Plot.
Poster of Hamlet

Hamlet

1948 · Film · 153 min

  • Drama

Plot

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

About Hamlet

Hamlet is a 1948 British film adaptation of the play of the same name by William Shakespeare. It was adapted, directed by and starring Laurence Olivier and was his second film as director, as well as the second of the three Shakespeare films he directed (the 1936 As You Like It had starred Olivier, but had been directed by Paul Czinner). Hamlet was the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is also the first sound film of the play in English. Olivier's Hamlet is the Shakespeare film that has received the most prestigious accolades, winning Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor (for Olivier) and the Golden Lion at the 9th Venice International Film Festival. However, it proved controversial among Shakespearean purists, who felt that Olivier had made too many alterations and excisions to the four-hour play by cutting one-and-a-half-hours' worth of content. Milton Shulman wrote in The Evening Standard: "To some it will be one of the greatest films ever made, to others a deep disappointment. Laurence Olivier leaves no doubt that he is one of our greatest living actors... his liberties with the text, however, are sure to disturb many."

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cast

  • Laurence OlivierHamlet - Prince of Denmark / Voice of Ghost
  • Basil SydneyClaudius - The King
  • Eileen HerlieGertrude - The Queen
  • Norman WoolandHoratio - His Friend
  • Felix AylmerPolonius - Lord Chamberlain
  • Jean SimmonsOphelia
  • Terence MorganLaertes
  • Peter CushingOsric
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