Shakespeare Plays Available in Video Format
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All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeareana

Available versions

1948: Laurence Olivier

1964: Philip Saville

1964: Bill Colleran, John Gielgud

1964: Grigori Kozintsev

1969: Tony Richardson

1976: Celestino Coronada

1980: Rodney Bennett

1990: Kevin Kline

1990: Franco Zeffirelli

1996: Kenneth Branagh

2000: Michael Almereyda

2000: Campbell Scott, Eric Simonson

2002: Peter Brook

2003: Michael Mundell

2007: Alexander Fodor

2009: Simon Bowler

2009: Gregory Doran

2011: Bruce Ramsay

2014: Adam Hall

2015: Sarah Frankcom, Margaret Williams

2015: Dick Douglass, Obie Dean

2016: Jennifer Nicole Stang

2016: Simon Godwin

2016: Antoni Cimolino and Shelagh O’Brien

2018: Federay Holmes, Elle White

2018: Robert Icke, Rhodri Huw, Ilinca Radulian


Adaptations

1992: Natalya Orlova, Dave Edwards (animated)

2004: Hamlet (opera, Ambroise Thomas)


Production drama

2003: Slings and Arrows (Season 1)


Educational

1990: Discovering Hamlet

2010: This is Hamlet

2013: Shakespeare Uncovered (Season 1, Ep. 6)


Related

1990: Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead

1994: Royal Deceit

2008: Hamlet 2

2014: Hamlet A.D.D.

2017: Ophelia (short)

2018: Ophelia


Hamlet
1964: Grigori Kozintsev

1964 was a big year for productions of Hamlet; this is one of the more unusual. It’s a Russian (and of course Russian language) portrayal of the play.

Visually, it echoes some of the elements of Olivier’s black-and-white 1948 film, but Kozintsev has his own vision, and it’s a striking production. I do not speak Russian, and so cannot say anything useful about the delivery of the speeches, or the suitability of the translation. There are, however, some very engaged players, delivering what looks like a very impassioned performance of Hamlet. If in fact they were discussing yesterday’s breakfast special at the studio cafeteria, I wouldn’t know it, but they’re doing so in a very Hamlet-like way.

Assuming I’m not missing something importantly wrong in the Russian, this contains no particular objectionable material. For obvious reasons, this is still not a good choice for the first viewing of English-speaking students.


Fortinbras: A. Krevalid

Gravedigger: Viktor Kolpakov

Gravedigger: Grigori Gaj

Guildenstern: Vadim Medvedev

Hamlet: Innokenti Smoktunovsky

Horatio: Vladimir Erenberg

King: Mikhail Nazvanov

Laertes: Stepan Oleksenko

Ophelia: Anastasiya Vertinskaya

Polonius: Yuri Tolubeyev

Priest: Ants Lauter

Queen: Elza Radzina

Rosencrantz: Igor Dmitriyev