Curator Watchlist
A lavish, emotionally sincere musical romance with a standout central performance and strong visual sweep, but its stylized approach and anachronistic songs will be divisive. If you respond to heightened yearning and theatrical melancholy, it can be very moving; if you want a cleaner, more traditional adaptation,… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 2h 2m
Director: Joe Wright
Starring: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
A man ahead of his time, Cyrano de Bergerac dazzles whether with ferocious wordplay at a verbal joust or with brilliant swordplay in a duel. But, convinced that his appearance renders him unworthy of the love of a devoted friend, the luminous Roxanne, Cyrano has yet to declare his feelings for her—and Roxanne has fallen in love, at first sight, with Christian.
Joe Wright
Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
A lavish, emotionally sincere musical romance with a standout central performance and strong visual sweep, but its stylized approach and anachronistic songs will be divisive. If you respond to heightened yearning and theatrical melancholy, it can be very moving; if you want a cleaner, more traditional adaptation, it may feel overworked.
Cyrano is a bold, deeply earnest swing: a period romance that treats longing like a grand performance and heartbreak like a stage curtain falling. Peter Dinklage gives it real emotional gravity, making Cyrano’s wit, shame, and tenderness feel lived-in rather than ornamental. Haley Bennett brings warmth and fragility, and the film’s central triangle has enough emotional clarity to keep the melodrama afloat even when the concept gets busy.
Joe Wright leans hard into theatricality, and that’s both the movie’s charm and its biggest obstacle. The production design, costumes, and movement are designed to sweep you up, but the contemporary musical choices can feel jarring if you’re not already on board. At its best, the film turns yearning into something almost physical; at its weakest, it can seem like it’s trying a little too hard to be singular.
Still, there’s a genuine romantic pulse here, and it’s hard to dismiss a film this committed to its own emotional logic. It’s not the most elegant Cyrano adaptation, but it is one of the most heartfelt. For viewers who like their period drama with a little abrasion, a little pop-music melancholy, and a lot of bruised devotion, it lands.
•lily• (4★) · 1296 likes
Shoutout to joe wright period pieces about yearning… gotta be one of my favourite genders
Holli (3★) · 1045 likes
"eww she fuck the weed man for weed" - a bitch who's fucking the letter man for letters
davidehrlich (3★) · 713 likes
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, Joe Wright — one of the last true madmen in Hollywood cinema — rebounds from the folly of his “Woman in the Window” with a full-throated musical adaptation of “Cyrano de Bergerac” soundtracked by The National, shot during COVID on Sicily (with hundreds of lavishly costumed extras singing a mope rock banger on the snowy peak of an active volcano!), and starring Peter Dinklage as a lovelorn poet who possesses the courage
Eliza (4★) · 605 likes
You know what's better than sex? Recieving a letter.
Ella Kemp (3.5★) · 577 likes
Confirms my lifelong conviction nobody knows what love sounds like quite like The National
A lush, emotionally bruising period romance with formal elegance and a devastating sense of missed connection.
Another Joe Wright period adaptation that embraces theatricality, visual invention, and doomed passion.
A tender, letter-shaped romance about art, longing, and the ache of loving from a distance.
Refined, emotionally disciplined period melodrama about desire constrained by social codes.
A masterclass in restrained yearning and the emotional power of looking, waiting, and remembering.
A sung-through romance where music and color intensify the ache of impossible love.
A classic musical that turns romantic longing and social tension into kinetic, tragic spectacle.
For viewers who can handle heightened emotion, it offers sweeping sentiment and performance-driven intensity.
Operatic romance, masked identity, and grand emotional excess in a lavish theatrical register.
Expansive, mournful romance built on memory, devotion, and the cost of desire.
A sensual, emotionally charged period drama about communication, longing, and self-possession.
Playful literary romance with wit, performance, and a strong sense of romantic invention.
unrequited love, love triangle, self-image and insecurity, letters and communication, yearning, sacrifice, identity and performance, romantic melancholy
romantic drama, musical, period piece, yearning, melodrama, literary adaptation, tragic romance, theatrical, costume drama, anachronistic soundtrack