Sumptuous triumph

Five fabulous alternatives for Lily James fans Baby Driver (Netflix)

James’ Debora is the waitress of Ansel Egort’s eponymous getaway driver’s affections in Edgar Wright’s joyous, high-octane 2017 crime-comedy. She’s the inspiration for his decision to try and leave a life of crime behind, one that he finds harder to escape than he thought. With a southern twang and a sassy twinkle in every line and movement, James proves she could deliver just as memorably in a contemporary tale, as the corset dramas she had initially become famous for.

Cinderella (Disney)

James is luminous in powder blue in Kenneth Branagh’s lavish-looking, finely nuanced 2015 take on Charles Perrault’s fairytale. She shines as the eponymous ashen-faced but open-hearted orphan, holding her own against a terrific tour de force from Cate Blanchett as her wicked stepmother. The Dig (Netflix)

Reminding one very much of the repressed romantic tales of the 1990s, this 2021 adaptation of John Preston’s 2007 novel, feels achingly intimate and hauntingly universal.

While she’s only in the second half of the story, James, sporting some spectacular eyewear, is a scene-stealer as an aspiring archaeologist and frustrated new wife.

Downton Abbey (Netflix)

Joining the hit British period drama in the middle of the third series, James quickly becomes a favourite, playing the sometimes self-centred and immature Lady Rose MacClare.

After a series of escapades and scrapes, including one involving the Prince of Wales’ mistress, she eventually meets Atticus Aldridge, the Jewish son of Lord and Lady Sinderby.

Rebecca (Netflix)

In this most recent, 2020 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s much-loved novel, James is the unnamed young woman whose life is turned upside down while working as a lady’s companion to an American socialite in Monte Carlo. That’s where she meets the recently widowed Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer) and is instantly smitten. James is at her best in the sun-dappled opening, finding herself having to play second-fiddle to Kristin Scott Thomas’ mysterious and Machiavellian Mrs Danvers in the gloomier, spookier climes of Manderley – a property, like the film itself, haunted by the past.