Directed by:
Karel ReiszScreenplay:
Harold PinterCinematography:
Freddie FrancisComposer:
Carl DavisCast:
Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Hilton McRae, Charlotte Mitchell, Jean Faulds, Peter Vaughan, Colin Jeavons, Liz Smith, Patience Collier, John Barrett, Leo McKern (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
An astounding array of talent came together for the big-screen adaptation of John Fowles’s novel "The French Lieutenant’s Woman", a postmodern masterpiece that had been considered unfilmable. With an ingenious script by the Nobel Prize–winning playwright Harold Pinter, British New Wave trailblazer Karel Reisz transforms Fowles’s tale of scandalous romance into an arresting, hugely entertaining movie about cinema. In Pinter’s reimagining, Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep star in parallel narratives, as a Victorian-era gentleman and the social outcast he risks everything to love, and as the contemporary actors playing those roles in a film production, and immersed in their own forbidden affair. Shot by the consummate cinematographer Freddie Francis and scored by the venerated composer and conductor Carl Davis, this is a beguiling, intellectually nimble feat of filmmaking, starring a pair of legendary actors in early leading roles. (Criterion)
(more)Cast
Meryl Streep
USA
Best movies:
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Out of Africa (1985)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Jeremy Irons
UK
Best movies:
The Lion King (1994)
The Mission (1986)
The Hollow Crown (2012) (series)
Hilton McRae
UK
Best movies:
Chernobyl (2019) (series)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Endeavour (2012) (series)
Charlotte Mitchell
UK
Best movies:
Laughter in Paradise (1951)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Village of the Damned (1960)
Jean Faulds
UK
Best movies:
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Restless Natives (1985)
Shepherd on the Rock (1993)
Peter Vaughan
UK
Best movies:
Hornblower: The Frogs and the Lobsters (1999) (TV movie)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
The Legend of 1900 (1998)
Colin Jeavons
UK
Best movies:
Jane Eyre (1983) (series)
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Liz Smith
UK
Best movies:
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Between the Sheets (2003) (series)
Patience Collier
UK
Best movies:
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Perfect Friday (1970)
John Barrett
UK
Best movies:
O Lucky Man! (1973)
It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (1975)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
Leo McKern
Australia
Best movies:
The Omen (1976)
King Lear (1983) (TV movie)
Ryan's Daughter (1970)
Ben Forster
UK
Best movies:
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
The Great Ghost Rescue (2011)
Catherine Willmer
Best movies:
O Lucky Man! (1973)
An Inspector Calls (1954)
The Hiding Place (1975)
Richard Griffiths
UK
Best movies:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Gandhi (1982)
The Hollow Crown (2012) (series)
Graham Fletcher-Cook
UK
Best movies:
Eddie the Eagle (2016)
Cry Freedom (1987)
Rocketman (2019)
Richard Hope
UK
Best movies:
Endeavour (2012) (series)
My Brother Tom (2001)
Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989) (series)
Michael Elwyn
UK
Best movies:
The Audience (2013) (theatrical recording)
Florence Nightingale (1985) (TV movie)
House of the Dragon (2022) (series)
Toni Palmer
UK
Best movies:
Foyle's War (2002) (series)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Personal Services (1987)
Cecily Hobbs
Best movies:
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Doreen Mantle
South Africa
Best movies:
Jonathan Creek (1997) (series)
Yentl (1983)
Mountains of the Moon (1990)