Ranging from the 18th to 20th centuries, these top 4 selections encapsulate top Period Drama films filled with visual and historical richness, gossip, unspoken dialogues, and refinement. They immerse the viewer in another time, from lavish balrooms to oppresive times of war, elegant courtrooms, and garden strolls of chivalrous courting. The costumes and set design reveal a profound attention to detail, as does the colorist, lighting, and sound design. Their narratives articulate the complexities of societal dyanmics and platonic and romantic relationships. Are you ready to be educated on another time and trasported into another realm through the power of film?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire Review

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a stunningly shot film providing a glimpse into two women’s relationship in 18th century France.

Set in the 1700s, a painter named Marianne arrives at an island in Brittany after being commissioned to paint a wedding portrait of Heloise, a young aristocrat who refuses to pose for a portrait. Marianne pretends she is merely an acquaintance to accompany Heloise on walks, studying her subject’s features and painting her in secret.

The fire is figurative, but also real – goes beyond painterly beauty, The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern wrote, adding, It sees into souls.

This movie is a living breathing painting that captures the gorgeous form of its subject in original thought, but also suggests new forms and makes its audience into new subjects. Every shot feels like a great expressionist painter’s private composition. The world of this movie is a fully self-contained universe totally disinterested in what it should or shouldn’t be, and even less interested in following conventional paths toward over-engineered meaning. Sciamma rejects all cliche, grants godlike respect to her audience, avoids turning characters into cartoons, slogans, campaigns, or manifestos. She does not stumble. She refuses even accidentally to convert a difficult and subtle love story into a parody or a lazy reduction of love’s complexity. She is a master and masters do not make those kinds of imaginative errors. Her screenplay is faithful only to itself and to its own brilliant instinct for surprise and beauty, which allows it the full revelatory power of literary fiction.

Celine Sciamma’s direction is a masterclass in subtlety and nuance. Her ability to convey the unspoken through the visuals and the performances of her actors is nothing short of extraordinary. The film’s meticulous attention to detail, from the costumes to the breathtaking natural landscapes of Brittany, creates a world that immerses the audience in the 18th century and the constraints of the time. The audience feel every emotion, every stolen glance, and every moment of forbidden love. It is a profound meditation on love, desire, and the human condition.

The title, "The Portrait of a Lady on Fire," encapsulates the film’s essence. It signifies not only the act of painting but also the hidden passions that burn within the hearts of its characters. The dialogue is sparse but incredibly meaningful, and the film beautifully conveys the unspoken desires and longing that exist beneath the surface. In terms of musical score, the recurring harpsichord melody becomes a symbol of their love, a reminder of the emotions that cannot be openly expressed.

In short, "The Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is a cinematic gem that deserves the highest accolades. It is a testament to the art of filmmaking and storytelling, and a gift to all who have had the privilege of experiencing its beauty and emotional resonance. It is an exquisite masterpiece that deserves the highest praise.

The Favourite Review

The Favourite is a dramatic comedy about two women vying for the queen’s affection.

Abigail (Emma Stone) and Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) duel over Queen Anne’s (Olivia Colman) affection in The Favourite, which is set in 18th century England.

Yorgos Lanthimos turns 18th-century royal intrigue into sublime and ridiculous comedy," A.O. Scott wrote in The New York Times. Set in the court of Queen Anne, it boasts daring performances from its three female stars and lashings of lust, intrigue and deceit with fiendishly eccentric and entertaining costume drama in a unique, absurdist style. The Royal Palace in The Favourite is nothing more than an intimate home of familial duels, with compartmentalized walls that serve as pillars of confinement. In short, it’s a perfect "Lanthimosian" playground, complete with an array of mischievous backstabbers, tight corsets and a dash of eroticism.

Only partially based on a true story and laced with plenty of creative fabrications, The Favourite follows Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), one of the lesser-known monarchs of England who reigned in the early 1700s during the war with the French. An occasionally distracted and often irritable royal figure with a mysterious skin condition, overall poor health and a soft spot for luscious desserts, Queen Anne lives with her trusted friend and lover Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and tends to her 17 rabbits that tragically fill an emotional void for each of her failed pregnancies. The duo’s royal order, however imbalanced, gets disturbed by the arrival of the calculating, mud-covered ex-aristocrat Abigail Masham (Emma Stone), who humbly accepts a position as a servant while courting an agenda of her own to restore her glory days. Initially, an unsuspecting Sarah lends Abigail a genuine helping hand, only to quickly realize the treacherous intentions of the double-player. Various complications reach an urgent state after Abigail works her way into the Queen’s chamber as her new personal handmaid, and eventually, crawls into her bed as her lover. A poisonously competitive streak amid the trio commences in due course, while a number of male stakeholders wander in and out of the picture.

Often satirical, The Favourite grasps the complexity of circumstantial, patriarchy-defined enmity among females. As amusing as it is to follow the misadventures of the infinitely witty and resourceful Abigail as she plots against her Queen and Lady Churchill, The Favourite deserves credit mostly for rising the desperate humanity of its female characters up to the surface, as they get challenged by their respective demons around social status, undignified competition, and physical appeal. Legendary costume designer Sandy Powell’s craft stunning, original, mostly black-and-white creations (a monochrome palette must be one ingenious way to work around budgetary constraints) and Fiona Crombie creates a seductive production design. Lanthimos’ most accessible movie to date, The Favourite is simply awe-inspiring in the way it harbors serious themes and anxieties about womanhood underneath a deceptively feather-light surface.

Pride and Prejudice Review

Wright, who also directed Knightley in his first film, Pride and Prejudice, (2005) shows a mastery of nuance and epic, sometimes in adjacent scenes. In the McEwan novel, he has a story that can hardly fail him and an ending that blindsides us with its implications. It stands on its own as a singular achievement – romantic, sensuous, intelligent and finally shattering in its sweep and thematic complexity, as Joe Morgenstern wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

This quintessentially English film is utterly charming – a very traditional interpretation of Jane Austen's 1813 novel that manages to entertain, amuse and even move. First-time director Joe Wright has worked with television playwright Deborah Moggach's script and a wonderful collection of mainly British actors to delight us. The versatile camera-work, luscious countryside, grand settings, period costumes, and atmospheric music are evidence of a work on which much love has been lavished.

At the heart of this triumph is the delightful 20-year-old Keira Knightley as the assured and sharp Elizabeth Bennett, the second of five daughters looking to be married off by an anxious mother. Knightley's rise in the thespian firmament has been meteoric, and this is her best performance to date in a role for which she is perfectly cast. Matthew MacFadyen is suitably brooding and gauche as Mr Darcy, but the cast list is enlivened with splendid British character actors, including Brenda Blethyn as Lizzie's irascible mother, Tom Hollander as a diminutive cleric seeking a wife, and Judi Dench as the formidable Lady Catherine, plus the Canadian Donald Sutherland (Lizzie's wise father).

This is a Georgian world in which social conventions present a veritable minefield for indiscretions or misunderstandings and in which a formal dance can be as intricate an occasion as international diplomacy. Pride and prejudice are only two of the obstacles to be overcome before inevitably true love brings Lizzie and her dark knight nose to nose (we don't even see a kiss). Passionate stuff indeed.

Atonement Review

Atonement examines the consequences one decision can have on people’s lives. "Atonement" begins on joyous gossamer wings and descends into an abyss of tragedy and loss. Its opening scenes in an English country house between the wars are like a dream of elegance, and then a 13-year-old girl sees something she misunderstands, tells a lie, and destroys all possibility of happiness in three lives, including her own. When Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) wrongly accuses her older sister Cecilia’s (Keira Knightley) lover (James McAvoy) of a crime in the early 20th century, she changes the directions of the couple’s lives.

The movie’s opening act is like a breathless celebration of pure heedless joy, a demonstration of the theory that the pinnacle of human happiness was reached by life in an English country house between the wars. Of course, that was more true of those upstairs than downstairs. We meet Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley), the bold, older daughter of an old family, and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), their housekeeper’s promising son, who is an Oxford graduate, thanks to the generosity of Cecilia’s father. Despite their difference in social class, they are powerfully attracted to each other, and that leads to a charged erotic episode next to a fountain on the house lawn.

Each period and scene in the movie is compelling on its own terms and then compelling on a deeper level as a playing out of the destiny that was sealed beside the fountain on that perfect summer’s day. It is only at the end of the film, when Briony, now an aged novelist played by Vanessa Redgrave, reveals facts about the story that we realize how thoroughly, how stupidly, she has continued for a lifetime to betray Cecilia, Robbie, and herself. The structure is remarkable. How many films have we seen that fascinate in every moment and then, in the last moments, pose a question about all that has gone before, one that forces us to think deeply about what betrayal and atonement might really entail?

Wright, who also directed Knightley in his first film, Pride and Prejudice, (2005) shows a mastery of nuance and epic, sometimes in adjacent scenes. In the McEwan novel, he has a story that can hardly fail him and an ending that blindsides us with its implications. It stands on its own as a singular achievement – romantic, sensuous, intelligent and finally shattering in its sweep and thematic complexity," as Joe Morgenstern wrote for The Wall Street Journal.