The Scarlet Letter

1995
R
2h 15m

IMDb RATING

5.3/10

17K

YOUR RATING

Demi Moore and Gary Oldman in The Scarlet Letter (1995)

An affair between a young woman and a pastor has disastrous consequences.

Play trailer3:17

1 Video

40 Photos

Drama Romance

An affair between a young woman and a pastor has disastrous consequences.An affair between a young woman and a pastor has disastrous consequences.An affair between a young woman and a pastor has disastrous consequences.

Director
- Roland Joffé
Writers
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Douglas Day Stewart
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.3/10

17K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Roland Joffé
Writers
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Douglas Day Stewart
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 10 nominations

Videos1

Trailer 3:17

Watch Official Trailer

Photos40

+ 33

More like this

4.6

6.2

6.0

5.7

6.0

5.4

7.4

6.9

If These Walls Could Talk

6.2

7.6

6.4

5.8

Storyline

Edit

Did you know

Edit

Trivia
Composer Elmer Bernstein reportedly wrote a letter to Demi Moore thanking her for rejecting his music score for this movie, so that he could use it to score a better movie. Moore was involved in getting John Barry to write the final score, because she wanted a score like the one he did for the romantic, and very successful Out of Africa (1985).

Goofs
Nicholas Rice is credited as playing the clerk, but the role was actually played by someone else.

Quotes
Pearl: [voiceover] Who is to say what is a sin in God's eyes.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Assassins/Dead Presidents/How to Make an American Quilt/Strange Days/Persuasion (1995)

Soundtracks
Agnus Dei
(Based on Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings")
Performed by Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers
(Adm. by G. Schirmen Inc. (ASCAP))
Courtesy of Telarc International Corporation

User reviews115

Review

Featured review

5/10

a definite misfire

This adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel is pretty disappointing. The casting of Demi Moore as Hester Prynne is laughable - she looks what she was at the time, a pretty, A-list, Hollywood star. Gary Oldman does slightly better as Dimmesdale - in fact he might have just saved the film - but Robert Duvall is atrocious as Roger Chillingworth; totally wrong.

The adaptation is stodgy, the story tampered with, and the direction by Roland Joffe is pedestrian. Faces like Edward Hardwicke, Tim Woodward, Roy Dotrice, and Joan Plowright, give the film some credibility, but not enough.