--- title: "A Little Princess" year: 1995 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-little-princess" fi1m_score: 84 critics_score: 86 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-20T09:17:23.757062+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T09:17:24.400654+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Little Princess (1995) Directed by Alfonso Cuarón · 1h 37m · MPA G · Drama, Family, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 84** · Critics 86 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* A school painted in one shade of green, a war nobody mentions, and a girl who refuses to stop telling stories > Alfonso Cuarón’s first American film turns Frances Hodgson Burnett’s boarding-school story into something green, gold and unhurried, with a child lead who never begs for our sympathy. The villain is cardboard and the last act leans on luck, but it is a lovely thing. ## Synopsis India, during the First World War. Sara Crewe (Liesel Pritzker Simmons) has grown up in the sun with her father, Captain Crewe (Liam Cunningham), who tells her stories from the Ramayana and lets her believe she is a princess. When he is called to the front he takes her to New York, to Miss Minchin’s Seminary for Girls, where the headmistress (Eleanor Bron) sees a rich man’s daughter and gives her the best room in the house. Sara makes friends: Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester), the servant girl who sleeps in the attic, and small Lottie (Kelsey Mulrooney), who cries for a mother she has lost. At night she tells the other girls stories. Then a man arrives with papers, and Miss Minchin moves Sara upstairs and puts her to work. ## Review Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel puts Sara Crewe in a London boarding school in the last years of the Victorian age. Elizabeth Chandler and Richard LaGravenese’s screenplay moves her to New York and brings the calendar forward to the First World War, so that Captain Crewe (Liam Cunningham) leaves his daughter for the trenches. It is the right change. It gives the film a war on the far side of the ocean that nobody at the school will discuss, and it gives Alfonso Cuarón, directing his first American film, a reason to make Miss Minchin’s Seminary for Girls look like a house where somebody has turned the lights down on purpose. This is a fine children’s film, and one of the few we would put on for a room with no children in it. Bo Welch built the seminary as one tall, narrow house, and Emmanuel Lubezki lights it green from the skirting boards to the ceiling: green walls, green stair carpet, green daylight through the tall windows. The India Sara has left behind is gold and dust, and the stories she tells the other girls after lights-out are staged in full, with Cunningham doubling as Prince Rama in a painted forest and a demon with a great many heads waiting at the end of it. Judianna Makovsky puts Sara in cream and pale yellow, so that for her first week she looks as though she has walked in from a different film. Patrick Doyle’s score is choir and strings and does not apologise for either. The scene that got us is a small one. Sara and Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester), the servant girl who sleeps in the next attic, wake to snow coming in through the skylight. Sara treats it as a visit rather than a leak, and Steven Weisberg holds on Chester’s face while she decides whether to believe her. It moved us more than we expected two children in a cold room to manage, and we think it is because the film has been so patient about the cold. We have watched Sara scrub floors and eat dry bread up there for long enough that a handful of snow feels like a present. What happens in that room a night or two later is the film’s best-known sequence, and we will not describe it. Liesel Pritzker Simmons was not a practised child actress when this was made, and it helps. She says the lines plainly, does not widen her eyes, and when Sara tells Miss Minchin to her face that every girl is a princess it comes out as a statement of fact rather than a speech. Eleanor Bron plays Minchin with a straight back and a jaw held so tight you could crack a nut on it. Rusty Schwimmer, as her sister Amelia, is the soft one, forever caught between a scolding and a biscuit. Vincent Schiavelli turns up as Mr. Barrow, the man with the papers, and looks, as he generally did, as if he has come to measure the house for a coffin. The flaws are in the writing. Minchin is a villain with no second thought in her; Bron is allowed one moment of self-pity late on and the film hurries her past it. The last third runs on coincidence, and the house next door turns out to be conveniently arranged. The Ramayana interludes are the best things here and there are not enough of them; they stop once the plot gets busy, as though nobody quite trusted a young audience to sit through a fourth. And the war, having been brought in to raise the stakes, is put away again the moment it has done its job. Cuarón and Lubezki went on to make [*Children of Men*](https://film.one/film/children-of-men) together, and anyone who has seen that will recognise the way the camera here follows a child down a corridor and through a door without a cut. Family films of this period tended to be loud. This one is willing to be quiet, and the quiet is where both the fright and the comfort come from. It runs 97 minutes and carries a U certificate, and it opened in British cinemas on 9 February 1996. Watch it with a child old enough to be frightened by an attic and young enough to want a story to fix it. *Fi1m score 84, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are unanimous in their approval, and unusually consistent about what earns it. Most critics single out Cuarón’s direction, which they credit with taking a child’s imagination seriously rather than talking down to it: the heightened fairy-tale sets, the live-action Ramayana sequences, the snow-shake moment and the rooftop escape are the details that keep recurring. Several note that the film works as well for adults as for children, and that its case for magic and dignity is made through pictures rather than speeches. Where they part is on the source. Empire and The New York Times both record that Cuarón takes liberties with Burnett’s novel, and both approve, the latter calling it reinvention rather than embalming. Nobody registers a genuine reservation; the spread runs from admiring to rapturous, with the 1995 notices warmest and the later reappraisals from Vulture, Time Out and IndieWire a shade cooler while still calling it the best version of the story. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Variety**, Todd McCarthy (95/100, inferred): An astonishing work of studio artifice, the film is a rare children's movie that plays equally well to kids and adults, stressing the importance of magic and imagination in life. Cuarón's Hollywood debut is dazzling, with a riot of cinematic imagination and a visual style that fully expresses the story's themes. [Read](https://variety.com/1995/film/reviews/a-little-princess-1200441773/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (90/100, inferred): The enchanting fantasy takes the philosophy that magic has to be believed to be real and casts the type of spell most family films can only dream about. Cuarón's direction, with simplicity and restraint, creates a sense of wonder through visual and emotional means. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-10-ca-64317-story.html) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (3.5/4): The film is a magical family story based on Frances Hodgson Burnett that treats children's imaginations with respect and places them in wondrous, detailed settings. Cuarón's direction brings precise magic realism to the sets and situations, emphasizing wonder and pluck over action. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-little-princess-1995) - **Empire**, Caroline Westbrook (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the adaptation beautifully made and enjoyable with true universal appeal despite liberties taken with the source material. Cuarón's magical fairy-tale direction and the performances, especially by the young cast and the headmistress, are singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/little-princess-review/) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (85/100, inferred): The film achieves an irresistible bright, beautiful and enchantingly childlike vision that revels in exuberant play and a wittily heightened fairy-tale reality. Cuarón takes liberties to reinvent the story rather than embalm it, resulting in a spirited and pretty delight. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/10/movies/film-review-fairy-tale-doing-a-child-s-job-reveling-in-exuberant-play.html) - **Vulture** (85/100, inferred): The critic highly appreciates Cuarón's 1995 adaptation as one of his best films, praising its magical yet grounded storytelling. They single out the inventive live-action Ramayana sequences and the emotional father-daughter reunion for particular praise. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2013/10/alfonso-cuaron-a-little-princess-appreciation.html) - **IndieWire**, Kate Erbland (80/100, inferred): The critic calls Cuarón's film the best cinematic version of the story, commending how it richly bridges magic and reality. They highlight its enriching emotional and visual approach to the fairy tale. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/watch-a-little-princess-hbo-max-stream-of-the-day-1234577655/) - **Time Out**, WH (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Cuarón's adaptation of the Burnett novel, updated to WWI, for transforming melodramatic elements into a humanist rites-of-passage story with skill and sensitivity. They single out the audacious Bollywood-style myth sequences, Lean-like rooftop escape, magical snow-shake moment, and Sara's defiant declaration as a defence of dignity and dreams. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/a-little-princess) ## Details - **Director:** Alfonso Cuarón - **Director:** Alfonso Cuarón - **Screenplay:** Richard LaGravenese, Elizabeth Chandler - **Novel:** Frances Hodgson Burnett - **Cinematography:** Emmanuel Lubezki - **Editor:** Steven Weisberg - **Music:** Patrick Doyle - **Production design:** Bo Welch - **Costume design:** Judianna Makovsky - **Producer:** Mark Johnson - **Cast:** Liesel Pritzker Simmons as Sara Crewe; Eleanor Bron as Miss Minchin; Liam Cunningham as Capt. Crewe / Prince Rama; Rusty Schwimmer as Amelia Minchin; Vanessa Lee Chester as Becky; Rachael Bella as Betsy; Camilla Belle as Jane; Kelsey Mulrooney as Lottie - **Runtime:** 1h 37m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 10 May 1995 - **Genres:** Drama, Family, Fantasy - **Budget:** $17 million - **Box office:** $10 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1996: Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Production Design (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Secret Garden* (1993): Burnett’s other orphan, filmed by Agnieszka Holland with the same patience and better weather. - *Pan's Labyrinth* (2006), Fi1m 87: A girl tells herself stories to survive a war; this time the stories bite back. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/pans-labyrinth.md) - *Matilda* (1996): Another small girl, another monstrous headmistress, played for laughs and landing most of them. - *The Fall* (2006): A bedside storyteller and a child listener, with the tales staged as painted spectacle. - *Fanny and Alexander* (1982), Fi1m 92: Bergman’s children pass from a warm house to a cold one and imagination fights back. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/fanny-and-alexander.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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