If there is one thing that is likely to get movie fans into the cinema, it’s controversy. But as theaters struggle to appeal to a modern audience, Margot Robbie has seemingly cracked the code. The Barbie actor produced and starred in one of the most controversial films of 2026 — if only among literature fans.
Wuthering Heights premiered just in time for Valentine’s Day and was met with a wave of criticism. Adapted from the beloved Gothic novel by Emily Brontë, it seemed that this adaptation would be anything but faithful. Emerald Fennell’s film was the furthest from the source material of all previous attempts to tell this harrowing story.
Brontë’s book was ahead of its time during its publication in the 1800s. The infamous story of the toxic love between Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff was less of a romance and more of a meditation on racism, systemic abuse, and even domestic violence. All of this was stripped away from the adaptation, most significantly by the casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, who is definitely written as a POC in the book. Despite all this — or maybe even because of it — Wuthering Heights was a smash hit in the theaters and another win for Fennell’s controversial brand of filmmaking.
‘Wuthering Heights’ Requires Several Viewings
From its initial announcement, it was clear that Wuthering Heights wasn’t going to appeal to literature fans. The film’s title is in quotation marks, making it clear that this would be Emerald Fennell’s interpretation of the source material. Collider’s own review of Wuthering Heights noted these shortcomings, but there is no question that the film is a source of fascination.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
Fennell never pretended that Wuthering Heights would be faithful, and that is apparent from the film’s opening sequence. The director strips away important characters such as Hindley Earnshaw, which defeats the purpose of Heathcliff’s motivations. But the filmmaker also frames the story in a heavily sexualized atmosphere that is impossible to look away from. Wuthering Heights has all the trappings of a steamy romance, including impressive costuming and powerful cinematography that is impossible to deny. The proof is in the numbers, and according to Box Office Mojo, the film made over $240 million worldwide.
Wuthering Heights has also skyrocketed to number one on HBO Max, showing that if nothing else, fans are willing to spend two hours watching Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi dramatically run around the English moors. Part of this may be due to the escapism of the film. Wuthering Heights can hardly even be called that, considering Cathy Earnshaw’s titular home is only referenced a couple of times. The pop soundtrack by Charlie XCX and the heavily anachronistic wardrobe all come together in a film that takes several viewings to unpack.
The film doesn’t necessarily resonate on any thematic or narrative level, but it is a feast for the eyes. Fennell’s fascination with goop — be it raw eggs or a snail on the window — is part of the strange aesthetic of the film that demands the viewer’s attention. Wuthering Heights is a wild departure from a Gothic novel that canonically has ghosts, but Fennell’s approach to the material was just so crazy that it actually does work.
