Film
Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story
A grown-up Anne Shirley trades Avonlea for wartime Europe, chasing her missing fiancé and her own ambitions as a writer. This 2000 TV movie stretches the beloved character into new territory—sadder, more uncertain, still imaginative but tempered by real loss. For fans ready to follow Anne beyond the safe harbour of her youth.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you already love Anne's runaway chatter and want to see her grow up, and you enjoy a romance that is patient, sentimental and content to take its time.
Skip it if you want a brisk plot, since this is nearly three hours of wandering, feeling and conversation, and its wartime stretch is handled more gently than urgently.
What it asks of you: Settle in for a long, leisurely stretch of talk and feeling, where patience matters more than suspense, and the mood stays warm even as the setting darkens.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Pride and Prejudice
A masterclass in romantic tension and character depth, with sharp dialogue and a heroine who thinks her way through the world just as Anne does. Colin Firth's Darcy earned his legend here.
But Six hours is a commitment, and the pacing assumes you enjoy conversation over incident. Some find it slow.
The Remains of the Day1993
A restrained exploration of duty, love, and the choices we live with. Anthony Hopkins is quietly devastating, and the film trusts you to feel everything unsaid. Graceful, sorrowful, adult.
But Nothing happens in the way you expect. The emotional payoff arrives in silence and regret, which some find unsatisfying.
The English Patient1996
A sweeping wartime love story where passion and principle collide. Visually stunning, emotionally raw, with a structure that rewards patience. The kind of film that justifies the epic scope.
But Nearly three hours of anguish. Some find it overwrought; others find the pacing indulgent. Your tolerance for beautiful suffering matters here.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
All the Light We Cannot See2023
Both follow a young woman's journey through a world transformed by war, where love becomes complicated by duty and circumstance. Both ask what a person becomes when removed from everything familiar.
A Netflix miniseries about a blind French girl and a German soldier whose paths cross during WWII. Intimate, visually inventive, and structurally daring—it jumps through time and perspective to build something larger than plot. The war is backdrop to character and moral complexity.
But The nonlinear structure demands attention. Some find the pacing glacial, and the weight of historical suffering can feel heavy-handed. Not light viewing.
More like this (5)
Sense and Sensibility1995
Emma Thompson's adaptation finds the wit and heartbreak in Austen, with sisters navigating love and security. Elinor's restraint and Marianne's passion feel as modern as they do period. Deeply satisfying.
But The romantic resolution hinges on Austen's economics, which can feel dated. And if you prefer action to conversation, move on.
Our Mutual Friend1998
A Dickens adaptation about inheritance, reinvention, and the possibility of escaping your past. Lush production and a cast that savours the language. Dickens at his most romantic and his most cynical.
But It's dense and meandering. Some subplots feel tangential, and the social satire won't land if you're not engaged with the period detail.
Far from the Madding Crowd1967
Julie Christie as a woman who refuses the life others choose for her, even when it costs her. Beautiful cinematography, genuine period texture, a heroine who makes hard decisions and pays for them.
But It's a pastoral drama in which very little happens quickly. The emotional resolution is quiet and somewhat melancholic.
The Go-Between1971
A devastating meditation on memory, class, and the moment innocence breaks. A boy serves as messenger between two lovers across a social divide. Haunting, beautifully made, deeply sad.
But It's a film about regret and damage. There is no redemption, and the tone is elegiac. It will not cheer you up.
The Idiots1998
Prince Myshkin's goodness and imaginative generosity recall Anne at her best, but Dostoyevsky is relentless: he shows what happens when that innocence meets a world that doesn't value it. A darker mirror of Anne's idealism.
Dostoyevsky via BBC television: a gentle, epileptic man returns to Russia with nothing and encounters a society built on money and deception. It's a philosophical novel made television, and it takes its ideas seriously. Utterly strange and completely absorbing.
But It's dense, Russian, and philosophically demanding. The plot is secondary to moral questions that the film refuses to resolve. Patience required; instant gratification not available.
People
Cast
Megan FollowsAnne Shirley
Jonathan CrombieGilbert Blythe
Schuyler GrantDiana Wright
Patricia HamiltonRachel Lynde
Janet-Laine GreenMaud Montrose
Greg SpottiswoodFred Wright
Directing
- Stefan ScainiDirector
Writing
- Lucy Maud MontgomeryNovel
- Laurie PearsonWriter