By now we assume you’ve guzzled all the horny, sumptuous glory of Bridgerton and are hungry for a new period drama to fill the void.
In the spirit of pandering to the particular silo of women that spend their time tactically elbowing in a last-minute eBay bid on the hallowed Vivienne Westwood corset, we’ve put together a list of our favourite period dramas.
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
Watch on Stan
The definitive adaption of Jane Austen’s beloved novel. Joe Wright’s Oscar-nominated 2005 film was lovely, and there’s nothing more dashing than Keira Knightly in a Regency-era frock, though overall the film lacks the quiet vastness of the BBC miniseries.
A six-hour runtime gives headroom to nuance, a trait that best serves any Jane Austen adaptation. With the BBC’s adaption, the audience are privy to the secret worlds and silent whispers of the novels minor characters. It’s the kind of subtlety that evokes just how stifling and deliciously gossipy the era was.
Colin Firth is like really fucking chaotically hot in this too.
Watch on Prime Video
Sofia Coppola’s take on Thomas P. Cullinan’s 1996 Southern Gothic classic was polarising. Coppola’s entire career has been dogged by criticisms of her being a child of privilege, a filmmaker that exclusively makes films about those of her class. It’s all true, but like, who cares?
Coppola is a master of the female gaze. There are few directors that manage to capture feminine loneliness with such lucidity and tact. Yes, the characters she casts her camera on live outside the field of recognition for most of us, but the abject, ambiguous feelings they experience strike a chord in the hearts of all melancholy women.
Gosford Park (2001)
Watch on Foxtel
This isn’t a Regency-era film but there’s a bunch of nice frocks so it meets my vague, flexible criteria. Gosford Park is a faultless whodunit that never misses a beat. A swooning murder mystery set in a 1930s stately home. A gruesome dissection of the class divide.
A gilt-edged ensemble cast featuring the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Stephen Fry, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Derek Jacobi, Kelly Macdonald, Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Emily Watson. It’s a marvel to behold.
The Secret Garden (1993)
Watch on Netflix
Not to be confused with the soulless bastardization that was 2020’s adaptation. The Secret Garden feels as magic as an adult as it did as a child.
The costume design is truly unbeatable; corsets, camisoles, bloomers, mourning dresses — that one outfit with the nightdress and the knee-high gumboots! I just want to dress like a petulant little Edwardian brat forever!
Bright Star (2009)
Watch on Youtube
Oh my god so romantic, so wistful, so delicate. Jane Campion’s Bright Star is a paen of the doomed love affair of John Keats’s and Fanny Brawne. It is painful to witness a love not realise itself because of the insidious constraints of the era; social standing and money. The cinematography is nothing short of sublime, romanticism on screen.
Brideshead Revisited (1981)
Watch on Amazon
If you have thirteen hours to spare and find yourself yearning to watch an obscenely handsome young Jeremy Irons plod through the snobbery of aristocratic period, PBS’s Brideshead Revisited is a feast. A creeping slow-burner that delicately unspools all the broken promises of youth and the disappointments of adulthood.
