10 films and shows to watch while waiting for Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age

Julian Fellowes’ new project has Downton Abbey fans aflutter as we eagerly await his new saga of glitter and social divides, The Gilded Age.

Let’s indulge in a snapshot of The Gilded Age and 10 great movies set in the era, as we wait for the upcoming NBC series The Gilded Age, set for release in 2019. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, is developing the new period drama:

The term itself was coined by authors Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 novel titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The title was inspired by a Shakespearean quote from King John: “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily … is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” The Gilded Age now refers to a period of American history between the 1870s and late 1910s. It was a time of unprecedented commercial growth, prosperity, greed and materialism. The era saw the the rise of industry magnates including Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and JP Morgan.

With Fellowes at the helm of the new series, we anticipate a visually enchanting delight flooded with opulent architecture, settings and costumes. Behind the shimmer, we expect complex tales of vanity, social climbing, fortune seeking and questionable financial and marital arrangements. The glamour of high society will grounded with class struggles and emerging social protest within an economy that is slowly eroding. There may parallels between The Gilded Age and the TV series The Forsyte Saga of 2002. While set in the UK, The Forsyte Saga, featuring Homeland’s Damian Lewis, chronicles the lives of three generations from a well-to-do family from the 1870s to 1921. It chips away at a gilded facade to present a family in turmoil.

But if that doesn’t appeal to you, try these 10 other movies and TV shows.

Crimson Peak (2015)

Crimson Peak is a horror revolving around a noble English industrial inventor and an American heiress, set in New York and England mostly around turn of the century. Crimson Peak represents the many grand family estates built during the prosperous era that left many a family in debt. The secrets uncovered within the ghostly and dilapidated house scrape the gilt from the appearance of respectability, leading to shocking and bloody confrontations. Business Insider describes how the film’s house was inspired the 1925 artwork The House by The Railroad by Edward Hopper, on which the Bates’ house in Psycho was also modeled.

Crimson Peak is available on Amazon Video.

The Age of Innocence (1993)

This award winning Martin Scorsese film is an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. Wharton’s tale provides a peek into the views of society in an era of declining fortunes and changing morals. Set in 1870’s New York, this is a period drama of forbidden romance. A gossiping upper class society ostracizes a woman for having a questionable past and modern views.

The Age of Innocence is on Amazon Video.

Hello, Dolly! (1969)

Hello, Dolly! is a musical comedy of romantic complications set in 1890 within New York high society. It was directed by Gene Kelly and stars Barbra Streisand stars as Dolly Levi, a divorcée and matchmaker determined to find love for up-and-coming merchant Horace Vandergelder, played by Walter Matthau. Matthau’s cynicism is contrasted by the optimism of the character Cornelius Hackl played by Michael Crawford. Crawford’s rose-tinted songs from the film feature 40 years later in Disney’s WALL-E, encompassing the spirit of robot.

You can find Hello, Dolly! (and WALL-E via Starz) on Amazon Video.

The House of Mirth (2000)

The House of Mirth is based on another of Edith Wharton’s novels and is set in New York in the late 1800s. It features X-Files star Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart, a well-born yet economically and socially challenged young woman. This social satire examines how the society was obsessed by ornaments, including women, and reaches deeper into hidden addictions and struggles behind closed doors.

The House of Mirth is available via DIRECTV or Xfinity Stream.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane is a mystery drama by Orson Welles, inspired in part by the legacy of American newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. In 1871, after the discovery of gold on their rural property, Charles Foster Kane is reluctantly sent away to be educated at boarding boarding. As an adult, he starts a career in sensationalist journalism with the New York Enquirer and eventually leads the scandalous masthead. The story is told in flashback by a journalist seeking to uncover the meaning of the last words uttered by Kane on his deathbed.

Citizen Kane is available on Amazon Video and FilmStruck.

Washington Square (1997)

Washington Square is a romantic drama adapted from Henry James’ 1880 novel, and was filmed previously as The Heiress in 1949. It examines the introduction into society of Catherine Sloper, whose only attractive quality is her future wealth to be inherited from her widowed father. It is a story of family pride and betrayal, and the house on Washington Square represents the society which contains Catherine as she strives to marry a man that her father presumes to be a fortune hunter.

You can find Washington Square on Amazon Video.

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Don Ameche plays Henry Van Cleve in this unusual fantasy comedy. A recently deceased old man, Van Cleve arrives at hell and must prove he is worthy of admittance and eternal damnation. Van Cleve recounts his playboy life of the late 1800s, a patchwork of privilege, idleness, scandal, bribery, affairs and pretentious wit. The story was based on the 1934 play The Birthday by Leslie-Bush Fekete, and inspired many other Bangsian fantasies — tales of a dead folk arguing for their entry into, or exit from, heaven or hell — such as Here Comes Mr Jordan in 1941.

Heaven Can Wait is on Amazon Video.

The Knick (2014-2016)

While a TV series rather than a film, this period medical drama presents a darker look at evolving medical and social trends of the era. Clive Owen stars as Dr. Thackery of Knickerbocker Hospital in New York in 1900. While an innovative and risk-taking surgeon, Dr. “Thack” is plagued by opium addiction within a twisted establishment of social, class and medical taboos, that relies on funding by fickle and wealthy benefactors.

The Knick is on both Amazon Video and Cinemax.

Titanic (1997)

The opulent upper class decks of the Titanic provide a perfect microcosm of New York elite returning in lavish style to the grand city in 1912. The elaborate decor, snobbery and finery of first class is contrasted with the rambunctiousness and moral fibre of the passengers in steerage. As discussed in The Independent, a higher proportion of lower class passages perished, due to being located too far from lifeboats and having limited English skills with which to understand the unfolding calamity.

Check out Titanic on Amazon Video.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

The 1925 book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and 1974 and 2013 films, explore excess and decadence sponsored by illegal activity in an era being fractured by economic instability. America’s growing addiction for commercialism is represented in the billboard featuring eyeglasses watching over the valley of ashes. The Great Gatsby, set in 1922, represents the end of The Gilded Age through the tragic downfall of the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his obsession with Daisy Buchanan.

Find the 1974 version adaptation on Netflix, while Amazon Video has the 2013 version.

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And, of course, there’s always Downton Abbey to watch before The Gilded Age arrives.