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This page is a gateway to my reviews of Shakespeare on film (or, more accurately, Shakespeare on digital media), including cinema and television productions and filmed stage plays.

I've been seeing Shakespeare films since Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet made the school circuits back in the early 1970s. However, I have decided to use the same standard for reviewing on-screen Shakespeare as I do for commenting on stage productions. Instead of writing from memory and relying on recollections that would not be entirely accurate, I will only review films I've just seen. Unlike live theater, however, Shakespeare committed to DVD can be re-viewed and then reviewed, and I will do that on an ongoing basis for this web site (as you might imagine, we have an extensive Shakespeare DVD library, which is growing monthly).

Eric Minton

Collection of DVDs in bookcaseThe Film Reviews

All's Well That Ends Well—Finding Feminism in a Slice of Elizabethan Life (Shakespeare's Globe, 2013)

Anonymous—At the Heart of This Conspiracy (Columbia, 2011)

As You Like It—All Welles Not Well in Branagh's Heavy-Handed Filming of As You Like It (HBO, 2006)

Coriolanus—Fiennes Finds the Present in Shakespeare's Ancient Roman Tragedy (Weinstein, 2011)

Hamlet—A Timeless Hamlet in a Dated Production (BBC, 1980)

Henry IV, Part One—The Lie Is the Truth (Shakespeare's Globe, 2012)

The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Part One—Irons' Henry IV Reigns O'er His Own Play (PBS, 2013)

Henry IV, Part Two—Fumbling into Royalty (Shakespeare's Globe, 2012)

The Hollow Crown: Henry IV, Part Two—Falstaff Diminished, This Play Is Built on Irons (PBS, 2013)

The Hollow Crown: Henry V—The Crown Comes Full Circle (PBS, 2013)

Julius Caesar—Brando in a Toga Ushers Shakespeare Into the Modern Cinema (MGM 1953)

King Lear—Olivier vs. Lear; Young vs. Old (Granada, 1984)

Love's Labour's Lost—Laboring for Love (Shakespeare's Globe, 2010)

Macbeth—A Bloody Magical Psychological Thriller (Folger, 2009)

The Tragedy of Macbeth—Putting on the Putin (Apple TV+)

A Midsummer Night's Dream—Resurrecting an Unearthly Relic (Warner Brothers, 1935)

Much Ado About Nothing—Innate Understanding of Shakespeare's Ways Underlies Whedon's Masterful Much Ado (Bellweather 2013)

Othello—A Jimi Hendrix Experience of the Moor (BBC, 1981)

Richard II—Well-Versed and Well Beyond (BBC, 1978)

The Hollow Crown: Richard II—This Crown Jewel is a Hollow Richard (PBS, 2013)

Romeo and Juliet—Rudolph & Margot Trump Romeo & Juliet (Royal Ballet, 1966)

Romeo and Juliet—Too Dumb for Tweens (Amber, 2013)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead—A Sideways Depiction of Hamlet (Cinecom, 1991)

Shakespeare Uncovered—PBS Series Gets Inside Shakespeare's Genius (PBS, 2013)

Shakespeare Uncovered 2—Second Set of Mini-Documentaries Reveals Bard's Brilliance with Filmmaking to Match (PBS 2015)

Still Dreaming—Past the Wit of Man to Say What Dream it Was (Philomath Films, 2014)

The Tempest—A Tempest That Falls Short of the Forecast (Miramax, 2010)

Twelfth Night—What Achieved Greatness was Born Great (Shakespeare's Globe, 2013)