---
title: "Wuthering Heights"
year: 1939
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/wuthering-heights"
fi1m_id: "wuthering-heights"
imdb_id: "tt0032145"
tmdb_id: 3084
wikidata_id: "Q1140611"
fi1m_score: 76
critics_score: 78
critics_reviews: 6
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:44.961128+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."
---

# Wuthering Heights (1939)

Directed by William Wyler · 1h 44m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance

## Identity

Wuthering Heights

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/wuthering-heights
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** wuthering-heights
- **IMDb ID:** tt0032145
- **TMDB ID:** 3084
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1140611
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032145/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/3084, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1140611

**Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 78 from 6 reviews

*In a sentence:* The saddest love story ever told by a housekeeper to a stranger who only wanted a bed for the night

> Wyler and Gregg Toland make a handsome, shadowed version of Brontë, and Olivier’s Heathcliff still has heat in him. But Hecht and MacArthur have cut the book in half, and Merle Oberon’s Cathy is more gown than storm.

## Synopsis

A traveller named Lockwood (Miles Mander) loses his way in a snowstorm on the Yorkshire moors and shelters at Wuthering Heights, a farmhouse whose master, Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), does not want him there. In the night a woman’s voice calls from the moor. The housekeeper, Ellen Dean (Flora Robson), sits Lockwood by the fire and tells him how the house came to this: how a foundling boy grew up alongside Cathy Earnshaw (Merle Oberon), how her brother Hindley (Hugh Williams) treated him, and how the Lintons of Thrushcross Grange, Edgar (David Niven) and Isabella (Geraldine Fitzgerald), came between them. William Wyler directs from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, adapted from Emily Brontë’s novel.

## Review

A traveller called Lockwood (Miles Mander) loses his way in a snowstorm on the Yorkshire moors and knocks at the nearest door. The house is Wuthering Heights, its master is Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), and neither wants him. Lockwood is given a bed in a shut-up room, hears a woman calling from the moor in the night, and in the morning the housekeeper, Ellen Dean (Flora Robson), sits him by the fire and tells him how the house came to be like this. William Wyler’s film, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur from Emily Brontë’s novel of 1847, tells her story of Cathy and Heathcliff to the end of its first half and no further.

It is good, and worth your evening, for its rooms, for faces coming out of the dark, and for Olivier. It is less good at the moor, at Cathy, and at the half of the book it has decided is not there. The first ten minutes frightened us, and nothing later in the film moved us as much. Gregg Toland lights the Heights as a low black box where a single candle finds one face at a time; the snow comes through the door in a sheet; and when the voice calls from outside, Olivier goes to the window as if he has been waiting years for it.

Toland gives the two houses two kinds of light. The Heights is all shadow and a fire that never seems to warm anyone. Thrushcross Grange, where the Lintons live, is white walls, tall windows and daylight, and Omar Kiam dresses Cathy there in wide pale gowns from a smarter decade than the one Brontë wrote about. Daniel Mandell cuts between the two with slow dissolves, so that years pass and nobody seems to have moved. Alfred Newman’s score is the one department that does not know when to stop; the strings arrive a bar before the feeling does, every time.

Olivier plays Heathcliff angry from the first frame to the last. As the stable boy he has dirt on his face and watches Cathy ride off to the Grange with the look of a dog left in the rain. When he comes back years later in a good black coat he holds himself exactly the same way, and that is the point: money has not touched him. He barks some of his lines at the ceiling, and Wyler lets him, but when he stands still and looks at Oberon the film has heat in it.

Merle Oberon is lovely, pleasant and composed, and Cathy Earnshaw should be none of those things. Sarita Wooton, who plays her as a child, has more of the wild in her in ten minutes on Penistone Crag than Oberon finds in the following ninety. David Niven does something useful with Edgar Linton, who is usually a mistake in a cravat; here he is a decent man who knows he is second and marries her anyway. Flora Robson is the spine of the film, telling the story without once telling us how to feel about it. Geraldine Fitzgerald’s Isabella wants Heathcliff with a clarity nobody else in the film manages, and what happens to her belongs to the second half.

Hecht and MacArthur have cut the book in two and kept the half with the love story in it. The second generation, the children and the long revenge, are gone entirely, and the film is neater and smaller for it. Brontë’s Heathcliff is something closer to weather; theirs is a jilted man. If you have never read the novel you will not miss what is missing.

Wyler is a director of doorways and staircases rather than horizons, and this is a story that wants a horizon. The moor scenes look like a hill somebody has dressed with heather, and the wind is doing most of the acting. Indoors, where he can put one person in the foreground and another at the far end of a dark hall, he is as sure as he ever was.

Watch it for the houses, not the moors. If you know the book, make your peace with losing half of it before the lights go down; if you do not, this is a fair place to meet Heathcliff, and Olivier will see to it that you remember him.

*Fi1m score 76, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews are unanimous and closely grouped, running from reserved approval to open admiration, with nobody arguing against the film. The praise clusters on Laurence Olivier, whose Heathcliff every critic singles out, and Merle Oberon is admired alongside him, if less warmly. William Wyler’s direction is credited across the board with the sombre, ghostly mood, and Gregg Toland’s photography and the handsome design get repeated mentions as the reason the moors and the confining interiors feel as they do.

The reservations are mild and mostly about fidelity: Empire notes that more than half the novel has been thrown out in favour of melodrama, though it still counts the result as well worth watching. Variety, the coolest of the six, calls it an artistic success suited to a select audience rather than a broad one. The notices from 1939 and those written decades later agree on almost every point.

## Straight answers

**Is Wuthering Heights worth watching?**

*Wuthering Heights* is worth an evening for Gregg Toland's candlelit rooms and for Laurence Olivier's Heathcliff, and we scored it 76. It is less good on the moors, which look like a dressed hill, and Merle Oberon's Cathy is too composed for the part. Watch it for the houses, not the horizon.

**How long is Wuthering Heights, and what is it rated?**

*Wuthering Heights* runs 1h 44m and is rated NR by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and romance film.

**Where can I watch Wuthering Heights in the US?**

*Wuthering Heights* is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How does Wuthering Heights compare to Rebecca?**

*Wuthering Heights* and [*Rebecca*](https://film.one/film/rebecca) both put Laurence Olivier in a great house haunted by an absent woman, but they are different kinds of film. Hitchcock's is the more unsettling and the more precisely controlled, even if its closing stretch slackens; Wyler's is a cut-down romance with better rooms than storms. For unease, choose *Rebecca*; for Olivier at his angriest, this one.

**Is Wuthering Heights based on a true story or a book?**

*Wuthering Heights* is based on Emily Brontë's novel of 1847, not on a true story. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur keep only the first half, the love story of Cathy and Heathcliff, and drop the second generation and the long revenge entirely. If you have not read the book you will not notice what is missing; if you have, expect a neater, smaller film.

**What should I watch after Wuthering Heights?**

After *Wuthering Heights*, try [*Rebecca*](https://film.one/film/rebecca) (1940, Fi1m 85): Olivier again, another great house with a woman’s ghost in every room. Then [*The Heiress*](https://film.one/film/the-heiress) (1949, Fi1m 90): Wyler indoors, where he belongs, with a staircase that does more than most actors; and [*Jane Eyre*](https://film.one/film/jane-eyre) (2011, Fi1m 77): The other Brontë, shot cold and close, with Fassbender glowering to good effect.

### Reviews we read (6)

- **The New York Times**, Frank S. Nugent (85/100, inferred): The review lauds the Hollywood adaptation for capturing the wild, passionate essence of the novel, highlighting Laurence Olivier's perfect casting as Heathcliff and the overall compelling, somber mood achieved by director William Wyler. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1939/04/16/archives/the-notsoprim-victorians-wuthering-heights-emily-brontes-centuryold.html)
- **Empire**, David Parkinson (80/100, inferred): The film epitomises Hollywood's attitude to prestige projects by jettisoning over half the novel for melodrama. Gregg Toland's Oscar-winning photography is superb and Wyler directs with typical assurance, with Niven and Olivier at their best ensuring quality viewing. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/wuthering-heights-2-review/)
- **The New Yorker**, John C. Mosher (80/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a faithful and stirring adaptation of the novel's fierce tragedy, praising William Wyler's direction for capturing the ghostliness of the moors and the performances of Merle Oberon and especially Laurence Olivier. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1939/04/15/1939-04-15-099-tny-cards-000053252)
- **Time Out**, MA (75/100, inferred): Wyler's 1939 adaptation succeeds as fulsome melodrama thanks to its handsome design and cinematography. It is praised especially for strong performances, notably Laurence Olivier at the peak of his romantic lead period. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/wuthering-heights-1)
- **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The review notes it is an artistic success suited for class audiences due to its somber psychological tragedy, praising the strong performances especially by Olivier and Oberon, and the high production values under Wyler's deliberate direction. [Read](https://variety.com/1939/film/reviews/wuthering-heights-2-1200412239/)
- **Paste**, Anna McKibbin (80/100, inferred): The critic praises Wyler's 1939 adaptation for capturing the dark, gothic intensity of the love between Cathy and Heathcliff through strong performances by Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, and its focus on shadowy, confining spaces that underscore the impure, haunting nature of their relationship. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/emily-bronte/wuthering-heights-emily-bronte-william-wyler-gothic-romance)

## Details

- **Director:** William Wyler
- **Director:** William Wyler
- **Screenplay:** Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur
- **Novel:** Emily Brontë
- **Cinematography:** Gregg Toland
- **Editor:** Daniel Mandell
- **Music:** Alfred Newman
- **Costume design:** Omar Kiam
- **Producer:** Samuel Goldwyn
- **Cast:** Merle Oberon as Catherine 'Cathy' Earnshaw Linton; Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff; David Niven as Edgar Linton; Flora Robson as Ellen Dean; Donald Crisp as Dr. Kenneth; Geraldine Fitzgerald as Isabella Linton; Hugh Williams as Hindley Earnshaw; Leo G. Carroll as Joseph
- **Runtime:** 1h 44m
- **Certificate (MPA):** NR
- **Release (the US):** 7 April 1939
- **Genres:** Drama, Romance
- **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 1939)

## Where to watch in the US

- Amazon Prime Video: streaming
- Tubi: free, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $10.99, hd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AU, CA, GB, IE, JP, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 1940: Best Actor (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Original Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Production Design (nominated); Best Supporting Actress (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (won)

## If you liked this

- *Rebecca* (1940), Fi1m 85: Olivier again, another great house with a woman’s ghost in every room. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/rebecca.md)
- *Abismos de pasión* (1954): Buñuel takes Brontë to Mexico and keeps the cruelty Hollywood tidied away.
- *The Heiress* (1949), Fi1m 90: Wyler indoors, where he belongs, with a staircase that does more than most actors. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-heiress.md)
- *Wuthering Heights* (2011): Andrea Arnold’s version puts the mud and weather back and drops the score.
- *Jane Eyre* (2011), Fi1m 77: The other Brontë, shot cold and close, with Fassbender glowering to good effect. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/jane-eyre.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/wuthering-heights