Drama
British
1948 · Directed by Laurence Olivier · 153 min
Prince Hamlet returns to the Danish court of Elsinore to find his father dead and his mother married to his uncle. Olivier films Shakespeare's tragedy in black and white, as a shadowy, brooding study of a mind that cannot act.
Why it matters in cinema history
A founding example of the prestige Shakespeare film, it showed that classical drama could be rethought in purely cinematic terms and gain a mass international audience.
Watch with intention
Watch the film as the inside of Hamlet's head: the castle, the camera and the light all behave like his thoughts.
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