Film · 1948 · Shakespeare
Hamlet
Directed by Laurence Olivier
1948
United Kingdom
★ 3.0 editorial score
The first film made outside America to be named Best Picture: Laurence Olivier cut half the play, shot it in high-contrast monochrome, and moves the camera through Elsinore like a ghost.
“The filmed "Hamlet" of Laurence Olivier gives absolute proof that these classics are magnificiently suited to the screen. This fine British-made picture...is probably as vivid and as clear an exposition of the doleful Dane's dilemma as modern-day playgoers have seen. And just as Olivier's ingenious and spectacular "Henry V" set out new visual limits for Shakespear's historical plays, his "Hamlet" envisions new vistas in the great tragedies of the Bard.”
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