Film

Jezebel

Name: Jezebel
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 1938
Cast: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp

Period drama

A Bette Davis showcase set in 1850s New Orleans about a selfish, headstrong woman who destroys her own happiness and everyone else's through pride and manipulation. It's a character study wrapped in melodrama—gorgeously shot, propelled by Davis's fierce performance, and interested in how charm becomes a weapon. For anyone drawn to complex female characters and old Hollywood intensity.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you relish melodrama driven by a proud woman's stubbornness, where Southern social pressure builds slowly, and you enjoy watching an actress dig into a difficult, unlikable heroine.

Skip it if you need a sympathetic lead or brisk pacing, since the film moves at a deliberate, talky clip and its central woman is often hard to warm to.

What it asks of you: It asks for patience: a measured pace, lots of talk over etiquette and simmering tension, and a runtime of about 103 minutes spent in no hurry.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

All About Eve1950

Bette Davis as an aging theatrical legend destroyed by ambition and vanity, in the sharpest, wittiest dissection of female competitiveness ever filmed. Utterly absorbing and quotable.

But The theatrical world and backstage politics might feel removed from your life, and it's deliberately theatrical rather than naturalistic in tone.

The Letter1940

Davis again, as a woman who commits murder and then spends the film calculating how to get away with it. Taut, darkly moral, and features one of cinema's best final scenes.

But It's a crime thriller where you're rooting for a murderer for two hours, which some find morally uncomfortable.

Now, Voyager1942

Davis transforms from a repressed, browbeaten woman into someone powerful and alive. Deeply romantic, gorgeously made, and unexpectedly moving about self-discovery and choosing yourself.

But The first half moves slowly as it establishes her trapped state, and the ending is bittersweet rather than triumphant.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Jezebel

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Letter from an Unknown Woman1948

Both explore how women's desires and decisions—whether selfish or self-sacrificial—become instruments of their own destruction in a society that offers them no real choices.

A devastating study of obsessive, one-sided love told through a woman's letter. Like Jezebel, it's about a woman destroyed by her own passion, but here she's the victim of her own devotion rather than her selfishness.

But It's melancholic and introspective rather than dramatic, and the woman's suffering from her own poor choices offers no catharsis.

The Little Foxes1941

Davis as a ruthless Southern woman who poisons her husband—literally—to secure her family's fortune. A masterclass in contained menace and the corrosive nature of greed.

But It's relentlessly dark with no redemption in sight, and the pacing is deliberately slow to build moral dread.

Dangerous1935

Davis won her first Oscar for this—a former star making a comeback who's reckless, self-destructive, and magnetic. Her performance has genuine electricity.

But The plot is fairly thin and the supporting characters are sketched lightly, so it lives entirely on Davis's charisma.

Of Human Bondage1934

Davis as a woman who destroys a man through casual cruelty and her own inability to change. It's a portrait of how people damage each other without malice, just selfishness.

But It's genuinely unpleasant to watch—there's no catharsis, just the slow wreckage of two people.

Dark Victory1939

Davis as a wealthy woman dying of a brain tumor who must reckon with what actually matters. It manages to be about vanity and mortality without becoming sentimental.

But Knowing the diagnosis from early on removes suspense, and the ending is inevitably sad in a way some find manipulative.

The Old Maid1939

Davis and Miriam Hopkins as former friends whose resentment calcifies over decades. A sharp look at how women compete for status, motherhood, and dignity in an unforgiving world.

But It's emotionally claustrophobic and the stakes are intimate rather than dramatic, which can feel slow if you need bigger events.

The Great Lie1941

Davis opposite Mary Astor in a melodrama about a woman raising another woman's child. It's silly, overheated, and Davis commits completely—pure old Hollywood entertainment.

But The plot is frankly absurd and the moralizing is dated, so it requires a willingness to enjoy it as camp.

Scarlet Street1945

Both feature a protagonist whose charm and attractiveness become a tool of manipulation, and both explore the collateral damage their selfishness inflicts on those who love them.

Fritz Lang's savage portrait of a respectable man unmade by a manipulative, amoral woman. It's Jezebel inverted—a man as the one destroyed by feminine guile and his own weakness.

But It's deeply misogynistic in its assumptions, and the darkness is unrelenting with no moral redemption for anyone involved.

Stoker2013

Like Jezebel, it's a character study of seduction and corruption set in a world of rigid social codes, where charm masks something corrosive. Both are interested in how attractive people poison their environments.

Park Chan-wook's Gothic psychological thriller about a girl who becomes dangerous through the influence of a seductive, enigmatic uncle. Visually lush, morally murky, and built from the same DNA as Southern Gothic melodrama.

But It's slow, deliberately opaque about its intentions, and deeply unsettling in ways that don't resolve neatly.