Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film, which secured Kidman an Oscar for her depiction of Virginia Woolf, is a groundbreaking depiction of queer sexuality across the 20th century

Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer prize-winning book The Hours – inspired by Virginia Woolf’s seminal 1925 novel, Mrs Dalloway – imagines one day in the lives of three women separated across time periods. The triptych follows Woolf in the throes of writing Mrs Dalloway; Laura Brown, a depressed housewife who is reading Woolf’s novel in postwar America; and Clarissa Vaughan, a New Yorker who acts as a contemporary embodiment of Woolf’s titular character.

Cunningham’s 1998 text, though widely acclaimed, was initially deemed unadaptable due to its nonlinear structure and stream-of-consciousness approach that paid homage to Woolf’s pioneering style. However, since its publication, The Hours (which takes its name from Mrs Dalloway’s working title), has been reinterpreted as an opera and, most notably, a 2002 film directed by Stephen Daldry.

This 2003 romcom seemed destined to be a hit. But it was too camp, too synthetic, too satirical: the exact qualities that make it a cult favourite today

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In May 2003, a romcom starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor seemed like a surefire recipe for success. Zellweger had just earned consecutive best actress Oscar nominations for Bridget Jones’ Diary and Chicago, and McGregor had leading roles in zeitgeist-defining hits including Moulin Rouge and Star Wars. But on release, Down with Love barely made a dent at the box office, and audiences and critics alike were baffled by its camp sensibility and embrace of artifice.

In the film, Zellweger plays writer Barbara Novak, who arrives in New York City in 1962 to publish her feminist manifesto, Down with Love. Novak’s book encourages women to reject romance, embrace sex and refute the rigid gender roles of 50s America, and with the help of her publisher, Vikki (Sarah Paulson), Down with Love becomes a worldwide phenomenon – much to the chagrin of “man’s-man-ladies’-man-man about town” Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor).