Chels

William Shakespeare holds the title of the most filmed author of all time – a confusing statistic, because to me it implies he’s appeared on film the most, but I’ve always been told I take things too literally. I digress, Shakespeare authored 37 plays that survived until the present, and each of them have been adapted at least once. With the Guinness Book of World Records counting 420 filmed Shakespeare adaptations as of 2021 (including 79 for Hamlet alone!), it’s hard to know where to start when it comes to adaptations. It’s also hard to narrow down a list of recommendations, because there are just so many really great takes on the plays.

To keep these recommendation lists short(ish), I’m splitting the plays into three categories – tragedies, comedies, and histories and romances – and starting with my biggest list of recommendations – the tragedies.

You’ll see some familiar names in this list, and as much as I’ve tried to keep my recommendations diverse, there’s no denying that Kenneth Branagh is the king of Shakespeare adaptations, so his works come up quite often, especially in the tragedies.

Oh, and because I know that it’s a contentious subject – I’m counting theatre performances as adaptations, even though it’s argued that they don’t technically adapt anything, they’re just another performance of the playscript. This isn’t to make any sweeping statement about my thoughts on the matter, I’ve just seen some really great stage performances of Shakespeare that I wanted to include.

Hamlet

Hamlet is the most often adapted Shakespeare play, and it was the hardest list for me to narrow down.

In the 1990s alone, there were several quite famous Hamlet films. Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 unabridged Hamlet runs for just over four hours, but it’s one of the best adaptations I’ve seen of the play. It’s hard to get me to watch anything with a runtime over 90 minutes these days, but I’m glad I persevered through it. Branagh ‘modernises’ the play into the 19th century, though it doesn’t feel gimmicky, as other modernisations have. If four hours is too long for you, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 Hamlet keeps the Elizabethan setting, and is just over 2 hours long. Both of them are quite ‘faithful’ adaptations, though I begrudge pointing it out after having it drilled into us that a faithful adaptation is not always a good one, and a good adaptation is not always faithful. Still, some people prefer when films stick to the original script.

Perhaps the most famous 90s film of all, The Lion King, is a Hamlet retelling, although made much more family friendly. Ten to fifteen years ago, that was quite a revolutionary fact, but it’s been shared online so often now that you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hadn’t heard it before. I had seen The Lion King before ever studying Hamlet, and found myself referring to Scar rather than Claudius.

There have also been countless stage performances of Hamlet. My favourite, I think, is the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2016 production, starring Paapa Essiedu in the title role. The production modernises Hamlet, and there’s a real emphasis on brightness and colour in the costume and set design.

In the 21st century, Ophelia has finally taken on a leading role. She’s possibly my favourite tragic Shakespeare character, so much so that I sought out adaptations that centred her for my Shakespeare module assignment. Ophelia (2018) is based on the Lisa Klein novel that retells Hamlet with Ophelia as the central character. In fact, there’s very little of Prince Hamlet in the film, with Ophelia and Gertrude (and Mechtild, an original character) taking centre stage. The film reveals more of Ophelia’s story, and even gives her a new, more hopeful ending. I won’t spoil the film any further than that, because it’s one that I think all Hamlet fans should watch.

There’s also a one-woman show, Ophelia the Play written and performed by Emma White, that transforms the themes of Ophelia’s story onto the life of a modern-day young woman navigating adulthood, love, abuse, and mental health struggles. It’s a really great play, virtually an hour long monologue, but the audience becomes physically involved in the story, and it was incredibly powerful. The play was performed right before covid lockdowns shut down theatres, and a filmed version was released on Youtube to raise funding and awareness for Women’s Aid during lockdown. 

Othello

Othello is another play that I’ve seen dozens of adaptations of, having studied it three times. In this case, my favourite version isn’t a film, but a stage production. Again, the Royal Shakespeare Company produced a really great Othello in 2015. The main conflict and theme in Othello is race and racism, and it’s one of the few cases where I tend to lean in favour against colour blind casting, because the way that Othello is othered and ostracised by the rest of the characters is central to the plot. It’s a debate that countless scholars have argued over for years, so my opinion is just my opinion, without authority. However, the RSC made a really interesting and innovative casting choice, and both Othello and Iago were played by black actors. It made for a really compelling shift in the narrative – it didn’t negate the racism Othello faced, but it shifted the implications of Iago’s actions and choices, and the relationship between the two characters.

There is, of course, a Kenneth Branagh film adaptation from the 90s. It’s a classic for a reason – if you studied Othello in school, this is most likely the adaptation you watched. Kenneth Branagh sticks quite rigidly to the original texts in most of his Shakespeare adaptations, so they’re a great choice to help with your understanding of the plays when studying them, or to get the gist of the stories in general. Branagh’s Othello is also, significantly, and far too late, the first major studio film to actually cast a black actor to play Othello, rather than a white actor in blackface makeup. It’s shocking, really, that a film from as late as 1995 holds that title.

O is a modern adaptation of Othello that brings the story to an American high school in the 20th century. It’s reminiscent of the modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You, but with a much darker tone. Rather than a military group, O follows high school students on the school’s basketball team. O does a really great job of translating the themes of Othello into the social issues of the 90s in the USA – although it meant that the film had a delayed release after a significant school shooting. It’s a tough watch – one of the most upsetting adaptations of Othello, since the characters are all so young, and played brilliantly – but definitely worth it. It also happens to star Julia Stiles as Desi, who was a bit of an it girl for modern Shakespeare adaptations at the time.

King Lear

King Lear is one of many Shakespeare plays I am yet to sit down and actually read, so while I have no authority on which works best adapt the original, I can share the ones I’ve most enjoyed.

As always, Branagh makes an appearance. In 2023, he directed and starred in a bit of a magnum opus performance of Lear, at least according to some of the more avid theatregoers in London. A lot of critics didn’t rate the production highly, but it comes with the Nonsense & Lit stamp of approval.

I have loved A Thousand Acres for a while now, ever since I first watched it nearly a decade ago. It was only recently that I discovered it’s actually a retelling of King Lear. Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia become Ginny, Rose, and Caroline, three daughters of a farmer who divides his ample land between them. It’s another adaptation with poor reviews but that I really enjoyed, so perhaps I really am a poor judge on a good Lear adaptation.

Romeo and Juliet

If I can be honest, this isn’t one of my favourite of Shakespeare’s works. If I can be really honest, it doesn’t even make my top ten. Still, I’m not completely against the story, and there are a couple of recommendations I can make.

My favourite adaptation, probably, is the 90s film Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo Dicaprio in his heartthrob prime. It also features Paul Rudd in an astronaut suit. Lurhmann creates a very visually striking film, and as someone that doesn’t care too much for the story, the costumes and scenery and brightness of the film really sell it for me. 

I’m also a big fan of West Side Story – specifically, the 1961 film. I love Sondheim, so you’d be hard pressed to find a musical of his that I don’t enjoy, and again, it’s such a visually exciting film, with such great music, and a really interesting concept for modernisation.

I think, looking at my choices, that I gravitate towards Romeo and Juliet adaptations that counter the tragedy of the story with upbeat moments and visual excitement.

Macbeth

I didn’t mean for this to be a Kenneth Branagh film festival, but he just happens to have produced some of the best Shakespeare performances of the last 40 or so years. In fact, it wasn’t until researching for this post that I even realised this was a Branagh production.

In 2013, Branagh and Alex Kingston starred in a performance of Macbeth at the Manchester International Festival. I watched it around the time it came out, in school, and what has stuck with me for all these years since has been Alex Kingston’s Lady Macbeth. So much so that I had no memory of who even played Macbeth. Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness was so well portrayed, it has stuck with me for over a decade.

That completes my recommendations for adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I’m sure that all of the stage performances are still definitely not available online to watch if you make the right search queries.

Would you add any to my list?