Shakespeare film adaptations

[MarxSchmarx]

What are your favorite Shakespeare adaptations to film? What movies would you recommend?

My personal favorite is "Titus" with Anthony Hopkins. I saw the movie before I read the play, I was amazed Shakespeare wrote it. It is also my favorite Shakespeare adaptation I've seen on the silver screen

Honorable mentions include "Romeo and Juliet" with Leonardo di Caprio:tt1: jk. Though it was a good movie come on. I never got into Ran or Branagh's/Olivier's hamlet, I know people think it's the greatest but... and the midsummers night dream from 99/00 was so so but it actually was enjoyable. As for the earlier stuff like Julius Caesear from the 60s/70s well it sucked. OR to put it more eloquently, it did very little for me.

So what are your favorites? What do you recommend?

[BAM]

You might like Polanski's version of Macbeth. It's gory and grizzly and has some excellent cinematography. Jon Finch, who was in Hitchcock's late serial killer classic Frenzy, play Macbeth with a delectable Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth. There's a great hallucinatory dream sequence involving mirrors that is still quite something to watch.

Also from the same year (1971) is Peter Brook's King Lear. Like Polanski's Macbeth it is a lot darker and more nihilistic than usual Shakespeare film adaptations, and this one is shot in monochrome, making it seem like a Dreyer or Bergman movie (I think that was the intention).

[Sasha]

richard III with ian mckellen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_%281995_film%29)
without an doubt my favorite, esp. because of ian mckellens briliant oswald mosley parody.

more traditional adaptation that i like is the recent version of the merchant of venice with al pacino

[x359594]

Orson Welles' version of Macbeth (1948), his version of Othello (1955), the Joseph L. Mankiewicz version of Julius Caesar (1952) with Marlon Brando as Marc Antony, James Mason as Brutus and John Gielgud as Cassius. I also liked Zefferalli's version of Romeo and Juliet (1966) and The Taming of the Shrew (1967) with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Kurosawa's adaptation of Macbeth, Throne of Blood (1956) stays true to Shakespeare's plot as does his version of King Lear called Ran (Turmoil) (1985.)

[4kmrx]

2001 movie My Kingdom featuring late Richard Harris is decent adaptation of King Lear.

[Uncle Hank]

Kurosawa's adaptation of Macbeth Throne of Blood (1956) stays true to Shakespeare's plot and them as does his version of King Lear called Ran (Turmoil) (1985.)
:glare: How dare you steal my thunder.

[manic expression]

Much Ado About Nothing with Denzel Washington is a good one IMO.

[Os Cangaceiros]

She's The Man