Curator Watchlist
A polished, emotionally charged historical drama that blends wartime suspense with a deeply felt friendship story. It’s especially rewarding if you like elegant period filmmaking, strong performances, and queer subtext carried through restraint rather than overt declaration.
Where to watch: Buy
Sat · 1h 57m
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards
At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.
Fred Zinnemann
Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards
A polished, emotionally charged historical drama that blends wartime suspense with a deeply felt friendship story. It’s especially rewarding if you like elegant period filmmaking, strong performances, and queer subtext carried through restraint rather than overt declaration.
Julia is a stately, mournful piece of 1970s prestige cinema that turns a wartime errand into something intimate and morally fraught. Fred Zinnemann keeps the film controlled and elegant, letting the danger simmer beneath the surface while the emotional center stays with Jane Fonda’s Lillian Hellman and Vanessa Redgrave’s elusive Julia.
What makes it linger is the combination of political peril and personal devotion. The film is less interested in spy mechanics than in memory, loyalty, and the cost of acting on love in a hostile world. That gives it a soft, haunted quality that many viewers read as dreamy or gauzy, even when the stakes are severe.
It can feel distant at times, and some may find the structure diffuse or the emotional payoffs underwritten. But when it works, it works as a melancholy adult drama with real star power, a sense of period texture, and a quietly devastating romantic charge.
Alli (3.5★) · 129 likes
A historical drama full of mystery and a touch of thriller, Julia is the story of two friends who would do anything for each other, and during WWII, one of them does. It was said that this movie was based on a true story, but it looks like that may not be true (the author potentially fabricated the whole thing). Either way, the tone feels like a memory, as if always looking through a soft gauzy filter. As a total
Sam (2.5★) · 116 likes
Other than Jane Fonda’s strong and fierce performance, Julia lacks any sort of emotional connection or cultural significance. The fact that Jason Robards won an Oscar for this when his character symbolizes virtually nothing and is barely 5 minutes long, is absolutely baffling and disgusting. Vanessa Redgrave is great but, again, doesn’t have nearly enough screen time considering SHE is literally Julia.
Josh Gillam (3★) · 86 likes
Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave star in this period drama, about playwright Lillian Hellman’s friendship with Julia, daughter of a wealthy family, who involves her in the anti-Nazi cause just before the Second World War, with Jason Robards, Maximilian Schell and Meryl Streep (in her debut film) in supporting roles. It’s really well made, and with veteran director Fred Zinnemann at the reins everything feels classy and stylish. The pre-war setting is recreated really well, and it manages to capture… more
eely (3.5★) · 69 likes
“I like your anger. don’t let anyone talk you out of it.” jane fonda as a jewish bisexual playwright smuggling her girlfriend’s money into nazi germany in a giant fur hat: definitely made for a niche market but I am that very market. just an FYI: this movie is absolutely devastating and jane fonda is invincible.
Helen_S (4.5★) · 65 likes
Yes, yes, YES!! Depressing dramas have always been one of my fave genres of film but the last couple of years I've found myself actively avoiding them or on the rare occasion that I have watched I just haven't been able to jive with them much at all. I am pleased to say this brought me back to MISERY HEAVEN. I am so happy :D Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave were phenomenal. Never did I think I could be so
Another elegant, performance-driven drama about loyalty, ideology, and the emotional power of women’s relationships.
A sharp, adult drama with formidable women, moral pressure, and a classic theatrical intensity.
For viewers who respond to layered female interiority, emotional restraint, and interwoven memory.
A humane, carefully observed drama about aftermath, duty, and the private costs of history.
A wartime resistance story centered on women navigating danger with intelligence and resolve.
For its romantic melancholy, wartime backdrop, and lush, reflective storytelling.
A restrained period drama about duty, regret, and emotions held just beneath the surface.
A passionate, atmospheric film about desire, silence, and female agency under pressure.
If the appeal is memory, tenderness, and emotional understatement, this offers similar ache and grace.
A classic wartime thriller with espionage tension and a strong sense of danger in occupied Europe.
A morally serious political drama where surveillance, intimacy, and conscience collide.
For viewers who want a more accessible historical drama about secrecy, duty, and sacrifice.
female friendship, queer subtext, anti-fascism, wartime danger, memory and nostalgia, moral courage, literary adaptation, political drama
period drama, wartime thriller, prestige cinema, queer-coded romance, anti-Nazi resistance, female-led, memory, melancholy, 1970s film, literary