<em>Sense and Sensibility</em>: What We Know So Far About the New Adaptation

Good news has arrived for Jane Austen fans. The author’s classic novel, Sense and Sensibility, is returning to the big screen. (The book was previously made into the Oscar-winning 1995 film starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.) Here’s everything we know about the remake.

Sense and Sensibility follows the three Dashwood sisters and their mother, now a widow, in 18th-century England. The family is forced to leave their lavish Sussex family estate and move in with a distant relative who lives in a quaint cottage. There, the two eldest sisters, Elinor and Marianne, begin contrasting journeys of love and loss.

ELLE’s April 2025 cover star Daisy Edgar-Jones is set to lead the film. She’ll play Elinor Dashwood, the eldest sister of the three siblings.

In her cover story, Edgar-Jones spoke about the importance of playing layered characters. “It’s great that more and more stories are being made with women front and center,” she said. “It’s also an interesting thing, being a woman in your 20s, wanting to find characters who are not always ingenues. You want to find characters with agency. I want every character I play to be complicated and deep and have layers to them, because that’s what it is to be human. I feel lucky that a lot of the characters I’ve played have had that. They aren’t defined by their actions or their experiences, or by the men in their life.”

Edgar-Jones celebrated the Sense and Sensibility news on Instagram in a photo posted today that shows her holding the book. She wrote a simple caption, “👀.”

On July 11, Deadline reported that Esmé Creed-Miles (Hanna) has been cast as Marianne Dashwood, Elinor’s emotional and impulsive sister. Miles shared an Instagram post celebrating the big news with shots of the book and her script side-by-side with Edgar Jones’s.

On July 21, Variety reported that Caitríona Balfe (Outlander), George MacKay (1917), Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve), Frank Dillane (Fear the Walking Dead), Herbert Nordrum (The Worst Person in the World), and Bodhi Rae Breathnach (So Awkward Academy) have joined the cast.

Balfe will play Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Marianne’s mother; MacKay will play Edward Ferrars, Elinor’s love interest; Shaw will play Mrs. Jennings, the woman whom the sisters stay with in London; Dillane will play John Willoughby, Marianne’s first love interest; Nordrum will play Colonel Brandon; Marianne’s other love interest; and Rae Breathnach will play Margaret, Elinor and Marianne’s younger sister.

The Sense and Sensibility remake will be brought to you by Focus Features and Working Title Films. Georgia Oakley (Blue Jean) will direct, and the bestselling author Diana Reid (Love & Virtue) will write the screenplay.

Yes! According to Reid, the film was set to start shooting in July 2025, and it has. Filming has officially commenced in the United Kingdom.

Yes: Oct.16, 2026.

Focus Features previously announced that Sense and Sensibility will open in U.S. theaters on Sept. 11, 2026. But in March 2026, the studio updated the release date.

Yes. In June 2026, the first official images from Sense and Sensibility were released, offering an early look at Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood and the film’s vision for Jane Austen’s world.

The photos also preview the story’s period setting and introduce audiences to several of the characters who will populate the Dashwood sisters’ lives.

Additional reporting by Starr Bowenbank.

This story has been updated.