Film
Mary Shelley
A 2017 biographical drama about the life and loves of Mary Shelley, from her defiant elopement with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley through the creation of Frankenstein. It's a lush, romantic film that treats its literary subject matter seriously, exploring how personal tragedy and intellectual ambition collided to birth Gothic literature's most enduring work. For anyone drawn to writers, their lives, and the messy business of creation.
If you liked this
Bright Star2009
Jane Campion's delicate, painterly portrait of John Keats and Fanny Brawne, built from letters and stolen glances. A film about how art and love compete for the same space in a poet's heart, with costume and cinematography as rich as the emotion.
But Very quiet and deliberately paced. If you need plot momentum or grand narrative sweeps, this will feel like sitting in a museum rather than watching cinema.
Becoming Jane2007
Another prestige biographical romance about a woman writer, tracing Jane Austen's ill-fated love affair and how it shaped her novels. Similarly lush, similarly interested in the connection between life and art.
But The historical accuracy is... loose. If you're a purist about Austen's actual biography, you'll spend the film annoyed rather than swept away.
The Danish Girl2015
Eddie Redmayne as a painter navigating gender, identity, and artistic transformation alongside Alicia Vikander. Another intimate biographical drama about an artist's private revolution and the cost it exacts on everyone nearby.
But The subject of significant criticism for its portrayal of trans identity. Worth engaging with thoughtfully, but not everyone feels it does right by its real-life protagonist.
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The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Haunting of Hill House2018
Both are Gothic narratives about how personal anguish becomes art; both are obsessed with the idea that monstrosity is created, not born.
Mike Flanagan's series about family, inheritance, and the ghosts that follow us. Like Frankenstein itself, it's about monsters created by love and trauma, and how the stories we're born into haunt every choice we make. Visually stunning and emotionally devastating.
But Deliberately unsettling and sometimes relentlessly dark. Very slow-burn. If you need constant narrative momentum or cheerfulness, this will exhaust rather than transport you.
More like this (7)
Pandora2018
A German film about the daughter of Goethe caught in romance, politics, and the contradictions of being a woman of talent in an era that didn't want her. Similar setting, similar pressures, utterly different story.
But It's not widely available in English-speaking territories. Subtitles required, and the atmosphere is considerably colder and more austere than Mary Shelley's romanticism.
A Little Chaos2015
Kate Winslet as a landscape designer in 18th-century France, pursuing forbidden love and creative ambition. Gorgeously designed, deeply felt about the way women had to hide their ambitions in pretty packages.
But Slower than it looks from the trailer, and the romance, while central, doesn't sweep in the way some viewers hope. It's more wry about love than it is dreamy.
Colette2018
Keira Knightley as the French writer reclaiming her name and her voice from her controlling husband. Another 'woman writer' biography, but angrier and funnier—closer to a reckoning than a romance.
But The tone lurches between periods and modes. Some scenes sparkle while others feel like dutiful biography. The pacing can feel choppy.
The Invisible Woman2013
Ralph Fiennes' underrated portrait of Charles Dickens and his affair with an actress. Beautifully shot, genuinely moving about the tension between public reputation and private desire, about how we hide ourselves.
But Not very well known, which means it can feel a bit solitary. The film is also more melancholic than triumphant, which isn't for everyone.
Pride & Prejudice2005
Joe Wright's sumptuous adaptation captures the wit and romance of Austen while giving the Bennet sisters genuine agency and intelligence. If you want period romance done with real style and emotional intelligence.
But It's extremely well-known and beloved—there's a chance you've already seen it, or something like it, enough times to have moved on.
The Night House2021
Rebecca Hall in a haunting, intelligent portrait of grief and the stories we tell ourselves. Shifts perspective and reality in ways that echo Frankenstein's own narrative games.
But It's horror-adjacent and genuinely unsettling. Some viewers find it too bleak; others feel the supernatural elements undercut the emotional core.
Penny Dreadful2014
A love letter to the Gothic and Romantic tradition that Shelley helped invent. It's what happens when you take her universe seriously as a place where all the monsters are real and alive.
John Logan's gothic mash-up where Frankenstein's monster, Dorian Gray, Dracula, and Mina Murray collide in Victorian London. It's Frankenstein-adjacent fiction that captures the same atmosphere of transgressive creativity and beautiful damnation that inspired Shelley's original novel.
But Wildly uneven; the first season is magnetic, later ones strain. Also genuinely graphic with violence and sexuality. Not for anyone who wants Mary Shelley's elegant restraint.
People
Cast
Elle FanningMary Shelley
Douglas BoothPercy Bysshe Shelley
Bel PowleyClaire Clairmont
Stephen DillaneWilliam Godwin
Joanne FroggattMary Jane Clairmont
Tom SturridgeLord Byron
Ben HardyDr. John Polidori
Maisie WilliamsIsabel Baxter
Hugh O'ConorSamuel Taylor Coleridge- Ciara CharterisHarriet Shelley
Jack HickeyThomas Hogg
Laurence FosterBookseller
Directing
- Haifaa al-MansourDirector
Writing
- Emma JensenWriter
- Haifaa al-MansourWriter
Production
- Amy HubbardCasting
- Heidi LevittCasting
- Katja WolfCasting
- Alan MoloneyProducer
- Amy BaerProducer
- Ruth CoadyProducer