Jane Eyre has six screen versions listed here, from Robert Stevenson’s 1943 feature to Cary Joji Fukunaga’s 2011 film. The novel is about 185,000 words, roughly ten hours of reading, which is why half of these adaptations are serials rather than features.
The split is clean. Cinema versions run between 97 and 120 minutes, television versions between 239 and 275. In density terms, the serials spend about 1.3 to 1.5 minutes of screen per thousand words of the novel, the features about 0.5 to 0.6.
Every screen version at a glance
6 versions are listed here: 3 made for cinemas and 3 for television, released between 1943 and 2011. Runtimes are the length of the version as released, taken from the Wikipedia article for each title and checked against its IMDb entry.
| Year | Version | Director | Length | Leads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1943 | Jane Eyre — film | Robert Stevenson | 97 min | Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine |
| 1973 | Jane Eyre — 5-part serial | Joan Craft | 5 parts, 275 min total | Sorcha Cusack, Michael Jayston |
| 1983 | Jane Eyre — 11-part serial | Julian Amyes | 11 parts, 239 min total | Zelah Clarke, Timothy Dalton |
| 1996 | Jane Eyre — film | Franco Zeffirelli | 116 min | William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joan Plowright |
| 2006 | Jane Eyre — 4-part serial | Susanna White | 4 parts, 240 min total | Ruth Wilson, Toby Stephens, Cosima Littlewood |
| 2011 | Jane Eyre — film | Cary Joji Fukunaga | 120 min | Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell |
How the versions differ
The 1943 film is the shortest here at 97 minutes, with Orson Welles as Rochester and Joan Fontaine as Jane. Its density of about 0.5 minutes per thousand words makes it the most compressed of the six.
The 1973 serial runs 275 minutes across five episodes with Sorcha Cusack and Michael Jayston, and the 1983 serial runs 239 minutes across eleven with Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton. Eleven shorter episodes give the 1983 version a different rhythm from the five long ones of 1973.
The 1996 film runs 116 minutes with William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Joan Plowright; the 2006 serial runs 240 minutes across four episodes with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens; the 2011 film runs 120 minutes with Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender and Jamie Bell. The two films are four minutes apart, the serial six times the length of either.
Reading time against screen time
The novel runs to about 185000 words, which is roughly 10 hours at the 300 words a minute the rest of this site uses. Every screen version fits its own reading of the story into the times below.
| Screen version | Format | Running time |
|---|---|---|
| 1943 · Jane Eyre | film | 97 min |
| 1973 · Jane Eyre | 5-part serial | 5 parts, 275 min total |
| 1983 · Jane Eyre | 11-part serial | 11 parts, 239 min total |
| 1996 · Jane Eyre | film | 116 min |
| 2006 · Jane Eyre | 4-part serial | 4 parts, 240 min total |
| 2011 · Jane Eyre | film | 120 min |
| The novel (1847) | 185000 words | ~10 h to read |
For the most screen time per page, the 1973 serial leads at 275 minutes. For a single sitting there are three features between 97 and 120 minutes: the 1943 film, the 1996 film and the 2011 film.
Questions readers ask
What is the longest Jane Eyre adaptation?
The 1973 BBC serial at 275 minutes across five episodes, two minutes longer than the 1983 serial’s 239 minutes over eleven shorter episodes.
Which Jane Eyre version is closest to the novel?
By density of screen time against text, the serials: about 1.5 minutes per thousand words for 1973 and 1.3 for 1983, against 0.5 to 0.6 for the features.
How many film versions are there?
Three here — 1943, 1996 and 2011 — with runtimes of 97, 116 and 120 minutes. The other three versions are television serials.
The novel itself is on editions.ink as a free ebook: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, with EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB downloads. The full list of filmed classics covers 13 books, and the rest of the catalogue sits under classic fiction.
Other books on screen
- Pride and Prejudice on screen — 4 versions from 1940 to 2005
- The Hound of the Baskervilles on screen — 4 versions from 1939 to 2002
- Little Women on screen — 4 versions from 1933 to 2019