The Novels of Jane Austen on Film

Unsurprisingly, Pride and Prejudice has been the Austen novel most often adapted for film. The first big screen interpretation came as early as 1940, when Aldous Huxley wrote the screenplay for a version which starred Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet, with Lawrence Olivier as Mr Darcy. The film won an Oscar for best Art Direction. More recently Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen stepped into the shoes of the feisty couple in 2005, Knightley was Oscar nominated for her role, and the film was generally well received, although it arguably failed to eclipse the 1995 television adaptation which shot Colin Firth to fame.

in this Novel . Pride and Prejudice also received two modern updates in the early 2000's. In 2003 the story was modernised and Elizabeth Bennet was portrayed as a student in a film starring Kam Heskin and Orlando Seale. In 2004 Bride and Prejudice gave the tale the Bollywood treatment, Aishwarya Rai in the lead role, renamed Lalita Bakshi, and Martin Henderson as an American Darcy giving the movie cross-continental appeal.