5 Best Hamlet Movies Of All Time, Ranked

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Literary critic (and notorious blowhard) Harold Bloom once claimed in his book "Hamlet: Poem Unlimited" that William Shakespeare's play "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," is a work of literature so expansive and great that is essentially contains the whole of human experience, collecting every single poem ever conceived of by humankind. Bloom wrote that, in terms of its scope and literary importance, "it competes only with the world's scriptures." It's a play that every college student eventually reads, and a role that every actor must eventually play. And it remains timeless, updating itself in perpetuity, adjusting itself for each passing generation. 

It was written in about 1600, but every single decade might be able to claim "Hamlet" as its own. As a Gen-Xer myself, I see "Hamlet" as a Gen-X-inflected meta-narrative, with Hamlet himself as a broody, Goth-like, overeducated, would-be author. The play itself is a commentary on how revenge stories are inherently immoral, and how the characters in them have no agency ... until Hamlet breaks out and shakes up literary convention from within the play itself. 

"Hamlet" has been adapted into dozens of movies over the decades, starting in the silent era, and lasting until the present day. It has been adapted straight, using the Bard's actual text, and it has been whimsically repurposed for comedies and animated films ("Strange Brew" and "The Lion King" have elements of "Hamlet"). 

The below films are five of the best filmed renditions of "Hamlet," although this list could have been much longer. Although there are some bad "Hamlets" out there, each one is noteworthy because, well, it uses the story and/or text of the most celebrated plays in the English language. Let us begin. Give o'er the play.

Tull Stories

"Hamlet" can be staged anywhere. The play is technically set in Denmark, with many storytelling and literary cues that put it somewhere in the 14th century (although that can be debated), but one can easily transpose the action to the distant future, the Old West, modern-day Japan (see below), as the anime "Scarlet," or even inside a video game.

That last one was attempted by a troupe of cooped-up actors who, in 2020, were bored being cooped up by COVID lockdowns. In the 2025 documentary "Grand Theft Hamlet," co-director Sam Crane (working with his partner Pinny Grylls) and Mark Oosterveen weren't really sure what to do with their time, and whiled away many hours playing "Grand Theft Auto Online." They could communicate via headsets, but only saw each other as their in-game avatars. The found that the world of "GTA Online" was expansive enough to contain stages and theaters, and they figured they could recruit other online players and stage a version of "Hamlet" entirely inside the game. 

Some players were very keen on the idea, although they did have a problem with other players trying to murder them during rehearsals. Much of the film details how hard it is to organize a group activity online, and what kind of places and costumes can be exploited in the "GTA Online" assets that would evoke the tale of Elsinore. The players have to hire in-game bodyguards to keep interlopers away while they recite their lines. 

"Grand Theft Hamlet" is also a tale of loneliness and sadness. One can stage a Shakespearean tragedy online, but one is also losing one's touch with the real world. It's one of the best films of 2025. 

BBC

I — and the high school teachers of the world — will be eternally grateful that the BBC, from 1978 through 1985, carefully adapted and filmed every single one of Shakespeare's plays. Yes, even the obscure ones. Thanks to the BBC, we have filmed versions of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," "Timon of Athens," all four plays in the York tetralogy, and "Cymbeline." I have watched all of the BBC Shakespeare adaptations, and they are solid, grand productions that featured some of the best actors working at the time. There was even some fun stunt casting; Roger Daltrey from The Who played one of the pairs of identical twins in "The Comedy of Errors." The only bad one in the lot was the weird, nightmarish production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," a production that re-envisions the comedy as a horror movie. 

And the BBC wasn't about to skip out on "the big ones." Their "Hamlet" starred the amazing Derek Jacobi as the melancholy Dane, while Patrick Stewart plays his murderous uncle, Claudius. Stewart, as we all know, is a Shakespeare veteran, even playing Shakespearean characters on "Star Trek." Claire Bloom plays Gertrude, and Lalla Ward plays Ophelia. It's a pretty straightforward production, but operating on an early '80s, shot-on-video TV budget, requiring a stripped-down aesthetic. The sets were minimal, and the opulence absent. The intention was seemingly to bring "Hamlet" back into the theater where it belonged, free of outsize interpretations that would only get in the way of the dialogue. In such a world, Hamlet himself seems aware that he's in a play, so he is privy to every line of dialogue, even from scenes he's not in.

What the 1980 BBC rendition of "Hamlet" proved was that "Hamlet" requires little more than a bare set, scant costumes, and devoted, talented actors. 

Toho

Akira Kurosawa was no stranger to the works of William Shakespeare. In 1957, he made a fantastic rendition of "Macbeth" set in medieval Japan called "Throne of Blood." Later in his career, in 1980, he made a samurai epic called "Kagemusha," which isn't based on any one Shakespearean story, but most assuredly possesses the same qualities as several of Shakespeare's history plays. Later still, in 1985, Kurosawa adapted "King Lear" into "Ran," one of his most sumptuous productions, and often seen as one of his best.

It's a little baffling that Kurosawa's rendition of "Hamlet" is the least talked-about. Called "The Bad Sleep Well," Kurosawa sets the events of "Hamlet" in modern-day Japan, set among the backstabbing world of high-end businessmen. The tone is less a tragedy and more of a film noir, involving shadowy spaces, and morally empty protagonmists. The Hamlet character is Koichi Nishi, played by frequent Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune. The plot goes more in-depth than Shakespeare's, detailing the backstory of Hamlet's father and why he was murdered by the Claudius character and his associates. The story isn't a one-to-one adaptation, but more a general guideline. Nishi's father seemingly committed suicide, but he knows that he was hushed up following some wicked corporate espionage. There are deaths and murders and suicides, along with a general sense of despair. 

Francis Ford Coppola once noted that "The Bad Sleep Well" was one of the main inspirations for his 1972 film "The Godfather." 

"The Bad Sleep Well" is also a very modern litany of how corruption is common. Yet Kurosawa is, generally speaking, a very human and optimistic filmmaker, so it only takes an intense soul to make sure guilt falls on the right shoulders. The movie is as intense as its protagonist.

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Often held up as the gold standard of "Hamlet" movies, Laurence Olivier's 1948 version was shown in classrooms for decades. Olivier's depiction of the character became like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, in that his performance would be the bar by which all other Hamlets would be measured. Frustratingly for Shakespearean scholars, however, Olivier truncated the text by quite a large degree, stripping "Hamlet" down to a lot of its base essentials. He also famously restaged most of the play's action in a semi-surreal dream space. Castle Elsinore seems to have no indoor rooms, and is made of nothing but walls and parapets. 

Olivier plays Hamlet and, in a casting coup, also played the voice of his own dead father. Basil Sydney plays Claudius, and Eileen Herlie plays Gertrude. Jean Simmons plays Ophelia. The production was so impressive that "Hamlet" was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Sometimes the Academy recognizes when they have a great work on their hands. 

Olivier's "Hamlet" is hard to deny. It's powerful, shadowy, and dreamlike. The unreality of the production sees Hamlet emerging less as a real person, and more as a dramatic construct. "To be or not to be" rings doubly. He is contemplating his own life, yes, but also his role in this weird movie. One can take Olivier's "Hamlet" as a straight rendition of a play about revenge and murder, but one might also see it as a psychedelic cinematic experiment; how abstract can "Hamlet" be, and still be moving? /Film once declared it to be one of Olivier's best movies. 

Columbia Pictures

One of the best films of its decade, Kenneth Branagh's 1996 version of "Hamlet" famously included the entire text of Shakespeare's play. That means the film showed with an intermission, and runs a whopping 242 minutes. But in including the entire text, Branagh revealed the variety, the texture, the pacing, and some of the true themes of the Bard's seminal work. "Hamlet" is not just a play about a man who kills his brother and marries his sister-in-law. It's not just a play about an art student nephew who is moved to revenge by the ghost of his father. It's actually a broad, sociopolitical treatise about global politics. It's not just people that die in Branagh's "Hamlet" — the entire country of Denmark falls. 

The cast is excellent to a one. Branagh famously directs his actors to speak in their own voices (and usually their own native accents), giving Shakespeare's poetry a natural, relatable quality. Unlike with Olivier, there is no bold, stylized recitation. This is a conversational "Hamlet." Weirdly, it was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards, not that it required any writing.

And, golly, the cast! Branagh himself plays Hamlet, while Derek Jacobi plays Claudius. Julie Christie is Gertrude, and Kate Winslet is Ophelia. Branagh also cast giant stars in tiny roles to show that there are no small parts in "Hamlet." Charlton Heston plays the Player King, while John Gielgud plays Priam (the man inside the Player King's speech). Gerard Depardieu plays a nothing character named Reynaldo, Jack Lemmon plays the guard Marcellus, and Robin Williams plays the minuscule comedic role of Osric. Best of all, Billy Crystal plays the Gravedigger, and avails himself marvelously well. 

Watching Branagh's "Hamlet" is a sigh of relief. It's a film as large as the play deserves. And it's nothing but exhilarating from beginning to end.