Jane Eyre

Based on Charlotte Brontë's novel, Jane Eyre follows a young orphan who endures a harsh upbringing and then becomes governess at Thornfield Hall, a remote country estate. There she meets Edward Rochester, the estate's abrupt and moody master, and the two gradually form a bond that turns into love. A secret kept within the house threatens that happiness and forces Jane to weigh her feelings against her sense of self.

Franco Zeffirelli directed and co-wrote the film with Hugh Whitemore, and it stands as the eighth of the nine features he directed, arriving between Hamlet and Tea with Mussolini. William Hurt plays Rochester and Charlotte Gainsbourg plays the adult Jane, with Anna Paquin as the young Jane, Joan Plowright as Mrs. Fairfax, Geraldine Chaplin as Miss Scatcherd and Billie Whitelaw as Grace Poole. The production was a British, Italian, American and French venture.

The film took about five million dollars worldwide, a modest return for a literary adaptation with recognizable names. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from roughly eleven thousand votes, and on TMDB it sits at 6.9 from about two hundred fifty votes. A critics' score of 5.9 from twenty-eight reviews places it below the audience averages, suggesting reviewers were less persuaded by the adaptation than general viewers were.