is on HBO Max, the algorithm is going to put it in front of you, and you can finally form your own opinion about whether Fennell’s adaptation is Wuthering Heights for the Bridgerton generation or Wuthering Heights for nobody at all.
Both answers are, again, defensible. That’s why the movie keeps winning.
