This is relatively easy – there are two adaptations worth watching:
- The 1987 BBC miniseries starring Katharine Schlesinger and Peter Firth
- The 2007 BBC miniseries starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild.
Both are delightful. I’ll post reviews of each presently, but the short version is that the 1987 is the most watchable of the first-generation BBC adaptations, because – unlike the other five – it doesn’t take itself quite so seriously.
If you go to watch it, remember that half the plot revolves around Catherine Moreland’s obsession with Gothic fiction – so there are interspersed scenes of kidnappings and other potentially violent situations that are all in Catherine’s head.
The 2007 version is even more watchable. It makes the secondary character’s subplots a little clearer, but the chemistry between Feild’s Mr. Tilney and Jones’ Catherine seems stronger from the start. And as with most later adaptations, most of the parts that hint at budding romance or deeply-felt emotions are presented more clearly than in the older “stiff-upper-lip” versions.
Interestingly enough, J.J. Field, who played the 2007 Mr. Tilney and went on to play the dashing Major John André in the Revolutionary War spy series Turn, reappears in an “Austenish” setting in the comedy Austenland.