Television series

Anne with an E

A prestige-drama remake of Anne of Green Gables that trades cosy nostalgia for real teeth: bullying, poverty, queerness, colonialism and trauma sit alongside the red hair and puffed sleeves. Amybeth McNulty's Anne is a chatterbox with PTSD as much as imagination, and the show takes her interior life dead seriously. Gorgeous, occasionally heavy-handed, unexpectedly moving.

TVMaze rating7.9

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Little Women2019

Greta Gerwig's adaptation shares Anne's belief that a girl's inner life and ambitions are worth as much screen time as her romances, told with the same warmth and visual generosity.

But The fractured timeline can be disorienting if you don't already know the story's shape.

Little Women poster

Call the Midwife2012

Community, hardship, and enormous heart, filtered through women who look after each other when institutions won't. It has the same instinct for finding grace inside grim circumstances.

But It's got years and years of episodes now, and the tone can tip into treacle.

Call the Midwife poster

The Queen's Gambit2020

An orphaned girl with a startling mind gets taken in and slowly, stubbornly proves everyone wrong about what she's capable of. Same emotional spine, chess instead of Prince Edward Island.

But Colder and more solitary — Beth doesn't have Anne's chatty, communal warmth.

The Queen's Gambit poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Pan's Labyrinth2006

Same engine as Anne: a girl's imagination as armor against real cruelty. Del Toro just lets the fantasy turn monstrous instead of whimsical, showing you the darker cousin of what Anne's daydreaming is doing for her.

Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale about a girl who escapes an unbearable reality into a vivid imagined world she narrates to herself, exactly as Anne does to survive her past.

But Genuinely frightening and violent in places — this is a fantasy for adults, not children.

Pan's Labyrinth poster
More like this (8)

Downton Abbey2010

If you fell for the period detail and the slow unfurling of a small world's social rules, this gives you six seasons of the same pleasure with a bigger cast.

But Upstairs-downstairs England is a different texture entirely from rural Canadian farm life.

Downton Abbey poster

North & South2004

A four-part BBC miniseries about class, principle, and a slow-burn romance between two people too proud to admit their feelings. Anne and Gilbert fans will recognise the ache.

But Industrial Manchester grime instead of pastoral Avonlea — a harsher, less gentle world.

North & South poster

Sense and Sensibility1995

Ang Lee's adaptation has that same mix of wit, heartbreak, and women figuring out how to survive with dignity in a world designed against them.

But More formal and reserved in its emotions — Austen doesn't let anyone monologue like Anne does.

Sense and Sensibility poster

Road to Avonlea1990

The gentler, more old-fashioned CBC cousin, set in the same fictional town with overlapping characters. If you want more Avonlea without the darker edges, this is it.

But Considerably softer and more episodic — almost the opposite of what makes this version distinctive.

Road to Avonlea poster

Matilda1996

A brilliant, unloved child outwits the adults who underestimate her and finds people who actually see her worth. Same defiant, bookish spirit, played for more comedy.

But Broader and more cartoonish — Miss Trunchbull is not aiming for emotional realism.

Matilda poster

The Secret Garden1993

An orphaned, prickly girl transforms a cold, grieving household simply by refusing to be ignored. Lush, melancholy, and quietly about the same thing Anne is.

But Slower and more hushed — less talk, more atmosphere, which won't suit everyone.

The Secret Garden poster

National Velvet1945

Decades before Anne, this was already telling the story of a girl written off by everyone except one adult willing to gamble on her — Matthew and Marilla's faith in Anne has a direct ancestor here.

A stubborn, unconventional girl in a world that doesn't expect much of her, backed by one adult who quietly believes she's extraordinary. Old Hollywood, but the shape is unmistakable.

But Dated in pace and manners, and the horse-racing plot will feel slight to some viewers.

National Velvet poster

When Marnie Was There2014

Same core figure — a watchful, imaginative outsider girl untangling who she is and where she belongs — reimagined through Japanese animation, a gentler pace, and a far more melancholic key.

A Studio Ghibli film about a lonely, imaginative orphaned girl who forms an intense friendship that unlocks a hidden family secret. Quieter, sadder, and just as tender as Anne's story.

But Slow and dreamlike, with an emotional register closer to grief than adventure.

When Marnie Was There poster

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