Jude

Jude (1996) is a British period drama directed by Michael Winterbottom that you can watch online on iFILM. Christopher Eccleston plays Jude Fawley, a self-taught stonemason in late Victorian England who dreams of studying at university but finds every door closed to him. Kate Winslet, in one of her early screen roles, plays his cousin Sue — brilliant, restless, and ultimately devastating.

The film adapts Thomas Hardy's 1895 novel Jude the Obscure and pulls no punches. Jude is trapped first in a loveless marriage to Arabella (Rachel Griffiths), then in a slow-burning affair with Sue that society refuses to tolerate. Winterbottom shoots it with a raw, documentary edge that strips away any Victorian prettiness: what's left is a story about class and education as systems that grind down people with ordinary ambitions and no inherited money.

Liam Cunningham and a young David Tennant appear in supporting roles. The film won prizes at BAFTA and the European Film Awards. Stream Jude (1996) online on iFILM.