Pride and Prejudice

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Pride & Prejudice (2005) Studio/Network: Focus Features
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster
Director: Joe Wright
Screenplay by: Deborah Moggach
Soundtrack: Available on CD
DVD: Available
VHS: Not available
Run Time: 2 hrs. 9 mins.
Official Site (Focus Features)

Bride and Prejudice (2004)

Bride and Prejudice Studio/Network: Miramax Films & Pathe Pictures
Producers: Deepak Nayar & Gurinder Chadha
Director: Gurinder Chadha
Screenplay by: Paul Mayeda Berges & Gurinder Chadha
Soundtrack: Available on CD
DVD: Available
VHS: Not available
Run Time: 1 hr. 52 mins.
Official Site (Miramax)

Pride and Prejudice (2003)

Pride and Prejudice: A Latter Day Comedy Studio/Network: Excel Entertainment Group
Producer: Jason Faller
Director: Andrew Black
Screenplay by: Anne Black, Jason Faller, & Katherine Swigert
Soundtrack: Available on CD
DVD: Available
VHS: Not Available
Run Time: 1 hr. 44 mins.
Official Site (Excel Entertainment)

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Pride and Prejudice (1995) Studio/Network: BBC and A&E
Producer: Sue Birtwistle
Director: Simon Langton
Screenplay by: Andrew Davies
Soundtrack: Available on CD
DVD: Available
VHS: Available
Run Time: 5 hrs.
Official Site (BBC)

Pride and Prejudice (1980)

Pride and Prejudice (1980) Studio/Network: BBC
Producer: Jonathan Powell
Director: Cyril Coke
Screenplay by: Fay Weldon
Soundtrack: Not available
DVD: Available
VHS: Available
Run Time: 3 hrs. 46 mins.

Pride and Prejudice (1940)

Pride and Prejudice (1940) Studio: MGM Producer: Hunt Stromberg
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Screenplay by: Aldous Huxley & Jane Murfin
Soundtrack: Not available
DVD: Available
VHS: Available
Run Time: 1 hr. 58 mins.

For Your Consideration...

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

Helen Fielding admitted that she wrote the first Bridget Jones novel as an homage to Pride and Prejudice, and when the film was made, who but Colin Firth could be cast as Mark Darcy? He smoldered as well as he had done in the period film, and had a much better haircut, though the end of the movie was changed and is less like Pride and Prejudice than in Fielding's novel.

You've Got Mail (1998)

Janeite Nora Ephron wrote and directed this film, a remake of The Shop Around the Corner with influences of Pride and Prejudice. Meg Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly, owner of a small children's bookstore, and Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox, whose family owns a large chain of bookshops that is forcing little stores like Kathleen's out of business. They meet in an online chatroom and exchange anonymous e-mails; when they encounter one another in real life, not knowing that they are speaking with their e-mail buddy, they clash like another couple that Janeites love, Elizabeth and Darcy. Pride and Prejudice is Kathleen's favorite novel; it is directly referenced several times in the film, and Joe reads the book (with Colin Firth on the cover!) to try to better understand her. See if you can spot a small homage to the 1980 BBC miniseries near the end of the film.

Wishbone: "Furst Impressions"

Wishbone was a children's television show broadcast on PBS in the 1990s, featuring a Jack Russell terrier named Wishbone with a very active imagination. When Wishbone's young owner's life reflects classic literature, Wishbone takes the lead in acting out the work in question. He plays Mr. Darcy in "Furst Impressions," the Wishbone adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and proves that every savage can indeed dance. These shows are currently being rebroadcast on PBS in some markets; as the saying goes, check your local listings!

Further Reading

Lady Bathurst's Patriotic Ballroom, or "Reading Austen at a Distance", by Gillian Dow

Appropriating Austen: Localism on the Global Scene, by Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield

"It's not a put-down, Miss Bennet; it's a category": Andrew Black's Chick Lit Pride and Prejudice, by Jennifer Mary Woolston

Joe Wright's 2005 film Pride & Prejudice is the subject of a special edition of JASNA's journal Persuasions On-Line Volume 27, No. 2. The essays provide in-depth discussions of this film adaptation of the novel.

What Meets the Eye: Landscape in the Films Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, by Sue Parrill

Pride and Prejudice: An Informal History of the Garson-Olivier Motion Picture, by Kenneth Turan

Interview with Anne Rutherford (Lydia), Marsha Hunt (Mary), and Karen Morley (Charlotte Lucas), by Kenneth Turan

Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy: Art Imitating Art . . . Imitating Art, by Cecilia Salber