Adultery on Film and Television: A Random List, updated June 2025
Why do so many novels and movies focus on adultery? This emphasis is an oblique way of addressing the central concern, which is love, the deepest longing of human nature and the deepest source of meaning. People want to focus on the nature of love, the limits of love, the dynamics of love. Adultery is the sharpest and most vivid betrayal of love, so wrestling with adultery becomes major dramatic terrain for exploring the nature of love and the nature of love’s counterfeits. It’s in the contrast with darkness that avenues open up for exploring the nature of light. Love entails faith, in which trust is a major component. Truly loving means keeping faith, fulfilling the trust that another has in oneself. Betraying the beloved violates that trust, that faith. Hence infidelity, a synonym for faithlessness, has become one of the main synonyms for adultery. Adultery recurs in fiction and film as a prime vehicle for the human struggle with what it means to keep faith, to persevere in love despite challenges.
It is striking how adultery plays a part in so many films in the drama category, but also in thrillers and mysteries. It can be difficult for victims of adultery to view films with adultery, for it can plunge them into replaying how they were victimized. But alternatively, viewing others’ drama can relieve the isolation of one’s own hurt, be cathartic and, most important, yield insights into the dynamics of betrayal and one’s own experience of it.
One key to whether a film has power in this area is whether the characters are depicted in a way that prompts us to care about them. To take two famous examples from fiction, a weakness in both Gustave Flaubert’s "Madame Bovary" and Leo Tolstoy’s "Anna Karenina" is that each adulteress is depicted as such a wretched personality that her drama fails to elicit interest or insight. D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley, by contrast is depicted as a genuinely attractive and interesting character, which makes that novel – and the film version – revelatory.
An equally interesting matter is how, like those three novels, contemporary film is more interested in adultery by women than by men. The conjunction of adultery with the feminist movement against patriarchy is an obvious influence. Unfortunately, that has also resulted in a double standard: women’s adultery is often regarded as interesting, complex and ambiguous enough to be condoned, while men’s adultery is regarded as shallow, uninteresting and simply dastardly. The truth is otherwise: the dynamics and morality of betrayal are more or less the same in both sexes, as is the suffering imposed on the betrayed, whether male or female.
Here's an alphabetical, non-comprehensive listing of over 50 films and television series, most of them since 2000, in which adultery plays a major part:
"A Handful of Dust," 1988 – Based on the novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh. Ebert: " . . . about two monsters of selfishness and the suffering that they cause. One is a woman who takes a young lover and willingly destroys her family and its traditions in the process. The other is a man who likes to be read aloud to. The victim of both of these creatures is one of the nicest men you’d ever want to meet, a British aristocrat named Tony Last, who foolishly allows himself to trust in traditions." Movie is okay but not outstanding, for wife Brenda’s motivation is never explored.
"A Million Little Things," 2018 – Family drama based in friendship among four guys. Sometimes treacly but often good. A major story line is about an adultery among them that results in a child being conceived and born. Set in Boston.
"A Storm at Christmas," 2022 – Travelers stuck at Oslo Airport, in Norwegian. Good on various characters and interactions: bartender dying of cancer is reunited with long-lost daughter; lesbian singer repents her imperious treatment of assistant; demanding traveler is transformed by helping in a soup kitchen; young daughter helps her parents to stop arguing; naïve young woman who helps a pilot become less cynical; a woman chaplain along the way hooks up with a traveler; a philandering girlfriend confesses her numerous affairs to her boyfriend, who appropriately ends the relationship. Good acting, subtle generally, though maybe trite in how all comes right in the end.
"A Teacher," 2020 10-part series – A married female high school English teacher and an 18-year-old senior student develop an emotional-sexual relationship in Austin, Texas. Cautionary texts as each episode opens and closes indicate that the film is intended as a cautionary tale and viewers are given a link for resources if they’re in a similar situation. It’s well acted and credible. Both partners have responsibility in generating the affair, but the film is clear that the teacher is the person mainly at fault. Her husband is portrayed as a good person, and the teacher has no reason to stray other than the thrill of the illicit. When the affair goes public, she has to spend time in jail, but goes on to marry and have two children with someone else, though the publicity means she can never work again outside of her family. The student, though gifted and handsome, never recovers and 10 years later is stalled in life. A later encounter between the two resolves nothing, the important message being that such relationships are permanently destructive.
"A Walk on the Moon," 1999 – Excellent adultery film – one of the best. Stars Diane Lane as Pearl, a straying wife in upper New York State in the summer of 1969, featuring both the Woodstock Folk Festival and the first moon landing, hence the movie’s title. Liev Schreiber plays her husband Marty, and Viggo Mortensen plays the affair partner. It’s all quite credible, with the possible exception of the closing reconciliation, which comes without the probing of any mutual discussion, but maybe that’s the case for people not used to expressing feelings and thoughts at depth or with precision.
"Apple Tree Yard," 2017 – Excellent British 4-part series based on the novel of the same name. Emily Watson plays geneticist Dr. Carmichael, who co-starts adultery with wolfish Mark Costly in a House of Commons crypt and falls heavily for him with sex in public places. Then she’s raped by a colleague at an office party, and Costley kills the rapist, substantially at her behest. He’s convicted of manslaughter while she’s let off. Adultery comes out in court, which is hard for her husband. Why didn’t she tell her husband about the rape? – "I didn’t want him always to have that in his mind in coming years," in addition of course to her not wanting the adultery to tumble out.
"Ashes," 2024 – "From an intoxicating fantasy to a dangerous affair, a wealthy married woman finds her life irreversibly shattered after picking up an unpublished novel." Gokce is the book editor at the publishing house in Istanbul she and her husband Kenan own. The novel, submitted anonymously by a woman, is about a liaison with a carpenter in the city. Gokce is intrigued and is able to track the carpenter, Metin, down and then becomes obsessed with him, recapitulating the plot of the novel and turning emotionally disturbed and volatile. The film is mediocre but interesting and authentic in how an adulterous obsession can destabilize a personality. In Turkish.
"Babygirl," 2024 – This movie starring Nicole Kidman and including Anthony Banderas as her husband prompted much commentary because it explores female sexuality in the context of currents and cross-currents of the present cultural moment. Romy is a married New York CEO in her 50s who wields power in her innovative company and falls for Samuel, an intern half her age, substantially because he intuits that she has a repressed need to be sexually dominated, whereas mutual sex with her husband does not bring her to orgasm. The plot reverses several stereotypes: older woman and younger man rather than the reverse; female sexual liberation as, paradoxically, being free to be sexually dominated by a man rather than being freed from male sexual domination; female executive hooking up with male subordinate rather than male executive hooking up with female subordinate. Significantly, Romy is brought to account in the finale when a woman subordinate comes to know of the affair. Romy’s adultery is not the main preoccupation of the film, which is, instead, focused on her struggle with her sexual desires. Husband Banderas is caring, sensitive and faithful, so he is hurt and angry when Romy confesses, and there is a confrontation with Samuel, but ultimately the marriage is patched up – rather than truly healed – as the husband gives Romy what she needs for orgasm. The film prompted a great deal of discussion, especially among women.
"Black Doves," 2024 – Fairly good 6-part British television series starring Keira Knightley as Helen, the wife of the British defense secretary who is secretly a Black Dove, a commercial black ops group of enforcers hired by the highest bidders. She has an affair with another fixer and, among lots of other plots, is intent on finding his killer. Her husband Wallace learns that she has cheated on him, she denies it, but he does not pursue it further because he loves her and does not want to endanger their marriage. Helen is a good example of the cruel arrogance of adultery, a fairly typical role for Keira Knightley.
"Both Sides of the Blade," 2022, Netflix, in French – From Ebert: "No one starts with a clean slate in adulthood. How you deal with this reality says a lot about who you are: how do you make sense of the narrative of your life, how do you fit your own past into your present story? This is the central tension of Claire Denis’ emotionally volatile and unpredictable ‘Both Sides of the Blade,’ with Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon giving two tremendous performances as a contented couple whose lives are exploded by a chance encounter in the street, by the past strolling back into the present, re-asserting its primacy with no warning. The past is the ultimate party-crasher." Yes, but with one modification: Sara sees Francois (the former flame) by chance, but he was intending to contact Jean (her husband) and did so to propose a new business venture and, I suspect, to try to win Sara back, so it was not simply by chance. Justin Chang on NPR: "The title of ‘Both Sides of the Blade’ evokes the age-old question of whether a person can love two people at the same time. And Binoche, so good at revealing complex, contradictory emotions, shows us a woman torn between a partner she adores and an ex she can’t forget." New Yorker: ". . . an update of the classic romantic triangle, which Denis inscribes on a much more elaborate geometry of politics, history, geography, memory, and mores." Oddly, this reviewer says the film depicts the obstacles to a woman’s freedom, but the opposite is the case: Sara has total freedom and she simply misuses it by adulterizing with Francois and then lying to Jean, gaslighting him and trying to convince him that she wants their quasi-marriage to continue, when in reality she’s pledged her love to Francois and had sex with him. As is common, she wants the safety of the good guy but is excited by the danger of the bad guy. In the end she loses both Jean, who rightly is fed up and walks out, and Francois, who can’t reach her because she let her phone fall into the bathtub, probably in order for her texts with him to not be discovered. So she brought on herself what her behavior deserved.
‘Bride of the Wind,’ 2001 – Supposedly the sexual infidelities of women are more interesting and complex and forgivable than those of men. This film about Alma, the wife of Gustave Mahler, seems to think so. Poorly written and acted. Roger Ebert rightly skewered it. Says Alma to Gustave about heer adulterizing with Walter Gropius: ‘You drove me to it!’ – one of the most common self-justifying tactics of adulterers.
"Clickbait," Netflix 8-part series, 2021– "When family man Nick Brewer is abducted in a crime with a sinister online twist, those closest to him race to uncover who is behind it and why." Good series with excellent acting. Each episode focuses on one person: Sister, Detective, Wife, Mistress, Reporter, Son. Title refers to how online magnetism is at the heart of so much of what Chris Hayes calls "attention capitalism." Significantly, much of the plot is set in motion by the wife’s adultery. Nick is white, Sophie is black, and she falls for a charismatic black fellow teacher. Though for awhile it seems Nick was adulterizing too, it turns out that was a false storyline invented by a bored school secretary.
"Dark Desire," 2020-22, Mexican series – Wife of judge goes out partying with friend, hooks up with guy, friend is murdered. Murder is the mystery throughout. Husband turns out to have had affair with murdered friend. Hookup guy is the son of a wrongfully accused and convicted man who shot himself in custody, so son’s hookup with the judge’s wife and then their daughter is revenge. A steamy, vivid illustration of the results of adultery.
"Deep Water," 2022 – Film starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas: long, torpid, ultimately uninteresting! But long awaited by critics because it was the first film by director Adrian Lyne since his "Unfaithful" in 2002, which is outstanding (see below in the list). In this film the wife is a promiscuous cheater, while the husband tolerates it superficially but in reality is killing off the affair partners. Evidently in the novel original they had agreed on an open marriage, but not in the film. The film is a waste of time, largely because the husband’s emotional passivity in response to his wife and her behavior is simply not credible. Yes, he’s active in killing off the partners, a displacement of his reaction to his wife’s behavior, but it’s still doesn’t hold up.
"Disclaimer," 2024 – In this 7-part series, "Kate Blanchett plays Catherine Ravenscroft, an acclaimed documentarian with a blandly wealthy husband (Sacha Baron Cohen), a directionless son (Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Nicholas) and a name that reeks of the heightened gothic intrigue to come. Contemplating her next professional venture, Catherine receives an unsolicited copy of a thin book titled The Perfect Stranger. She starts reading. First, she’s gripped. Then she’s horrified. Then she’s standing at the sink trying to set the book on fire. ‘I recognized myself,’ she says. Literally. Catherine is certain that the book is about her, about a 20-year-old secret she hoped would be buried forever. ‘Something in that book made me hate myself all over again.’ Self-flagellation is only the beginning of what Stephen Brigstocke (Kevin Kline) has in mind for Catherine. A former teacher, Stephen has come to blame Catherine directly for the death of his son Jonathan (Louis Partridge) and indirectly for the death of his wife Nancy (Lesley Manville), and he’s determined to make Catherine pay." – Hollywood Reporter. Turns out it’s all about adultery, Catherine having seduced a much younger Jonathan while on holiday 20 years ago in Italy. And about how keeping such secrets begins to rot the insides of individuals and relationships. But then it turns out it’s not about adultery but about rape, the seduction-adultery narrative having been imagined by Nancy, who thought her son was a naif, whereas in fact he had raped Catherine. In the end, Catherine divorces her husband because she can’t forgive him for believing the false narrative: "You were so upset about the idea of another man giving your wife pleasure that you’re relieved to find that I was raped!" That’s a problematic ending: Catherine bears responsibility for not having shared what happened years ago. She does not understand the gravity of betrayal. In addition, this was a misunderstanding that could have been worked out with conversation and counseling.
"Drive My Car," 2021 – Based on Haruki Murakami's short story of the same name, the movie won the Academy award for best picture. It focuses chiefly on a man’s wrestling with his wife’s infidelity. In this case she has multiple affairs with men from her TV screenwriting life, though we are witness to just one of them. When the husband comes home from a canceled flight to his wife having sex with a young acter on their couch, he quietly closes the door and leaves, which turns out to have been a longstanding pattern. Obviously that’s a very self-destructive response. Very long movie that captures attention in the moment, but over time it has little staying power; it’s hard to even remember how it ends!
"Faithfully Yours," 2022 – Two married women friends, apparently happily married, go off on an adulterizing weekend, but when it ends in catastrophe the husbands end up getting blamed! It’s a classic 21st-century expression of feminist entitlement, but it’s also a mediocre film.
"Fatal Affair," 2020 – All African American characters. Woman lawyer has dalliance with old flame who turns out to be psychopath, so there’s violence along the way. Her betrayed architect husband has the memorable line: "I can’t say I’m not angry. I can’t say I’m not hurt. But I say again, I need you because you’re what makes my world make sense." Resonates with how men forgive adultery more than women do, at least in terms of staying in the relationship.
"Forsyte Saga," 2002, PBS Masterpiece Theater – Stars Damian Lewis and Gina McKee in drama of British aristocratic clan. The story opens with the adultery of one of the sons with the governess, for whom he abandons his wife. Adulteries of other characters follow. A central defect is that none of the characters are likeable, so viewers’ interest may flag.
"God Forbid: The Sex Scandal that Brought Down a Dynasty," 2022, CNN – Documentary about Jerry Falwell, Jr., and wife Becki Tilley – of Moral Majority and Liberty University – who both had a years-long affair with 20-year-old Giancarlo Granda. Strikingly blatant and perverse behavior by prominent Christian couple. Interesting for adulterous initiative taken by Becki, with Jerry part of the threesome as he often watched the trysts.
"Grantchester," 2015-18 – This generally charming PBS series, featuring James Norton as an earnest English vicar with a gift for solving murder mysteries, highlights adultery as the key factor in the mysteries of the first two episodes. Various other episodes also feature adultery, as do a number of episodes in the PBS series "Midsomer Murders."
"Hope Gap," 2019 – Grace (Annette Benning) lives an idyllic life in British seaside town Seaford, but her world soon comes crashing down when her husband Edward (Bill Nighy) of 29 years tells her he's leaving her for another woman, Angela, the mother of one of his students. Through stages of shock, disbelief, anger, grief, resentment, despondency – and with support from her son Jamie (Josh O’Connor, who played the young man Prince Charles in "The Crown"), Grace ultimately regains her footing while learning it's never too late to be happy. Edward’s affair has been going on for a year before he discloses and immediately leaves the marriage. Anguish of all three in the family is well depicted. Grace, a devout Roman Catholic, has good lines about the indissolubility of marriage, as does Edward about how the marriage had not been working for years. He recounts how he met Grace and her empathy when he boarded the wrong train all those years ago. Film is based on the dissolution of the 33-year marriage of the parents of director Bill Nicholson, much as Steven Spielburg’s "The Fabelmans" is a memoir of his mother’s adultery and the effects on him as a child and, obviously, as an adult as well. Seaford is a real town, as is the cove called Hope Gap, the latter a convenient image of the gap in hope between Grace and Edward. Excellent casting, pacing and dialogue.
"Infidelity," 2004 – A woman family therapist’s adultery with male musician in New Orleans, recapitulating the pattern of her father’s infidelity. Longsuffering husband finally discovers the truth, leaves, but returns and reconciles. Questionable pregnancy appears as well. Grade B movie, but interesting.
"Intimacy," 2022, Spanish series, Netflix – Eight-part series about married woman vice mayor of Bilbao who has a reckless affair and is filmed having sex with her affair partner on a beach, the video then going public. Another plotline is about a factory worker whose filmed participation in a sex tape goes public. Series is about privacy violations of women. But its advocacy is weakened by the fact that promiscuity is the underlying issue, especially since the politician, Malen, stubbornly refuses to apologize, even to her husband. "Men have done this for ages," goes the argument – Yes, of course, but the answer should not be that women should likewise misbehave with impunity! Series is mistitled, for its subject is not intimacy but the considerable costs of adultery and promiscuity.
"Lady Chatterley’s Lover," 2022, Netflix – Movie version of D. H. Lawrence’s famous 1928 novel. Tremendous acting by Emma Corrin, who played Princess Diana in Season 4 of "The Crown," and Jack O’Donnell. Amid tremendous sexual tension and beautiful sex, it depicts the lying and deception inherent in adultery. Of course, the husband is depicted as cold and mean, a standard trope designed to justify women’s adultery. Movie version’s happily-ever-after ending differs from Lawrence’s more ambiguous ending. Reviewed positively by critics.
"Life List," 2025, Netflix movie – Deceased mother played by Connie Britton leaves only-daughter Alex (who has 3 older male siblings) a set of DVDs instructing her to fulfill the "Life List" she’d composed as a 13-year-old, now in order to seize what she really wants to be instead of what she’ll settle for. See Guardian’s review of this somewhat lightweight rom-com. Alex discovers she’s the product of an affair her mother had with a jazz singer. Points of interest: Truth comes out inadvertently from divorced stepfather. Such news is traumatic for adults as well as for children. Mother’s special relationship with Alex was probably influenced by her longing for the affair partner
"Love and Death," 2023, HBOMax, 4 episodes – True story of Candy Montgomery and Allan Gore’s mutual adultery as Methodists in Wyllie, Texas, in 1980, which ended with his wife coming at Candy with an axe and Candy killing her in self-defense with the axe, a defense that a jury affirmed in acquitting her of murder. The feelings expressed by the adulterers, especially Gore, were significant and interesting: very much as one would imagine how basically okay people might discuss, implement and ruminate over their adultery. Interesting feature: Both couples went to Marriage Encounter, which prompted Gore to end the affair.
"Loving Adults," 2022, Danish Netflix film – Middle-aged Leonora discovers husband Christian is having an affair with young construction engineer colleague, so threatens him with disclosure of their company’s unrelated financial fraud on behalf of their disabled son. To eliminate the threat, he tries to kill his wife but runs down another unrelated woman instead. Turns out his wife Leonora, while a teenager, had killed a boyfriend who cheated on her. So now she masterminds killing the affair partner. And they get away with it! Says frustrated detective, "Love destroys" as well as fulfills. As so often is the case, adultery lies at the root.
"Mammals, 2022, Prime Video, 6-part series – British dark comedy about marriage and adultery. Chef Jamie’s French wife Amandine is found to be having sex with several men. Jamie’s devastation is portrayed very well, drawing the viewer’s empathy. But he resorts to sleuthing and then confronting the men rather than his confronting his wife, until midway through the series, when he does so publicly! In the last moments of the series it turns out that she started her adultery because she’d seen him having sex with another woman, but, similarly, she’d never confronted him about it. Instead, she embarked on revenge affairs. Revenge adultery is not uncommon, but it usually occurs after the original adultery is confronted.
"Marriage Story," Netflix Original, 2019 – Ebert: "Divorce is described in Noah Baumbach’s masterful ‘Marriage Story’ as like a death without a body. Something has been lost. There is grieving, anger, denial. In his personal and moving story, Baumbach captures the insidious nature of divorce, how two well-meaning people who still care about each other will do things they would never think they would do." Adam Driver and Scarlet Johannsson are remarkable. From NYT: "It’s funny and sad, sometimes within a single scene, and it weaves a plot out of the messy collapse of a shared reality, trying to make music out of disharmony. The melody is full of heartbreak, loss and regret, but the song is too beautiful to be entirely melancholy. The most painful parts of ‘Marriage Story’ act out that revisionism, as idiosyncrasies are made to look pathological and mistakes are treated as potential crimes. The German social critic Theodor W. Adorno wrote that ‘divorce, even between good-natured, amiable, educated people, is apt to stir up a dust-cloud that covers and discolors all it touches,’ an insight that Baumbach illustrates with vivid precision. He shows how ‘the sphere of intimacy’ (to continue with Adorno) ‘is transformed into a malignant poison as soon as the relationship in which it flourished is broken off.’" Driver’s character is revealed to have had an affair, but adultery is not the primary focus of the movie.
"MaryLand," 2022 – In this 3-part series on PBS Masterpiece, two sisters hear of their mother’s death but are surprised to find that she died and had been living part-time on the Isle of Man. They then find out she was living a double life, partly with another man while their father was at home. So adultery is central to the story. The drama focuses on the sisters and how they metabolize these realities – from shock, to anger, to grief, to acceptance – how they resolve their own long alienated relationship. The husband/father is depicted as curmudgeonly and possessive, so his hurt at how he was betrayed by his wife is dismissively sidelined – not surprising from a totally female production team. The series is very well acted and produced. It illustrates the astounding arrogance of adultery, yet how in contemporary culture it is affirmed by women when the adulterer is a woman, in contrast to how men’s adultery is universally condemned.
"Millers in Marriage," 2024 – Three Miller siblings, all based in New York City but with country places north of the city, around age 50 navigate challenges to their respective love lives. Former indie musician Eve Miller (Gretchen Mol) takes a romantic interest in a sleazily charming music journalist Johnny (Benjamin Bratt) as an escape from her unhealthy marriage to Scott (Patrick Wilson), an alcoholic and nasty music manager. Eve goes up to Johnny’s country place while husband Scott is away, but wisely decides not to start adultery with him, instead covertly leaving and then leaving her toxic marriage. Sister Maggie (Julianna Margulies) contends with shifting marital dynamics as her writing career begins to surpass that of her husband Nick (Campbell Scott), but meanwhile reignites adultery with a local estate caretaker. Nick is not as oblivious as he seems, for he sniffs out her adultery and leaves the marriage. Fashion executive Renee (Minnie Driver) begins a relationship with the third Miller sibling, Andy (Edward Burns, who also directed), despite him recently divorcing her former colleague. Full of ambivalence, Andy has a tryst with his former wife, so Renee breaks off the relationship. Good film, well cast, directed, written and acted. Dynamics of marriage, temptation and adultery are well depicted. Of the three siblings, only Eve has any real integrity, while Maggie and Andy indulge in adulteries.
"My Sordid Affair," 2017 – "Tales of ordinary moms, dads, wives and husbands who strayed from their relationships and lived to regret it," says the blurb. The episodes are fairly short and cut to the chase of betrayal, purportedly based on real events. While the blurb mentions dads and husbands, almost all the episodes focus on female betrayers. The acting is poor, but tolerable. The series emphasizes the disastrous effects of adultery and appears motivated by the desire to warn people against it, which is good. Use of the term "sordid" in the title ultimately make the point that all affairs are inherently sordid: self-centered, mendacious, deceitful, perniciously harmful to the victims.
"Oh, Canada!" 2024 – Terminally ill and elderly Leo, played by Richard Gere, agrees to tell his life story on film, since he himself was a documentary filmmaker, and insists on the presence of his wife Emma, played by Uma Thurman. He focuses on his adulteries as a young man in the late 1960s and early 70s, when he abandoned a wife and child and took up with several other women before walking into Canada to evade the draft. He appears driven to make what amounts to a deathbed confession of his faithlessness, saying he wants his wife of 25 years to know the reality of the man she married. The movie is tedious at times, but his drive to be transparent is significant.
"Outlander" – This multi-season 2016 period-time-travel drama between 1945 England and 1743 Scotland is quite something with Catriona Balfe as Claire and Sam Heugan as Jamie: wartime between clans and Redcoats, remarkably moving sex and personality encounters. Reviewed well by New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum as one of the best dramas on TV when it started in 2016. But "Outlander" is partly a female fantasy of adultery that’s conscience-free because Claire’s trapped in another century, meanwhile gets to have her daughter in the liberated 20th century, then go back to Jamie after boring husband Frank dies in an auto crash.
"Presumed Innocent," 2024 – Very good 8-part series starring Jake Gyllenhall based on Scott Turow’s famous 1986 legal thriller. Family drama around Rusty Sabich’s adultery with the now murdered Carolyn Polhemus is very well analyzed and acted. Wife on sharing with the children: "I can’t go through this alone again." (for he had started the affair up again after ending it). Former boss detective, now defense counsel for Rusty: "In 40 years I’ve seen a lot of guilt and shame in this business. Shame is something you put on yourself. It’s self-absorbed, self-centered. Guilt is more about owning and feeling the pain you cause others. I have no doubt you feel shame."
"Scenes from a Marriage," 2021, HBO – Remake of Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 "Scenes from a Marriage," which starred Liv Ullman and Erland Josephson, Bergman’s beginning is very stilted, but much of the rest of it is compelling – after his adultery revelation, Marianne is cringingly willing to humiliate herself for the sake of love in the early days, and she grows only gradually in being able to name the dynamics. The remake’s characters, played by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, are more nuanced, not so stereotypically arrogant (Jonathan now vs. original’s Johann) or deferential (Mira now vs. original’s Marianne). Now, though, the roles are reversed – it’s the wife, not the husband, who abruptly leaves for an affair, a nod to the contemporary reality that the frequency of adultery among men and women now is about the same and that women initiate divorce much more frequently than men. First episode includes contemporary dynamics of open marriage, lesbian experimentation and abortion. That episode ends with Mira choosing abortion. The viewer might conclude it’s because she suspects or knows that the child’s father is her affair partner, whereas her husband does not yet know of her adultery, but it later seemed that it was because she thought a second child would make it harder for her to leave the marriage. 4th episode is the most wrenching – in the house waiting for the movers – and the most erotic as they reconnect sexually. In the final episode they’re still trysting four years later, despite he having remarried, but it’s a relational wilderness: she feels traumatized by her own abandonment, while he’s gotten married and has a child but still has affairs, partly because his wife doesn’t want sex, and he believes the marriage won’t last. He recognizes his moral vacuity but doesn’t care. The movie ends on that nihilistic note.
"Separate Lies," 2005 – British adultery movie involving an accidental death in the course of a dalliance. Tom Wilkerson and Emily Watson play a London couple. She takes up with a lout at their country house, where she accidentally and drunkenly kills a man on a bicycle. Lies ensue. Her casually callous attitude toward her own behavior illustrates the arrogance of adultery, the supremely selfish trashing of vows, family and the life one has built together with one’s spouse.
"The Americans," 2012-18, 6 seasons on Hulu – Excellent long-form series about undercover Soviet spies in 1980s Falls Church, Virginia, starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys with two children. Lots of horrifying violence and manipulative sex that illustrate the callousness of high-level spy operatives. Interestingly, Elizabeth turns out to be the more vicious and ideologically committed operative while Philip becomes increasingly skeptical of their work, though even she gives in to her doubts at the end. FBI agent Stan’s role across the street is major, though his letting them get away in the end is not credible. Ultimately they lose both their children to staying in USA as they have to return to USSR to escape capture. Toward the end Elizabeth admits to her daughter that she’s been using sex to entrap people, and she devalues the significance of sexuality altogether. Such is the price of promiscuity. Excellent acting by all.
‘The Åre Murders,’ 2024 – This good 5-part Netflix series, in Swedish with subtitles, is based on the book series by Swedish author Viveca Sten and revolves around two murders that deeply shake the titular Swedish town. The protagonist, Hanna Ahlander, is a Stockholm police officer who has recently been suspended from the police force and abandoned by her boyfriend. She seeks to escape her problems by isolating herself at her sister's vacation home in Åre but gets involved in two murder investigations, in both of which adultery plays a prominent role.
"The Bridges of Madison County," 1995 – Famous film starring Meryl Streep as an Italian immigrant Iowa housewife Francesca and her 4-day affair with National Geographic photographer Clint Eastwood. Erotic and romantic, with the marriage and husband depicted, of course, as drab. Its rapturous reception indicates the film was and remains many women’s wet dream. Francesca realistically decides to stay in the marriage, but infidelity author Shirley Glass points out that her cherishing her memory of the affair in secret until her death undercuts her purported lifelong commitment to her husband. Disclosure and analysis are crucial to true healing after adultery.
"The Descendants," 2011 – Set in Hawaii. A boating mishap puts lawyer Matthew King’s (George Clooney) wife Elizabeth in a coma. From their teenage daughter Alexandra he finds out she’d been doing adultery with an unknown guy, which is confirmed by "best friends" who had concealed it from him. With Alex’s help Matt tracks down and confronts her affair partner Brian Speer, who’s then found out by his wife Julie. It’s all about the spreading trauma that adultery causes. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, it was nominated for 5 Oscars.
"The Diplomat," 2023-24 – Two seasons about an unconventional but married USAmerican ambassador, played by Keri Russell, to the UK. The complex diplomatic crises of the plot are shadowed by the emotional affair between her and the black British foreign secretary. Many aspects of the plot are implausible, but worse is the adolescent posturing required of the ambassador in the screenplay. A third season projects the ambassador into the role of vice president or perhaps even president, but will likely continue to be mediocre.
"The Duchess of Duke Street," 1976, BBC/PBS – Initially entertaining about a lower-class young British woman who makes it as a chef to the upper classes. But then there’s a wretched episode about an artist woman up in London who adulteries with a politician cad, falling for his flattery, and declares her love for him while her husband ails back at their country home. The B&B household cheers her on and sympathizes as she plays the victim when it all comes tumbling down. It recalls Esther Perel’s comment in Mating in Captivity about how female sexuality tends to center on being adored.
"The Eyes of Tammy Faye," 2021– Excellent movie about televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, their rise and fall amid financial and sexual scandals. Jessica Chastain’s portrayal is luminous, stunning and skillful, well deserving her 2022 Best Actress Oscar. It’s striking about how both of them fell into adultery, she with PTL’s music producer, he in a threesome and then also with gay men. Chastain’s singing is terrific and Tammy’s spirituality comes across as more authentic than Jim’s. As in the documentary about Jerry Falwell, Jr., and his wife – "God Forbid," noted above, it's a good portrayal of Christian leaders’ descent into adultery.
"The Fabelmans," 2022 – By Steven Spielberg. One review implied that his boyhood filmmaking obsession is center stage, with the adultery of his mother, played by Michelle Williams, vaguely alluded to on the side. Instead, the adultery is center stage, while the filmmaking is a strong accompanying theme. Clearly the trauma of adultery is the central energy. Here was Spielberg at age making a memoir film in which he’s working out the trauma of his mother’s adultery! That’s a powerful testimony to the destructiveness of adultery.
"The Lost Daughter," 2021– Stars Olivia Colman as Harvard academic Leda on vacation in Greece, where the childcare and adultery tribulations of a Queens vacationing family evoke wistful and regretful memories of her own motherhood struggle, adultery and abandoning her husband and two young daughters. Lots about the struggles of motherhood. Altogether about aging reassessment of one’s life, triggered by whatever. Leda is not idealized but cast actually as an unpleasant character and an "unnatural mother" who nevertheless elicits our empathy for her struggles with her weakness and malevolence.
"The Undoing," 2020 – Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman star in this adaptation of the 2006 novel, You Should Have Known. Grant plays NYC oncologist Jonathan Fraser, who is accused of murdering a married woman with whom he was was doing adultery, and Kidman plays his shocked and unsuspecting wife Grace. Lots of psychological, detective and legal drama culminates in it becoming clear that Jonathan is a sociopath.
"The Unit," 2006 multiseries – Focus is on exploits of US special operations military unit members and on their wives back at a military base. Dennis Hasbert stars. The adultery angle emerges as the commanding colonel of the unit and one of the wives have an affair, which gradually comes to light and results in unit tension and the colonel being detached from the unit. The cruel arrogance of adultery is clear.
"The White Lotus,"2025 – Good 6-part Prime Video comedic series about intrigues of dysfunctional vacationers at a Hawaiian resort. Two serious notes: Islanders who were dispossessed of their land now entertain white mainlander vacationers, with natural psychic pain. Father’s revelation to his son that he had an affair years ago upsets mother, with whom he had agreed never to reveal it to the children. She continues to be in much pain about it. This is an interesting reversal it that the more usual tension around affair disclosure concerns whether the victim, the betrayed partner, will reveal it to the children and others.
"The Worst Person in the World," 2021 – Well reviewed Norwegian film about a young ambivalent woman in Oslo who struggles with love and vocation. Actress is winsomely attractive, but her character is so callous in cheating on the two love interests that it’s ultimately uninteresting and even repellant. Vocationally she ends up being a still photographer for acters in various TV series – that’s fulfilling? How would this play if the protagonist were a man? – probably not so well in the popular imagination, demonstrating the extra mile given today to women in all matters relational and adulterous.
"The Worst Year of My Life, 2015, Hulu – A comedic drama about a down-on-his-luck romantic named Kyle who, one week before proposing to his girlfriend, discovers that she’s been having sex with another man – and later that she’s a financial cheat as well. Lots of intersplicing with a deadpan insightful young woman therapist as he deals with his anger, hurt, obsession, desire to reconcile and, at times, addiction to the pain. He finally gets free of his former fiancé and is able to form a new relationship.
"This Is Where I Leave You," 2014 – Very clever family drama with lots of humor, but also lots of pathos: Judd, played very well by Jason Bateman, comes home to his wife having sex with his boss, then hears that his Jewish patriarch father has died, so goes to his family to sit shiva, reconnects briefly with an old flame (Rose Byrne), while siblings (including Adam Driver) and mother (Jane Fonda) all have their own dramas. Movie version of the novel of the same name by Jonathan Tropper. The movie’s very good, yet the novel is better.
"Truth and Lies: Monica and Bill," 2019 – Documentary about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, with lots of footage from the time and interviews with journalists and others. Good. Especially stunning is the recklessness with which Clinton pursued adulterous relationships – Lewinsky obviously, but also Jennifer Flowers and Paula Jones. But, of course, adultery is always reckless – people not reckoning the risk and pain.
"Two Lovers," 2009 – Joaquin Phoenix plays bipolar 30s Jewish Leonard living at home, slated to marry the daughter of his parents’ business partner but then is infatuated with neighbor Gwyneth Paltrow, who is a lawyer’s mistress. He beds both of them. In the end Gwyneth returns to her sugar daddy and Leonard decides to be content with the fiancé.
"Under a Tuscan Sun," 2003 – Diane Lane in a flimsy, flip and shallow (but very popular) film about a woman who moves to Italy after her husband cheats on her. Interesting that Lane’s two excellent adultery roles – "A Walk on the Moon" and "Unfaithful" – were issued in 1999 and 2002, so this was a semi-comedic comedown the next year.
"Unfaithful," 2002 – Perhaps the best adultery movie ever, it stars Diane Lane and Richard Gere as a married couple in Westchester County with a young son. He commutes to NYC, and she’s a homemaker busy in community life. Couple was happy: there is nothing about the marriage being unsatisfactory in any way; husband was loving and attentive. Nevertheless, Connie flings herself into a fling with a French Manhattan bookseller because she wants to: it’s exotic, exciting, sexually rapturous. An older woman friend’s warning about adultery always ending badly was impressive. Couple being genuinely loving, though traumatized, in the wake of the affair was credible. Film’s ending is appropriately ambiguous: coincidentally stopping in front of police station does not imply Gere was going to turn himself in for murder at that moment, only that the threat of law enforcement would always hang over them regardless of what they do. Reviewed positively.
