Jewellery on Screen: The Most Spectacular Jewels in Contemporary Cinema

Marilyn Monroe’s Harry Winston diamonds in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The sapphire Heart of the Ocean necklace in Titanic. Cinema has long understood the magnetic power of jewellery. On screen, jewels are very rarely there merely for decoration. Symbols of desire, deception and destiny, they shape character and mood in ways dialogue never could.

In recent years, filmmakers have rekindled Hollywood’s love affair with high jewellery, turning to the world’s great Maisons to help tell their stories. From Tiffany & Co.’s archival masterpieces in Frankenstein to Lady Gaga’s bold 1980s looks in House of Gucci, these are the most unforgettable jewellery moments in contemporary cinema.

Among the most striking creations are two masterpieces from the early 1900s. Capturing the beauty of the natural world that so fascinated the Victorians, the Favrile Glass Scarab necklace, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, features two rows of iridescent glass beetle motifs set in yellow gold. In another scene, the Wade necklace—a garland-style diamond jewel by the legendary Tiffany designer Paulding Farnham—captures the grandeur that runs through del Toro’s Gothic world.

For the trilogy’s closing chapter, costume designer Anna Mary Scott Robbins once again partnered with Bentley & Skinner, the Mayfair jeweller that has worked with the British royal family for over a century. Thirteen antique pieces were drawn from the archives, including a rose-cut diamond tiara, an old-cut diamond spray brooch and Georgian cluster earrings, each reflecting the women’s shifting roles in a new era of elegance.

Other members of the ensemble cast can also be spotted in Tiffany creations: Emma Mackey’s Jacqueline De Bellefort in pieces from the Victoria collection and Annette Bening’s Euphemia in a Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co. Cooper Bracelet. Yet it is Gadot’s yellow diamond necklace, a talisman of desire, envy and fatal attraction, that lingers longest in the memory.

Worn as Patrizia convinces her husband Maurizio to seize control of the Gucci empire, the necklace and her chainmail dress become her armour. In another scene, set in a New York nightclub, Gaga’s Patrizia outshines the disco lights in a hot-pink gown and a contemporary Bvlgari High Jewellery necklace and earrings ablaze with pigeon’s blood rubies, from the Magnifica high jewellery collection. Adding a touch of Parisian polish, several Boucheron jewels also appear in the film, including a Serpent Bohème diamond necklace and bracelet in yellow gold and a diamond pavé Pompon tassel necklace in rose gold. Together, Lady Gaga’s jewels chart Patrizia’s evolution from social climber to self-styled queen of Gucci.