Wuthering Heights trailer: Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi stun in Saltburn director’s new film

The first full-length trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has arrived. The Saltburn director’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s only novel stars Australians Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie as Heathcliff and Catherine, the doomed lovers whose connection drives the story across the Yorkshire moors.

The trailer opens with a title card calling the 1847 novel “the greatest love story of all time,” before flashing back to the pair’s childhood meeting with young Heathcliff is played by Adolescence breakout Owen Cooper.

Then to their turbulent adult relationship. Robbie’s Catherine asks Elordi’s Heathcliff, “What would you do if you were rich?” He replies, “I suppose I’d do what all rich men do. Live in a big house, be cruel to my servants, take a wife.”

Readers of the novel were quick to jump into the comments, saying things like “The greatest love story of all time” I don’t think we’ve read the same book”, and “Greatest love story of all time”? “Bro, Wuthering Heights is a revenge story, not a love story lol.”

“WHO’S GONNA TELL THEM LMAO?,” another commenter asked.

One user said they were “yelling at the screen IT’S NOT A LOVE STORY!”

As in Brontë’s novel, Cathy marries wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) to preserve her social standing, leaving a heartbroken Heathcliff to disappear and plot his revenge.

The trailer shows glimpses of their tormented relationship, with scenes of kissing and rain-soaked heartbreak set to Charli XCX’s new track Chains of Love, recorded for the film’s companion album due in February.

Viewers also catch flashes of anachronistic costumes and Emerald Fennell’s trademark bursts of colour. “So kiss me, and let us both be damned,” Elordi’s Heathcliff says in the final moments.

Though the film won’t be released until Valentine’s Day, it has already sparked debate. When the casting was announced last year, fans questioned the choices: Robbie, seen as too old to play a teenager; Elordi, criticised for not fitting the character’s ethnicity in the novel.

Further controversy followed reports of an unverified test screening. One attendee allegedly described the film as “aggressively provocative and tonally abrasive,” drawing comparisons to Saltburn’s “stylised depravity.”

These reports mentioned explicit scenes and strong imagery.

Fennell appeared to acknowledge the uproar with her teaser, which featured a series of symbolic visuals.

The new full-length trailer shifts focus to the narrative, setting up the story of obsession, revenge and social class that made Brontë’s book a classic.

Fennell, who won an Oscar for her debut, the Robbie-produced Promising Young Woman, and later directed Saltburn, has developed a reputation for pushing creative boundaries.

Speaking at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival earlier this year, she said the novel “cracked me open” when she read it at 14.

“I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been driven mad by this book,” she said. “I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious.”

She called adapting it “an act of extreme masochism.” “It’s very personal material for everyone. It’s very illicit. There’s a reason people were deeply shocked by it,” she added.