William Golding’s 1954 novel has been adapted for film twice — Peter Brook’s bleak 1963 version and Harry Hook’s muddled 1990 American take — and neither has held up as a definitive interpretation. Jack Thorne, who wrote Adolescence, now has a four-episode BBC series that landed on Netflix in the US on May 4, and critics are calling it the adaptation that may make all subsequent attempts unnecessary. The Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 91%.

HBO’s new adaptation of Wuthering Heights is being described, without apparent embarrassment, as the version that leans into what the novel was actually doing. Brontë’s 1847 text has always been more violent and erotic and structurally strange than its reputation as a tragic romance suggests — the relationship at its center is obsessive and destructive and explicitly includes class warfare, generational revenge, and a ghost. The sanitized versions have historically missed the point.