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British plays adapted into films

  • MacbethMacbeth is the shortest tragedy William Shakespeare wrote, more than a thousand lines shorter than Othello and King Lear.
  • HamletHamlet is the longest play William Shakespeare ever wrote, and it might require more than four hours to stage. A typical Elizabethan play needed two to three…
  • The TempestThe Tempest opens with a ship shattering apart in a storm, sailors screaming, and a king convinced he is about to drown.
  • As You Like ItAs You Like It, William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy believed written in 1599, opens not with a grand battle or a royal proclamation but with a wrestling…
  • Twelfth NightTwelfth Night, or What You Will opens with a shipwreck and a woman washing up on a foreign shore, alone, believing her twin brother has drowned.
  • All's Well That Ends WellAll's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare that has puzzled audiences and critics alike for centuries. It first appeared in the First Folio…
  • Henry IV, Part 1Henry IV, Part 1 opens with a king haunted by the throne he stole. Written by William Shakespeare, probably in the mid-1590s and first published in quarto in…
  • Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet begins with a curse. Before a single scene has played out, a Chorus steps forward to tell the audience that two young lovers are already…
  • Measure for MeasureThe play Measure for Measure first appeared in print within the First Folio of 1623, though scholars believe it was written during 1603 or 1604.
  • Henry IV, Part 2Henry IV, Part 2 opens not with a king or a hero, but with a personified figure called Rumour, a character who sets the tone for a play built on deception…
  • Much Ado About NothingWilliam Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing during the years 1598 and 1599. The play first appeared in print when stationers Andrew Wise and William…
  • The Winter's TaleThe play The Winter's Tale draws its main plot from Robert Greene's pastoral romance Pandosto, published in 1588. Shakespeare made uncharacteristically…
  • Richard III (play)Richard III opens with a man addressing you directly, telling you exactly who he is and what he plans to do. "I am determined to prove a villain," says the…
  • The Importance of Being EarnestThe Importance of Being Earnest had its first performance on the 14th of February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, a night that Allan Aynesworth…
  • OthelloOthello, written by William Shakespeare around 1603, opens with a secret. A Moorish general and a senator's daughter have eloped in the night, and before…
  • The Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of Venice, a play by William Shakespeare, hinges on a single clause in a loan agreement: if the borrower defaults, the lender may cut exactly…
  • Antony and CleopatraThe story of Antony and Cleopatra begins in 1579 with a translation by Sir Thomas North. This English version of Plutarch's Lives provided the raw material…
  • Henry V (play)Henry V, Shakespeare's history play believed to have been written circa 1599, opens with an apology. A lone figure steps forward on the stage and asks the…
  • Richard II (play)Richard II, Shakespeare's play about the last two years of a king's life, opens with a moment of supreme royal authority that contains within it the seeds of…
  • King LearKing Lear asks a question that has unsettled audiences for four centuries: what happens when a man with absolute power demands to be loved?
  • A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream opens in Athens, four days before a wedding, with a father dragging his daughter before a duke and invoking a law that would see…
  • CoriolanusCoriolanus is a Shakespeare tragedy that opens not with a king on his throne or a lover in a garden, but with a food riot.
  • CymbelineWilliam Shakespeare set his play Cymbeline in ancient Britain, drawing the name of its king from Cunobeline, a real historical figure mentioned by Suetonius…
  • Julius Caesar (play)Julius Caesar, the play William Shakespeare wrote and first staged in 1599, begins with a paradox: it is named after a man who is not its hero.
  • The Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew opens not with a wedding or a courtship, but with a prank. A mischievous nobleman finds a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly passed…
  • Henry VIII (play)Scholars examining the text of Henry VIII found that individual scenes bore the distinct fingerprints of two different writers.
  • VolponeThe year 1605 marked the beginning of a theatrical experiment in London. Ben Jonson wrote Volpone to premiere at the Globe Theatre during the spring of 1606.
  • The Comedy of ErrorsThe Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays, and it gave the English language something most plays never do: a common idiom.
  • Titus AndronicusTitus Andronicus begins with a question no audience expects to face: what does a man do when Rome itself betrays him? William Shakespeare wrote this tragedy…
  • The Two Gentlemen of VeronaShakespeare drew his plot from the Spanish prose romance The Seven Books of Diana by Jorge de Montemayor, published in 1559.