This Hollywood version, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, is similar to the original novel, although it compresses and eliminates most of the plot in the last quarter of the book (the running away, the trials and tribulations, new-found relations, and new job) to condense it into a two-hour film.

Jane Eyre (portrayed as the orphan girl by Anna Paquin and as an independent woman by Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a plain, impoverished lady hired by Mr. Rochester (William Hurt) through Mrs. Fairfax (Joan Plowright) to work as a governess for Adèle (Josephine Serre).

What Jane does not realize is that she must share the estate and, ultimately, Mr. Rochester with his wife, Bertha (Maria Schneider), who is mentally ill and is confined in an upstairs attic with a nurse, Grace Poole (Billie Whitelaw).

The film debuted on the Blu-ray format for the first time on September 11, 2012 in a double feature with Becoming Jane (2007), released by Echo Bridge Entertainment.

[7] The New York Times called Hurt "embarrassingly miscast as a Rochester more nearly a mild eccentric than a brooding, Byronic type", but conceded that the film "has its moments".