Sense & Sensibility (2026)

With five television adaptations ranging from the 1950 version starring Cloris Leachman to the BBC’s 2008 miniseries and Hallmark’s 2024 holiday interpretation, not to mention Ang Lee’s near-perfect, Oscar-winning 1995 theatrical masterpiece, do we really need another Sense and Sensibility?

In short, filmmaker Gregory Oakley provides an earthy new version that unfortunately does not compare to Lee’s masterpiece. I won’t stop you from comparing; that’s for sure. You can't help it, really. Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones is the Emma Thompson role as Elinor. Esme Creed- Miles is Kate Winslet as Marianne. George MacKay as Hugh Grant and Edward Herbert Nordrum is Alan Rickman‘s Colonel Brandon. Frank Dillane is Greg Wise as Willoughby.

The result? No hot take, no particularly fresh perspective, certainly nothing approaching the reinvention Greta Gerwig brought to Little Women. And compared with Lee’s film, it's not even close. Yet somehow, it's equally swooning and still enormously enjoyable.

So what's new? Shakier camerawork? Darker lighting? A slightly earthier atmosphere? To truly justify its existence, perhaps this version needed a more modern perspective. But that presents a problem of its own. Jane Austen’s 1811 novel is so deeply rooted in the social constraints placed upon women of the period that updating its sensibility risks undermining the very circumstances that give the story its meaning. 

Perhaps that's why this adaptation is being marketed as a story of sisterhood. I'm not convinced it entirely succeeds on those terms. Yes, the bond between Elinor and Marianne is central, but their lives are inseparable from questions of social class, financial security and the limited choices available to women. 

Money may ultimately be passed over in favor of love, but the narrative remains overwhelmingly concerned with finding a suitable man. The sisters have always been there for each other, yet it's the romantic matchmaking that the film embraces as the definitive happy ending.

And happy endings are never a bad thing with popcorn. This is a great time at the movies. If something feels missing, perhaps it's because Ang Lee’s 1995 version remains so vivid in the memory, or because you keep wishing this new adaptation had found a genuinely fresh way into such familiar territory.

There is plenty of sense here, and certainly no shortage of sensibility. What’s missing is a reason for this particular retelling to exist beyond the simple pleasure of experiencing Austen’s story all over again.

In a nutshell: Austen fans will be pleased. It’s sensibly good, just not necessary.

Where to see it: In theaters, starting Friday, October 16.

Would it be better with Olivia Colman? Colman as Mrs. Jennings would have justified all of this.

Award Potential: Esme Creed-Miles is a standout that may find a place in award season, but this film has the tall task of being compared to the Oscar-winning 1995 version.

The Ten Buck Review: This is a good fall film, despite the comparison and still worth ten bucks.