Film

Madame Bovary

Name: Madame Bovary
Genre: Drama
Released: 2015
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Rhys Ifans, Ezra Miller, Logan Marshall-Green, Henry Lloyd-Hughes

Other titles called Madame Bovary: the 1934 film, the 1949 film, the 1991 film.

Mia Wasikowska glides through a ravishing adaptation of Flaubert's masterpiece about a woman suffocating in provincial domesticity, reaching for passion and glamour she can never quite grasp. It's lush, melancholic, and genuinely moving—a study in desire, disappointment, and the gap between how we imagine ourselves and who we actually are.

TMDb rating

2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you admire slow-burn period dramas in which a woman's hunger for more is observed with sympathy rather than judgment, and letting costumes and interiors carry much of the feeling.

Skip it if you want brisk plotting or a clear moral line; this is languid for long stretches, and its heroine's choices can frustrate rather than engage you.

What it asks of you: Just under two hours, unhurried and often quiet, with long takes that let a face carry the argument while the mood slowly darkens.

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

If you liked this

Anna Karenina2012

Joe Wright's maximalist adaptation finds beauty and momentum in another woman's impossible marriage and affair. Like Bovary, it transforms literary restraint into visual intoxication and emotional extremity.

But The theatrical staging can feel mannered. Some find the constant visual flourishes exhausting rather than illuminating.

The Farewell2019

Lulu Wang examines the unbridgeable gap between expectation and reality in a woman's life—family versus self, duty versus desire. It has Bovary's emotional precision without the tragedy, but the same ache.

But It's quieter than you might expect. The emotional payoff is subtle, which some mistake for a lack of payoff.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire2019

Céline Sciamma captures the intoxication of forbidden desire and self-discovery with painterly elegance. A film about women reaching for authenticity in worlds that won't let them keep it.

But The pacing is deliberate and sensual rather than plot-driven. If you need narrative momentum, you'll find it slow.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Wings of Desire1987

Both films use visual beauty and voiceover to externalize interior dissatisfaction. Both are about the weight of wanting something you can't have, watched from outside.

Wim Wenders' meditation on angels watching human longing in Berlin. It shares Bovary's fascination with the impossible distance between desire and satisfaction, between what we imagine and what we can reach.

But It's philosophical and deliberately paced, with minimal plot. It works as mood and meditation rather than narrative, which requires patience.

Tess1979

Polanski's adaptation of Hardy is a kindred tragedy: a woman marked by circumstance and male desire, beautiful and doomed. It has the same fatalistic inevitability and visual grandeur as Bovary.

But It's bleak and punishing. The film doesn't offer comfort or redemption, which some viewers find gratuitous.

The Savage Innocents1960

Anthony Quinn in the Arctic, caught between two worlds and unable to belong to either. It shares Bovary's essential premise: a person destroyed by the gap between their inner life and outer reality.

But It's a very different register—adventurous and masculine. Some find the cultural representation dated and uncomfortable.

Crimson Peak2015

Guillermo del Toro's gothic melodrama about a woman whose romantic fantasies collide with cruel reality. It has Bovary's fascination with how desire blinds us, wrapped in gorgeous, darker trappings.

But It leans into genre pleasures—ghosts, betrayal, atmosphere—rather than psychological nuance. Purists might find it excessive.

Bright Star2009

Jane Campion's film about Fanny Brawne uses restraint and luminous cinematography to explore a woman's impossible love. It understands yearning and the ache of being known and unknown simultaneously.

But It's quiet and melancholic in ways that can feel remote. The emotional register is held deliberately at a distance.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

Suzy Amis in a Western where a woman escapes her prescribed life by becoming a man. Like Bovary, it's about the gap between identity and circumstance, but with more agency and invention.

But It's a lesser-known film with a lower budget. The pacing is uneven and some scenes feel underdeveloped.

Housewife2017

Both trace a woman's dissolution through her longing for transcendence. Where Madame Bovary is tragic and aesthetic, Housewife is visceral and grotesque—the same disintegration in a different register.

A fever-dream indie film where a writer and her husband invite danger into their home. It's a nightmarish descent into desire and self-destruction that uses body horror and psychological dread to explore the same emptiness Emma feels.

But It's deeply uncomfortable and genuinely disturbing. It treats horror as a metaphor for interior decay, which is unsettling rather than cathartic.