ADMIT ONE · Matinee for Two · Seat: Next to Your Sister
As of October 22, 2026, Georgia Oakley's Sense and Sensibility is coming off a No. 5 opening weekend in the US (Oct. 16–18) worth $7.2 million (Box Office Mojo), and audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an A– (Wikipedia)). Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Elinor Dashwood and Esmé Creed-Miles plays Marianne. When their father's estate passes to their half-brother John and his snobbish wife Fanny, the sisters and their mother face potential poverty, move to a Devonshire cottage, and fall for men who keep disappearing on them (Wikipedia)). Rotten Tomatoes' consensus says it puts the sisters' relationship at the front of the story (Wikipedia)).
If you walked out wanting more love tangled up in money, family duty and what the neighbors will say, start here. Eleven period romances below, plus one sisters-first cousin at the bottom.
Heads up: every linked pick is on goodrecmovies, and every one in the main list is a period romance. One coming-of-age cousin gets its own labeled spot. No spoilers past each film's setup.
Same story, other Dashwoods. Ang Lee directs, Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and plays Elinor, and Kate Winslet plays Marianne (Wikipedia)). When Henry Dashwood dies, his wife and three daughters are left with £500 a year, and Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play the suitors. Thompson won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, which made her the only person to win Academy Awards for both acting and screenwriting (Wikipedia)). Watch it second if you want to compare Willoughbys.
Five Bennet sisters, one entailed estate, and a mother who badly needs them married. Keira Knightley plays Elizabeth Bennet, Matthew Macfadyen plays Mr Darcy, and their first proposal goes about as well as Marianne's first trip to London (Wikipedia)). Joe Wright, in his feature debut, and screenwriter Deborah Moggach went for what they called a "muddy hem version" of the period. The other Austen on this page.
Two more sisters, and another house that doesn't go to the person it was meant for. The Schlegel sisters, an intellectual Anglo-German family, get tangled up with the wealthy, conservative Wilcoxes. Ruth Wilcox leaves her beloved country home, Howards End, to Margaret on her deathbed, and her family burns the note (Wikipedia)). Emma Thompson plays Margaret and won Best Actress for it. Anthony Hopkins plays Henry Wilcox, the widower who proposes.
For Marianne people. On holiday in Florence in 1907, Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) gets swept into a kiss in a poppy field by free-spirited George Emerson (Julian Sands). Back home in Surrey she gets engaged to Cecil Vyse, a wealthy, snobbish man who has to ask permission before he kisses her (Wikipedia)). Passion versus the sensible match, in Edwardian clothes.
For Elinor people. In 1870s New York, where old-money families police each other through ostracism, lawyer Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder) and falls for her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) (Wikipedia)). Martin Scorsese directs. It runs on held glances and rules nobody says out loud. Elinor would recognize every one of them.
Three suitors, and the heroine owns the farm. In 1870 Dorset, Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) turns down shepherd Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) because she's too independent, then inherits her uncle's farm. Wealthy bachelor William Boldwood proposes after she sends him a Valentine as a joke, and dashing Sergeant Frank Troy is in the picture too (Wikipedia)). If Willoughby was your type, watch out for Troy.
The gothic one. Mia Wasikowska plays the orphaned governess who takes a post at Thornfield Hall, and Michael Fassbender plays its owner, Edward Rochester, who leaves suddenly to call on Blanche Ingram, the woman the housekeeper says he'll marry (Wikipedia)). Cary Joji Fukunaga directs. Darker and windier than Austen, same ache.
Marriage, inheritance and rank, inspired by a real 1779 portrait. Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy captain, is raised at Kenwood House alongside her cousin Elizabeth. Dido inherits £2,000 a year, Elizabeth gets no income from her own father, and Lord Mansfield decides Dido won't be brought out to society at all (Wikipedia)). Then he takes on a vicar's son, John Davinier, as a law pupil. Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars.
Another pair of sisters, and one letter sent in the wrong draft. In 1935 England, Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the housekeeper's son, finally admit how they feel, and her 13-year-old sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) misreads what she sees, with consequences that run for decades (Wikipedia)). Joe Wright again. The saddest pick here. Keep tissues within reach.
An arranged marriage nobody asked the bride about. In 18th-century France, a painter named Marianne is hired to paint Héloïse, who is about to be married off to a Milanese nobleman and refuses to pose, so Marianne has to paint her in secret (Wikipedia). Céline Sciamma won Best Screenplay at Cannes. A love story on a remote Brittany island. Subtitled.
The 1950s pick. Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) leaves Enniscorthy, Ireland, for a job in Brooklyn, falls for Italian-American plumber Tony, and then a family death pulls her back home, where she has to choose where her future is (Wikipedia)). Her older sister, Rose, is the one who arranges the move. Nick Hornby wrote the script.
Not a romance first, but the sisters will get you
There's romance in it, but the March sisters come first, which is why it sits down here. Greta Gerwig follows the March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, in 19th-century Concord, and the cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen and Meryl Streep (Wikipedia)). Austen fans, the editor who agrees to publish Jo's story is called Mr. Dashwood.
Little Women (1994) is the 90s version, with Winona Ryder as Jo (Wikipedia)).
Not on goodrecmovies yet: Emma. (2020), Emma (1996), Persuasion (2022), Becoming Jane, Love & Friendship, Bright Star, Anna Karenina (2012), The Duchess, Mr. Malcolm's List, Mansfield Park (1999) and both recent Wuthering Heights films aren't in our catalog, so they aren't linked here.
Pick your sister, Elinor or Marianne. Then rate a few movies on goodrecmovies and get your next rec lined up before the credits roll.