Sons and Lovers is a 1960 British period drama film directed by Jack Cardiff and adapted by Gavin Lambert and T. E. B. Clarke from the semi-autobiographical 1913 novel of the same name by D. H. Lawrence.

East Midlands housewife Gertrude Morel is miserable in her marriage to Walter, a coal miner who drinks heavily and sometimes shows his bitterness in violent ways.

Paul finds his desire to escape to a different life sidetracked by his mother's possessiveness, as well as by local girl Miriam Leivers, with whom he has an intellectual relationship that he would like to become physical.

Paul takes a job in a local lace factory, where he becomes enchanted with Clara Dawes, a "liberated" feminist co-worker who is separated—but not divorced—from her husband, Baxter.

She suggests they marry so she can care for him, but Paul rejects her proposal, telling her that, after having belonged to his mother, he wants to stay free so he can learn "what it means to live."

[8] The part of Clara Dawes was offered to Joan Collins, but she turned it down, as her then-fiance Warren Beatty thought the script was "crap" and did not want her to do it.

[11] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "Sons and Lovers is sensitively felt and photographed in Jerry Wald's British-made film version of [Lawrence's novel] ... An excellent cast of British actors (and one American) play it well.

"[12] Variety described the film as "a well-made and conscientious adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's famed novel, smoothly directed by Jack Cardiff and superbly acted by a notable cast."

The review particularly singled out Trevor Howard for "giving a moving and wholly believable study of a man equally capable of tenderness as he is of being tough.