Film

Petulia

Name: Petulia
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 1968
Cast: Julie Christie, George C. Scott, Richard Chamberlain, Arthur Hill, Shirley Knight

A 1968 romantic drama about a divorced doctor and a seemingly carefree society woman whose affair becomes complicated by her abusive marriage. Directed by Richard Lester with his signature fractured style—jump cuts, non-linear narrative, tonal whiplash—it's funny and heartbreaking at once, never settling into melodrama. For anyone who loves adult romance that refuses to be simple.

TMDb rating

3.0

If you liked this

Klute1971

Jane Fonda as a call girl entangled with a detective; a similar portrait of a woman's interior life hidden behind a public persona, with the same 70s moral ambiguity and erotic tension.

But Slower and more deliberately paced than Petulia, with less visual trickery. Some find its treatment of sex work dated.

The Graduate1967

A near-contemporary about a young man adrift in postwar prosperity, seduced by an older woman, caught between generations. That same mixture of comedy and dread, surface gloss masking real damage.

But More famous and more frequently referenced, which can make it feel overfamiliar. The Benjamin character is less sympathetic than you might want.

Breakfast at Tiffany's1961

Audrey Hepburn as a woman reinventing herself to escape her past; a charming surface that conceals genuine hurt. Both films use comedy as camouflage for emotional truth.

But A different tone—romantic and lighter. The film's casual racism is genuinely difficult, and the ending is sentimental in ways Petulia refuses.

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Something you would not have found on your own.

A Woman Is a Woman1961

Both use visual fragmentation and tonal shifts as a way of showing how a woman's inner life contradicts her outer presentation. Both are about refusing to be contained.

Godard's musical-romantic-comedy about a woman refusing to be pinned down by the men around her, told in jump cuts and primary colors. The formal playfulness is Petulia's closest ancestor—joy and pain in the same frame, form as meaning.

But In French with subtitles. More explicitly experimental and less plot-driven. The romance is subordinate to the film's ideas about freedom and desire.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore1974

Ellen Burstyn as a woman rebuilding her life after leaving an abusive marriage. Scorsese's film has the same emotional honesty about domestic violence, and the same refusal to make it tidy.

But More explicitly about women's liberation and economic struggle. Less stylistically playful; it earns its darkness through realism rather than form.

The Manchurian Candidate1962

Another Frankenheimer political thriller with visual sophistication, a charismatic woman hiding damage, and an American landscape that looks beautiful and rotten at once.

But A thriller first, not a romance. The mood is colder and the plot more convoluted. Harder to find emotional purchase.

Two for the Road1967

Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in a fractured narrative about a marriage, told in jumbled flashbacks. That same Lester-like formal experimentation applied to romantic disillusionment.

But The non-linear storytelling, while elegant, requires active attention. Some scenes are more interested in style than feeling.

The Killing1956

Kubrick's debut about a heist told out of sequence, with Elisha Cook Jr. as a desperate man in an abusive relationship. The fragmented narrative mirrors psychological fracture and desperation.

But A noir, not a romance. Brutal and bleak in ways Petulia isn't. The female character is less developed despite her importance to the plot.

In the Heat of the Night1967

Another 1967 film about two men—one Black, one white—forced into an uneasy partnership in the American South. That same urgency about character and social hypocrisy beneath a glossy surface.

But A crime procedural, not a romance. The focus is on race and class rather than intimate feeling. Very different emotional register.

The War of the Roses1989

A marriage that begins charmingly and becomes violent, told in flashback. The dark comedy of domestic destruction, and a woman who won't be victimized by a powerful man.

But More of a horror film than a drama. Much cruder and broader in its satire. The 80s production feels very far from Petulia's 60s sensibility.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

Both are about women's survival through deception and reinvention, and both withhold full sympathy from the men who claim to love them.

Suzy Amis as a woman who disguises herself as a man to survive in the Old West. Like Petulia, it's about the masks we wear in patriarchal spaces and what it costs to hide. Quieter and more elegiac, set against landscape instead of hospital corridors.

But A period Western, not contemporary. The pacing is deliberate and sparse. Much slower burn than Petulia, and more distanced from its characters' emotions.

Raw2017

Both are about a woman's hunger—sexual, emotional, existential—and what happens when polite society tries to starve it. Both use genre and formal tricks to make the invisible visible.

Julia Ducournau's debut about a young woman whose appetites—sexual and carnal—cannot be contained by her family's expectations. Surreal, visceral, shocking, and oddly tender. It's Petulia through a body-horror lens: the violence of trying to contain a woman's desire.

But Extremely graphic and graphic. A horror-thriller, not a drama. Deliberately grotesque and difficult to watch. The allegory can feel heavy-handed.