Film

Rebecca

Name: Rebecca
Genre: Romance, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Released: 2020
Cast: Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Keeley Hawes, Ann Dowd

Other titles called Rebecca: the 1940 film, the 2021 series (TF1).

Drama

Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance gets a sumptuous 2020 makeover: a woman marries a brooding stranger, arrives at his mansion, and discovers she's living in the shadow of his dead first wife. Atmospheric, intricately plotted, and deeply invested in psychological unease. For anyone who loves being unsettled by beautiful things.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love slow-burn gothic unease, where a new marriage sits under a stare from the housekeeper, and romance and suspense feel like the same thing.

Skip it if you need brisk plotting or a bright tone, since this is a long, hushed, mannered film that lingers on dread and rarely lets the air out.

What it asks of you: Two hours and change of patience, with the mood doing the work while the plot creeps forward; it wants you watching closely, not half-listening over dinner.

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

If you liked this

Crimson Peak2015

A Gothic romance about a woman marrying into a decaying manor with dark secrets. Guillermo del Toro brings the same lush visual language and genuine dread that makes Rebecca so effective at being both gorgeous and deeply wrong.

But It swings more toward horror than Rebecca does, which some find more camp than creepy. If you want pure psychological tension, the scares here are louder.

Suspicion1941

Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in a Hitchcock thriller about a new wife who begins to suspect her charming husband may want her dead. The same DNA as Rebecca: elegant surfaces with paranoia and doubt rotting underneath.

But Made in 1941, so the pacing has room to breathe in ways modern viewers sometimes find slow. The ending is also controversial—people have been arguing about it for eighty years.

Dragonwyck1946

A young woman moves to a wealthy man's grand estate and discovers he harbours dark secrets. Gene Tierney and Vincent Price in a perfectly pitched Gothic drama that understands the seduction of aristocratic evil.

But Less well-known than Rebecca, which means the story hits without the weight of reputation—some prefer their Gothic tales already legendary.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Daphne2017

Rebecca is du Maurier's masterpiece, and this film is the only way to meet the woman writing from the inside of her own Gothic—you understand where the obsession and paranoia came from.

A documentary about Daphne du Maurier herself—the woman who wrote Rebecca. Haunted by her own secrets, fiercely intelligent, and far more complex than her characters. It's a portrait of the mind that created all of this.

But Documentary about a literary figure isn't everyone's evening. It won't have the plot momentum or visual grandeur of Rebecca itself.

Jane Eyre2011

Another adaptation of a woman discovering secrets about the man she loves and the house he owns. This version is lean, strange, and treats the Gothic elements as genuinely unsettling rather than decorative.

But Mia Wasikowska's Jane is very internal; there's less of the social performance that makes Rebecca so readable. It's quieter, which demands more from you.

Gaslight1944

Charles Boyer as a husband systematically making his wife doubt her own sanity in their London townhouse. It has Rebecca's claustrophobia and the same architecture of psychological manipulation—and it invented the term for what it's doing.

But The gender politics are of their era. If you're sensitive to watching a woman be tormented without much agency, this will test you.

The Woman in White2018

A miniseries about a woman drawn into a mansion's web of secrets, with layers of mystery beneath every polite conversation. It shares Rebecca's fascination with how estates become prisons and gossip becomes danger.

But It's a Victorian melodrama at heart, so emotions are operatic. If you prefer restrained performances, the intensity here might feel over the top.

My Cousin Rachel2017

Ambiguous, unsettling, and visually gorgeous—another Daphne du Maurier adaptation about a man unable to trust his own judgment about the woman who's come into his life. Rachel Weisz is magnetic in a role designed to be unknowable.

But The whole point is that you're never sure what's really happening, which some find deeply satisfying and others find infuriating.

The Affair2014

A serialized exploration of how one affair fractures a marriage and a community, told from multiple perspectives that contradict each other. Like Rebecca, it's obsessed with how people lie about themselves and rewrite history.

But It runs five seasons and gets increasingly baroque. Starting strong means later seasons can feel like they're repeating themselves rather than deepening the ideas.

Phantom Thread2017

Rebecca is about a woman crushed by her husband's idealized image of his first wife; Phantom Thread reverses it, watching a man try to make his wife fit his fantasy. Same architecture, different genders and weight.

A fashion designer and his new muse fall into a marriage that's beautiful and suffocating. Beautifully composed, psychologically intricate, and about a woman who realizes the man she married has very specific ideas about who she should be. Daniel Day-Lewis at his most controlled and unsettling.

But It's slow, deeply interior, and the marriage is not a love story—it's a power struggle. Some find it brilliant; others find it airless.

Stoker2013

Both are about young women discovering corruption at the heart of an elegant household, but where Rebecca is psychological, Stoker is visceral—it's what Rebecca would feel like if the Gothic rot had teeth and sex behind it.

Park Chan-wook's English-language thriller about a girl watching her uncle seduce her mother in their decaying Southern mansion. It's pure Gothic atmosphere—ominous, erotic, visually baroque. Rebecca played straight; this one leans into the perversity underneath.

But It's deeply weird and genuinely creepy in ways that can tip into discomfort. The sexuality is strange and transgressive; it's not made for comfort.