The motion picture of all time ... for all time!
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.
- Bleak ending
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Character
Earnest, grave, prestige and contemplative.
- earnestironic
- gravecomic
- unpretentiousprestige
- contemplativerelentless
- classical in formformally daring
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- CinemaSerfon TMDB · Feb 20247/10
Did you ever notice how Laurence Olivier never looks to camera when he speaks in this film? Even during the most potent of his soliloquies, he always manages to avoid any direct eye contact with the audience! His "Hamlet", here, though, is the definitive representation of this troubled Shakespearian character and combined with an excellently selected cast, we are presented with quite a compelling 2½ hours of tautly directed and gloriously eerily lit tragic drama. His father has been slain and his mother "Gertrude" (Eileen Herlie) has remarried his brother, now the king, "Claudius" (Basil Sydney). "Hamlet" is suspicious that this man had a hand in that murder, quite possibly his mother did too - but he cannot prove anything. That's where his father's ghost helps out - he reveals the secrets of his assassination and his son decides to incorporate these deeds into a play that he hopes, will shame the murderers and torture their souls. Not quite, and an unfortunate altercation in his mother's chamber sees him despatched, formally, to England but en route he encounters some pirates who might just be able to return him home for a show-down with the conniving liars and schemers at court.
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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
- Stanley HollowayGravedigger
- Russell ThorndikePriest
Crew
- Laurence OlivierDirector
- Laurence OlivierScreenplay
- Desmond DickinsonDirector of Photography
- William WaltonOriginal Music Composer
- Helga CranstonEditor
- Laurence OlivierProducer
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