A contemporary adaption of William Shakespeare's Hamlet........well that should do it really, but just in case.; Spoilt, slightly unhinged lad, starved of real parental love, father murdered, mum marries prime suspect, boy becomes even more loopy, but method in his madness, determined to find the truth and reek revenge, falls in love with forbidden fruit, tragedy lurking patiently in the wings. This modern adaption of Hamlet is following on from the recent updating of Romeo and Juliet and though find out more...

Ran, Kurosawa's last great epic, is a Jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonj, an ageing Sengoku-era warlord who abdicates as ruler in favor of his three sons. His kingdom slowly disintegrates as the sons struggle for power, murdering rivals and laying waste to the land, and Hidetora goes insane after watching his retainers slaughtered in an epic massacre, the centrepiece of the film. As the kingdom crumbles and rival warlords move in for the kill, the Ichimonji find out more...

Derek Jarman, of controversial "Sebastian" and "Carravaggio" fame, gives Shakespeare an unusual makeover on a shoestring budget, focusing far more on visual imagery than the bard's words, which operate, with the exception of that last speech, more like signposts........but this is cinema and the poetry should be visual. Critically approved. find out more...

One of the world's greatest filmmakers, Kurosawa, adapts Shakespeare's Macbeth to 16th Century Japan - the loss in language being more than compensated for by the misty and forbidding locations and the clever incursions of Japanese culture. find out more...