List of William Shakespeare screen adaptations

The Guinness Book of Records lists 410 feature-length film and TV versions of William Shakespeare's plays, making Shakespeare the most filmed author ever in any language.

As of November 2023^[update], the Internet Movie Database lists Shakespeare as having writing credit on 1,800 films, including those under production but not yet released. The earliest known production is King John from 1899.

NOTE: "ShakespeaRe-Told", "The Animated Shakespeare" and "BBC Television Shakespeare" series have been covered above, under the respective play performed in each episode.

• Playing Shakespeare (TV, UK, 1979–1984) began as two consecutive episodes of the UK arts series The South Bank Show, and developed into a nine-part series of its own. It features director John Barton, then a leading light of the Royal Shakespeare Company, putting a host of actors through their paces. Many of those actors are now household names, including Judi Dench, Michael Pennington, Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingsley, David Suchet and Ian McKellen. The episodes were:
  • The South Bank Show: "Speaking Shakespearean Verse"
  • The South Bank Show: "Preparing to Perform Shakespeare"
  • 1. "The Two Traditions"
  • 2. "Using the Verse"
  • 3. "Language and Character"
  • 4. "Set Speeches and Soliloquies"
  • 5. "Irony and Ambiguity"
  • 6. "Passion and Coolness"
  • 7. "Rehearsing the Text"
  • 8. "Exploring a Character"
  • 9. "Poetry and Hidden Poetry"

Three further episodes were filmed but never edited or screened. They were to be called "Using the Prose", "Using the Sonnets" and "Contemporary Shakespeare". Their text can be read in the book "Playing Shakespeare" by John Barton.

• The Shakespeare Sessions (USA 2003): An American spin-off from Playing Shakespeare (above) in which John Barton directs notable American actors in Shakespeare scenes.
• Conjuring Shakespeare (TV, UK, 199?): A series of half-hour documentaries hosted by Fiona Shaw, each episode dealing with scenes from a particular play.
• In Search of Shakespeare (TV, UK, 2003): A BBC documentary series of four 1-hour episodes, chronicling the life of William Shakespeare, written and presented by Michael Wood.
• Slings & Arrows (TV, Canada, 2003–2006): A Canadian comedy drama set in the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival, a fictional Shakespearean festival in a small town in Canada comparable to the real-life Stratford Shakespeare Festival. With its entire run written by Susan Coyne, Bob Martin and Mark McKinney, directed by Peter Wellington, and starring Paul Gross, Martha Burns and Stephen Ouimette, it aired in three seasons of six 1-hour episodes each.
• Som & Fúria (TV, Brazil, 2009): A Brazilian adaptation of Slings and Arrows.

• The "Themes of Shakespeare" series contains straight-to-video short documentaries, each considering the theme of a particular play. The contributors are Professor Stanley Wells, and Dr. Robert Smallwood of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
• Two lecture series given by professor Peter Saccio were filmed and are commercially available on DVD.

• Theatre of Blood (UK, 1973). Vincent Price plays a Shakespearean actor who takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition. He kills his critics using methods inspired by several of Shakespeare's plays: Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III, Othello, Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, Henry VI Part One, Titus Andronicus, and King Lear.

Douglas Hickox director

Vincent Price as Edward Lionheart

Diana Rigg as Edwina Lionheart

• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company is a successful West End stage comedy, containing some element of all 37 canonical plays. A film of one of the live performances is commercially available.
• The Royal Shakespeare Company have released a number of videos in the "Great Performances" series, which contain excerpts from stage performances.
• The Lion in Winter (US, Play, 1966). Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's castle in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173. The story concerns the gamesmanship between Henry, Eleanor, their three surviving sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John, and their Christmas Court guest, the King of France, Philip II Augustus (French: Philippe Auguste), who was the son of Eleanor's ex-husband, Louis VII of France (by his third wife, Adelaide). Also involved is Philip's half-sister Alais, who has been at court since she was betrothed to Richard at age eight, but has since become Henry's mistress. A film version was made in 1968. Productions have been put on by Shakespearean Theater companies (Unseam'd Shakespeare Company production in 2002 and the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse presented it in complementary repertory with William Shakespeare's King John in 2012).

Anthony Harvey director

Peter O'Toole as King Henry II

Katharine Hepburn as Queen Eleanor

Anthony Hopkins (in his motion picture debut) as Richard the Lionheart

Nigel Terry as John

Timothy Dalton (in his motion picture debut) as King Philip II

• List of titles of works taken from Shakespeare

• William Shakespeare at IMDb
• BardMovies: Shakespeare on Film for Groundlings Archived 2017-05-19 at the Wayback Machine
• ShakespeareFlix: Shakespeare Observations, Reviews, News, and Resources
• An International Database of Shakespeare on Film, Television and Radio
• Shakespeare on Screen, An International Filmography and Videography