How Wuthering Heights Heathcliffs Evolve To Reflect Changing Masculine Ideals

Laurence Olivier’s performance embodies Heathcliff’s dichotomy of hard and soft. Oliver’s presence on screen is distinguished and sympathetic, given his deep, dark eyes, knife-sharp jaw, and a background in Shakespearean productions that made him a household name. In the 1930s, masculinity was in a crisis (Isn’t it always?). Following the Great Depression, men were no longer sole breadwinners, with many threatened by the introduction of women into the workforce. Films in this era reflected this crisis in its portrayal of men as tough, resilient, capable. Olivier—and Olivier’s Healthcliff, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor—represent how men were feeling at the time. He was tough and confident, but also a symbol of what men could be: romantic and vulnerable, both characteristics that suit Heathcliff’s menacing but captivating nature.

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Ian McShane’s Heathcliff is a tall, dark, brooding beefcake. McShane, now known for his roles in Deadwood and the John Wick series, was then a rising British actor with stage and TV chops. He made the role distinctly his own: romantic, scary, and sexy. Contrary to other takes on the character, his Heathcliff isn’t angsty or explosive. Like many male performances of the era, it’s a slow burn, defined by a looming, uneasy presence and a gradual descent into menace.

This Heathcliff embodies the era’s masculine ideals—±emotionally complex, commanding, and magnetic. McShane’s Heathcliff is the blueprint for the gothic romantic hero: a man who could be feared, worshiped, and desired all at once.

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Over a decade before he became James Bond, Timothy Dalton played another British icon: Heathcliff. More specifically, the least romantic Heathcliff of them all, with a mop of hair straight from the set of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. By the 1970s, rigid ideals of masculinity began to soften, with more vulnerable portrayals and experiences of masculinity depicted in the mainstream, from the music and persona of Bob Dylan to the lead characters of films like The Graduate and Taxi Driver.

Rather than adapting Heathcliff for the modern, emotionally available male, this sadistic adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which was Dalton’s second feature film, fully commits to the concept of Heathcliff as a villain, so much so that it deviates from the novel by turning Hindley—Catherine’s brother, who, in the book, tortures Heathcliff out of resentment—into a heroic figure. Dalton’s Heathcliff is quiet, mean, selfish, domineering… and entirely one note, despite Dalton’s hypnotizing eyebrows. He’s attracted to Catherine’s worst traits: her cruelty and jealousy. And she’s attracted to his worst, too. Instead of exploring the complexity of the character that Bronte created, this adaptation dumbs Heathcliff down to pure villainy, making the story into a battle of good vs. evil rather than a multi-generational epic about the harrowing experience of love and being human.

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Ralph Fiennes portrayed Heathcliff in his feature film debut. This adaptation of Wuthering Heights is one of the few that includes the second part of the book following Catherine’s death, depicting Heathcliff’s revenge. In the early 1990s, masculinity was, once again, in crisis. The macho bro of the 1980s—seen in stars like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kurt Russell (notice how there was not a significant adaptation in that decade)—was threatened by a new age of sensitive, progressive men who weren’t threatened by women or their emotions. Essentially, the threats to conventional masculinity that began in the 1930s progressed.

Fiennes’s Heathcliff is passionate and unguarded in the presence of Catherine, played by Juliet Binoche, several years before the two brought the world to its knees in The English Patient. But behind the piercing blue eyes and dark, naturally wavy hair, Fiennes’s Heathcliff is nasty—and certainly the meanest take on the character, even compared to Dalton’s. It is, after all, a performance that got Steven Spielberg’s attention while casting Schindler’s List (a role Fiennes would take on as vicious Nazi war criminal Amon Göth, which would ultimately land him his first Oscar nomination). Fiennes’s Heathcliff mirrors the era: He’s masculine in appearance and attitude, but underneath, more sensitive than anyone else on Earth.

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Mike Vogel’s “Heath” is the epitome of early-2000s masculinity: smoldering, messy, emotionally unavailable, surf bro, cringe in retrospect. Opposite Erika Christensen in MTV’s modern day reinterpretation of the story, Vogel’s Heath embodies the era’s ideal man in both boring but safe personality and All-American looks (He is blonde, a variation on how the character is usually portrayed). His performance channels a hint of alternative softboy energy to make women feel bad for him, but comes along with enough physicality and temper tantrums to make him appealing for general audiences.

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In the early 2000s, conventional masculinity made its way back to dominance in culture. In a nutshell, hunks were so back, in stars like Paul Walker, Orlando Bloom, Jason Statham, and even Matt Damon, who pivoted from dramatic roles to the strong and mostly silent Jason Bourne. But sensitive boys simmered in indie and alternative subcultures. This is their Heathcliff: Pouty lips, doe eyes. Tom Hardy was Heathcliff for the Tumblr era.

A year before Inception made him a movie star, Hardy played Heathcliff in a BBC miniseries as someone both feral and wounded at the same time. He’s physically intimidating, but visibly aching. The version of masculinity Hardy would perfect in the 2010s leading films like Mad Max: Fury Road and Venom is the undercurrent of this performance: dangerous, stoic, but tormented. He even met his future wife, Charlotte Riley (who plays Catherine in this version), on set. Hardy’s Heathcliff—which, vitally, includes his Dark Knight Rises Bane voice in every scene after Catherine’s death—belongs to the era of men who lifted weights while listening to the Arctic Monkeys.

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In the early 2010s, masculinity onscreen was quiet—less theatrical, less romanticized. Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights stripped the classic story of its gothic, Hollywood gloss and cast James Howson, the first Black actor to play Heathcliff in a major adaptation. The casting made literal what Brontë implied: Heathcliff is an outsider not only due to class and temperament, but due to his race as well. Howson was an unknown, and Wuthering Heights remains his only credit. A non-professional actor discovered in Leeds, he brought a raw, almost documentarian stillness to the role. This Heathcliff is more vocal and loud than the others. He has quick emotional outbursts contrasted by long periods of silence, where he communicates all of his pain with a twitch of the eye or in the way he carries his shoulders. Here, Heathcliff’s masculinity is rooted in isolation. Heathcliff is driven more mad—more alone—the more his passion for Catherine, and his jealousy, linger. This Heathcliff could have easily been a charismatic antihero that defined film and television in the late 2000s, but instead, it’s something more unsettling. At a moment when conversations about identity and representation were becoming less avoidable, Howson’s Heathcliff reframed his rage as something systemic rather than purely romantic.

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Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff sits smack in the middle between softboi and fuckboi. This version of the character is all about romance and control. He’s dangerous and tender, romantic and commanding—exactly the combination women are wired to respond to today. Masculinity changes rapidly, and younger stars like Elordi are showing what a male lead can be, look like, and feel like. He’s both the male lead and the Heathcliff that women actually want, even in his worst moments. Elordi is a distinctly modern masculine figure: an Australian who carries books in his pockets and hurls a capacious Bottega bag through airports. His Heathcliff is cruel, deranged, and unpredictable, but with soft, blurred edges. His small, brooding brown eyes suck you in like a black hole. His chronic smirk suggests he’d rather be on a beach with his nose in a novel and in between a woman’s legs at the same time than on the moors. He has the energy of a nasty, depraved internet boyfriend.

Elordi’s performance is all about sexuality and control, and he knows exactly the effect he’s giving: self-aware and self-mythologizing. His version of masculinity is hyper-visual and politically charged. Elordi’s Heathcliff understands the female gaze and weaponizes it. His passion for Catherine is rooted in dominance as much as devotion. He wants the upper hand, but he also wants her to be the big spoon. This adaptation isn’t afraid of Heathcliff’s darkness or menace, and it’s unafraid to make it sexy, as Emerald Fennell portrays Heathcliff through Catherine’s childish, lovesick eyes.

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