Hamlet

Grigori Kozintsev's 1964 film is among the most cited of all Shakespeare adaptations. The text rests on Boris Pasternak's Russian translation and has been cut heavily; the film advances by image rather than speech. Elsinore was shot at a real castle on the Estonian coast and used as a stone prison of the mind: sea, wind, doors and staircases close around Hamlet continually. Innokenty Smoktunovsky's Hamlet is built as the one consciousness that sees through everyone else's hypocrisy, a performance even Laurence Olivier praised. Dmitri Shostakovich's music ranks among the strongest work he wrote for the screen. It is one of the best examples of what Soviet cinema did with classical texts. Who it's for: viewers who love Shakespeare on film and visually ambitious black and white cinema. Who it's not for: anyone expecting fidelity to the text; the adaptation removes a great deal of the play.