Sense and Sensibility (1995) poster
1995 · drama · romance

Sense and Sensibility

Directed by Ang Lee2h 16m1995
ElsewhereIMDb7.7136kRT97%Metacritic84TMDB7.42k
  • warm
  • measured
Movie DNA

Warm, measured, measured drama / romance, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.

Our read · Sense and Sensibility (1995) reads as a warm, measured, grounded drama · romance entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Sense and Sensibility

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want elegant Austen romance with wit, heart, and Emma Thompson's screenplay.

ends warmyou’ll feel glowing aftera slow buildgrips by minute 12attention 4/5earns its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightYou have no patience for Regency manners, longing glances, or two-hour period drama.

If Sense and Sensibility is your film
Howards End (1992)
Emma Thompson in lush British period drama
(You want romance over class critique)
Persuasion (1995)
Another Austen sisterhood and second-chance love
(You need brighter, funnier energy)
Emma (1996)
Matching Austen wit with countryside matchmaking
(You prefer sisters over one heroine)
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself