Comedies
All's Well That Ends Well
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All's Well That Ends Well | TV | 1968 |
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| Originally a Royal Shakespeare Company stage production, this was the first Shakespeare play broadcast in color by the BBC. [lower-alpha 1] The second, of two, reels is believed to be lost. [6] | |
| All's Well That Ends Well | Video | 1978 |
| A video recording of a 1978 New York Shakespeare Festival performance at the Delacorte Theatre, made by Jaime Caro for Theatre on Film and Tape. [7] | ||
| "All's Well That Ends Well" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1981 |
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| All's Well That Ends Well (National Theatre Live) | TV | 2009 |
| Live performance broadcast from the National Theatre in London's West End. |
As You Like It
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| As You Like It | Silent | 1912 |
| The film brings stage star Rose Coghlan to the screen for her motion picture debut. At 61–62, Coghlan is an older Rosalind than usual. Filmed mainly outdoors. | ||
| Love in a Wood | Silent | 1915 |
| A silent comedy film in a contemporary setting of the play. [8] | ||
| As You Like It | Film | 1936 |
| Olivier's first performance of Shakespeare on screen. It was also the final film of stage actors Leon Quartermaine and Henry Ainley and featured an early screen role for Ainley's son Richard as Sylvius, as well as for John Laurie, who played Orlando's brother Oliver. Laurie would go on to co-star with Olivier in the three Shakespearean films that Olivier directed. [9] | ||
| As You Like It | TV | 1963 |
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| A recording of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1961 performance for the BBC. [10] In a 2015 retrospective for The Guardian, theatre critic Michael Billington praised Redgrave as having "the ability to give a performance [as Rosalind] that becomes a gold-standard for future generations". [11] | |
| "As You Like It" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1978 |
| Recorded at Glamis Castle in Scotland, this was one of only two productions shot on location, the other being The Famous History of the Life of Henry the Eight. However, the location shooting received a lukewarm response from both critics and the BBC's own people, with the general consensus being that the natural world in the episode overwhelmed the actors and the story. Director Basil Coleman initially felt that the play should be filmed over the course of a year, with the change in seasons from winter to summer marking the ideological change in the characters, but he was forced to shoot entirely in May, even though the play begins in winter. This, in turn, meant the harshness of the forest described in the text was replaced by lush greenery, which was distinctly unthreatening, with the characters' "time in the forest appear[ing] to be more an upscale camping expedition rather than exile." [12] | ||
| As You Like It | TV | 1983 |
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| As You Like It | Film | 1992 |
| Set in a modern, urban, environment. The film received mostly negative reviews. Time Out thought that the "… wonder is that they bothered to put film in the camera, for sadly this is Shakespeare sans teeth, eyes, taste, sans everything." [13] Derek Elley in Variety characterised it as a "British low-budgeter, mostly shot on drab exteriors, [that] will be limited to literary students and the very dedicated, given careful nursing." [14] | ||
| "As You Like It" ( Shakespeare: The Animated Tales ) | TV | 1994 |
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| Animated with paint on glass using watercolors. [15] | |
| As You Like It | Film | 2006 |
| Branagh moved the play's setting from medieval France to a late 19th century European colony in Japan after the Meiji Restoration. It is filmed at Shepperton Film Studios and at the never-before-filmed gardens of Wakehurst Place. | ||
| As You Like It | TV | 2010 |
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| As You Like It | Video | 2010 |
| Recording of a performance at Shakespeare's Globe. |
The Comedy of Errors
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Boys from Syracuse | Film | 1940 |
| A musical film based on a stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, which in turn was based on the play. [16] It was nominated for two Academy Awards: one for Best Visual Effects (John P. Fulton, Bernard B. Brown, Joe Lapis) and one for Best Art Direction (Jack Otterson). [17] | ||
| Bhranti Bilas (Bengali : ভ্রান্তি বিলাস, lit. 'Illusion of illusion)' | Film | 1963 |
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| The film relocates the story to modern day India. The film tells the story of a Bengali merchant from Kolkata and his servant who visit a small town for a business appointment, but, whilst there, are mistaken for a pair of locals, leading to much confusion. It is based on an 1869 play by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, which is itself based on The Comedy of Errors. Bhranti Bilas was remade in 1968 as the musical comedy Do Dooni Char , which in turn was later remade as Angoor . | |
| "The Comedy of Errors" (Festival) | TV | 1967 |
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| Do Dooni Char | Film | 1968 |
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| A musical comedy Bollywood adaptation based on the 1963 film Bhranti Bilas , which in turn was based on an 1869 play by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, which is itself based on The Comedy of Errors. Do Dooni Char was later remade as Angoor . | |
| The Comedy of Errors | TV | 1978 |
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| A TV adaptation of a musical based on the play, with a book and lyrics by Trevor Nunn and music by Guy Woolfenden. | |
| Angoor (Hindi : अंगूर, lit. 'Grape)' | Film | 1982 |
| A Bollywood adaptation, based on the 1968 film Do Dooni Char , which was based on the 1963 film Bhranti Bilas , which in turn was based on an 1869 play by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, which is itself based on The Comedy of Errors. | ||
| "The Comedy of Errors" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1983 |
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| The Comedy of Errors | TV | 1987 |
| Videotaped as part of PBS's Great Performances series at Lincoln Center, New York City, this production starring The Flying Karamazov Brothers combined Shakespeare with slapstick, acrobatics and juggling on the basis that "in Ephesus, you juggle or die!" with Shakespeare himself taking part in the action. | ||
| The Comedy of Errors | TV | 1989 |
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Love's Labour's Lost
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Love's Labor Lost | Animation | 1920 | ||||
| "Love's Labour's Lost" ( Play of the Month ) | TV | 1975 |
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| "Love's Labour's Lost" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1985 |
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| Love's Labour's Lost | Film | 2000 |
| Branagh's film turns Love's Labour's Lost into a romantic Hollywood musical. Set and costume design evoke the Europe of 1939; the music (classic Broadway songs of the 1930s) and newsreel-style footage are also chief period details. |
Measure for Measure
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measure for Measure (Italian : Dente per dente, lit. 'A tooth for a tooth)' | Film | 1943 |
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| "Measure For Measure" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1979 |
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| Measure for Measure | TV | 1994 |
| Modern dress version of Shakespeare's "problem comedy" emphasizing the darker elements of the play and eliminating most of the humor. | ||
| Measure for Measure | Film | 2006 |
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| Contemporary re-working of Shakespeare's problem play set in the British army. | |
| M4M: Measure for Measure | Film | 2015 |
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| All-male cast version | |
| Measure For Measure | Film | 2019 |
| Adaptation set in modern-day Australia |
The Merchant of Venice
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Merchant of Venice | Silent | 1914 |
| An early film of the play, now assumed to be lost. [18] | ||
| The Merchant of Venice | Silent | 1916 |
| The film was made by Broadwest. The company hired the complete stage cast of the play and filmed at Walthamstow Studios using largely natural light. The film marked the screen debut of Matheson Lang who went on to become one of the leading British actors of the 1920s. [19] | ||
| The Merchant of Venice | Film | 1922 |
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| Der Kaufmann von Venedig | Silent | Germany | 1923 | Peter Paul Felner | Werner Krauß (Shylock) Henny Porten (Portia) Harry Liedtke (Bassanio) Carl Ebert (Antonio) Max Schreck (Doge von Venedig) | A relatively late silent movie, making significant changes in the plot, nevertheless considered as a masterwork, mostly due to its stunning cast. |
| The Merchant of Venice | TV | 1947 |
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| "The Merchant of Venice" ( Sunday Night Theatre ) | TV | 1955 |
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| "The Merchant of Venice" ( Play of the Month ) | TV | 1972 |
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| The Merchant of Venice | TV | 1973 |
| An adaptation from Jonathan Miller's acclaimed 1970 Royal National Theatre staging. [20] | ||
| The Merchant of Venice | TV | 1976 |
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| "The Merchant of Venice" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1980 |
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| The Merchant of Venice | TV | 1996 |
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| The Merchant of Venice | TV | 2001 |
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| The Maori Merchant of Venice (Māori : Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti) | Film | 2002 |
| The play was translated into Māori in 1945 by Pei Te Hurinui Jones, and his translation is used for the film. It is the first Māori-language film adaptation of any of Shakespeare's plays, and the first feature length Māori film. [21] The film was shot in Auckland, but "recreates 16th century Venice, with costumes and surroundings to fit the original setting". [22] | ||
| The Merchant of Venice | Film | 2004 |
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The Merry Wives of Windsor
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Merry Wives of Windsor (German : Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) | Film | 1950 |
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| "The Merry Wives of Windsor" ( Sunday Night Theatre ) | TV | 1952 |
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| Chimes at Midnight | Film | 1966 |
| Welles said that the core of the film's story was "the betrayal of friendship." The script contains text from five of Shakespeare's plays: primarily Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 , but also Richard II and Henry V , as well as some dialogue from The Merry Wives of Windsor . Richardson's narration is taken from the works of chronicler Raphael Holinshed. Welles had previously produced a Broadway adaptation of nine Shakespeare plays called Five Kings in 1939. In 1960, he revived this project in Ireland as Chimes at Midnight, which was his final on-stage performance. Neither of these plays was successful, but Welles considered portraying Falstaff to be his life's ambition and turned the project into a film. In order to get initial financing, Welles lied to producer Emiliano Piedra about adapting Treasure Island , and keeping the film funded during production was a constant struggle. Welles shot Chimes at Midnight throughout Spain between 1964 and 1965; it premiered at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, winning two awards. | ||
| The Merry Wives of Windsor | TV | 1970 |
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| "The Merry Wives of Windsor" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1982 |
| Jones originally wanted to shoot the episode in Stratford-upon-Avon but was restricted to a studio setting. Determined that the production be as realistic as possible, he had designer Dom Homfray base the set on real Tudor houses associated with Shakespeare: Falstaff's room is based on the home of Mary Arden (Shakespeare's mother) in Wilmcote, and the wives' houses are based on the house of Shakespeare's daughter Susanna, and her husband, John Hall. For the background of exterior shots, he used a miniature Tudor village built of plasticine. [23] |
A Midsummer Night's Dream
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Silent | 1909 |
| The first film adaptation of the play. | ||
| Wood Love (German : Ein Sommernachtstraum) | Silent | 1925 |
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| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 1935 |
| Austrian-born director Max Reinhardt did not speak English at the time of production. He gave orders to the actors and crew in German with William Dieterle acting as his interpreter. The film was banned in Nazi Germany because of the Jewish backgrounds of Reinhardt and composer Felix Mendelssohn. Filming had to be rearranged after Rooney broke his leg while skiing. According to Rooney's memoirs, Jack L. Warner was furious and threatened to kill him and then break his other leg. This was the film debut of Olivia de Havilland. [24] | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream (Czech : Sen noci svatojánské) | Film | 1959 | An animated puppet film directed by Jiří Trnka. It was an Official Selection as a Feature Film at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, and won special distinction. [25] An English-language dubbed version was made with narration by Richard Burton. [26] | |||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 1968 |
| The film premiered in theatres in Europe in September 1968. In the U.S., it was sold directly to television rather than playing in theatres, and premiered as a Sunday evening special, on the night of 9 February 1969. It was shown on CBS (with commercials). | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream (French : Le Songe d'une nuit d'été) | TV | 1969 |
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| "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1980 |
| Released in the US as part of the Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare series. | ||
| Dream of a Summer Night (Italian : Sogno di una Notte d'Estate) | Film | 1983 |
| Based on a rock musical directed by Salvatores, it is a musical adaptation. [27] [28] It was screened in the "De Sica" section at the 40th edition of the Venice International Film Festival. [29] | ||
| "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ( Shakespeare: The Animated Tales ) | TV | 1992 |
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| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 1996 |
| Filmed adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1996 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 1999 |
| A Midsummer Night's Dream was filmed on location in Lazio and Tuscany, and at Cinecittà Studios, Rome, Italy. The action of the play was transported from Athens, Greece, to a fictional Monte Athena, located in the Tuscan region of Italy, although all textual mentions of Athens were retained. The film made use of Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for an 1843 stage production (including the famous Wedding March ), alongside operatic works from Giuseppe Verdi, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Gioacchino Rossini and Pietro Mascagni. [30] | ||
| The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 2001 |
| In this version, a group of school children are attending a puppet performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream when they are drawn into the story and become the characters, dressed in Elizabethan costumes. | ||
| Get Over It | Film | 2001 |
| A contemporary adaptation set at a high school which includes another version of the play performed as a show-within-a-show, much like the Pyramus and Thisbe subplay in the original Shakespeare. | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Rave | Film | 2002 |
| A modern adaptation set at a warehouse party | ||
| Midsummer Dream (Spanish : El Sueño de una Noche de San Juan) | Film | 2005 |
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| An animated adaptation of the Cream story. | |
| "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ( ShakespeaRe-Told ) | TV | 2005 |
| a modern adaptation | ||
| Were the World Mine | Film | 2008 |
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| The film, inspired by the play, prominently features a modern, LGBT interpretation of the play put on in a private high school in a small town. Additionally, this musical's lyrics are largely based on Shakespeare's original text. For example, the title comes from a line in a song, drawn from a line in a play, "Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated / The rest I'd give to be to you translated." | |
| 10ml LOVE | Film | 2010 |
| A Hindi romantic comedy concerning the tribulations of a love quadrangle during a night of magic and madness and a contemporary adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 2015 |
| Recording of a production at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Brooklyn, New York. | ||
| Strange Magic | Film | 2015 |
| An animated musical fantasy romantic comedy film with feature animation by Lucasfilm Animation and Industrial Light & Magic. [31] | ||
| A Midsummer Night's Dream | TV | 2016 |
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| A Midsummer Night's Dream | Film | 2018 |
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| A modern-day version set against the backdrop of Hollywood, CA. |
Much Ado About Nothing
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Much Ado About Nothing | TV | 1973 |
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| A CBS television presentation of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival production. | |
| Much Ado About Nothing (Russian: Много шума из ничего) | Film | 1973 |
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| Soviet romantic comedy | |
| "Much Ado About Nothing" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1984 |
| Released in the US as part of the Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare series. | ||
| Much Ado About Nothing | Film | 1993 |
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| "Much Ado About Nothing" ( ShakespeaRe-Told ) | TV | 2005 |
| A modern adaptation by David Nicholls. | ||
| Much Ado About Nothing | Film | 2012 |
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| Anyone But You | Film | 2023 |
| A modern adaptation by Will Gluck and Ilana Wolpert. [32] |
The Taming of the Shrew
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Taming of the Shrew | Silent | 1908 |
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| Daring Youth [33] | Silent | 1924 |
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| The Taming of the Shrew | Film | 1929 |
| The first sound film adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. | ||
| You Made Me Love You | Film | 1933 |
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| Kiss Me, Kate | Film | 1953 |
| An adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name, it tells the tale of musical theater actors, Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi, who were once married and are now performing opposite each other in the roles of Petruchio and Katherine in a Broadway-bound musical version of the play. Already on poor terms, the pair begin an all-out emotional war mid-performance that threatens the production's success. | ||
| The Taming of the Shrew | TV | 1962 |
| The play was performed live but included some filmed sequences shot in Centennial Park. [34] [35] | ||
| Arivaali (Tamil : அறிவாளி) | Film | 1963 |
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| The Taming of the Shrew (Italian : La Bisbetica domata) | Film | 1967 |
| "A bawdy and boisterous production which reduces the play to the Katharina/Petruccio romance." [36] | ||
| The Taming of the Shrew | TV | 1973 |
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| The Taming of the Shrew | TV | 1973 |
| Videotaped broadcast of the San Francisco American Conservatory Theater presenting Shakespeare's classic take with a Commedia dell'arte flair, as if it were an inn yard performance by a traveling company. | ||
| The Taming of the Scoundrel (Italian : Il Bisbetico Domato) | Film | 1980 |
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| "The Taming of the Shrew" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1980 |
| Released in the US as part of the Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare series. | ||
| Kiss Me, Petruchio | TV | 1981 |
| Documentary following actress Streep and actor Julia as they prepare to perform and actually perform Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew for the "Shakespeare in the Park" theater festival in Central Park, New York. | ||
| The Taming of the Shrew (The Shakespeare Collection) | Video | 1983 |
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| "Atomic Shakespeare" ( Moonlighting ) | TV | 1986 |
| First aired on 25 November 1986, the episode presented the play through multiple fourth-wall layers with a self-referential frame tale, in which a young fan of the TV show has a Shakespeare reading assignment and imagines it as presented by the show's regular cast. | ||
| Nanjundi Kalyana (Kannada : ನಂಜುಂಡಿ ಕಲ್ಯಾಣ, lit. 'Nanjundi's marriage)' | Film | 1989 |
| An adaptation based on Parvathavani's Kannada drama which was a translation of the play. The film was among the biggest grossing Kannada films of 1989, and was remade in Telugu as Mahajananiki Maradalu Pilla (1990). | ||
| Mahajananiki Maradalu Pilla (Telugu : మహాజనానికి మరదలు పిల్ల, lit. 'A child of neglect)' | Film | 1990 |
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| A remake of the Kannada film Nanjundi Kalyana (1989). | |
| "The Taming of the Shrew" ( Shakespeare: The Animated Tales ) | TV | 1994 |
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| 10 Things I Hate About You | Film | 1999 |
| A modernization of the play, retold in a late-1990s American high school setting. New student Cameron is smitten with Bianca and, in order to get around her father's strict rules on dating, attempts to get bad boy Patrick to date Bianca's ill-tempered sister, Kat. | ||
| The Carnation and the Rose (Portuguese : O Cravo e a Rosa) | Telenovela | 2000–1 |
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| Deliver Us from Eva | Film | 2003 |
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| "The Taming of The Shrew" ( ShakespeaRe-Told ) | TV | 2005 |
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| A modern adaptation by Sally Wainwright. | |
| Frivolous Wife (Korean : 날나리 종부전) [37] | Film | 2008 |
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Twelfth Night
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
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| Twelfth Night | Film | 1910 |
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| Twelfth Night | Film | 1933 |
| Notable as the earliest surviving film directed by Welles, then aged 17. It is a recording of the dress rehearsal of Welles's own abridged production at his alma mater , the Todd School for Boys, where he had returned to direct this adaptation for the Chicago Drama Festival in 1933. [38] | ||
| Twelfth Night (Russian : Двенадцатая ночь) | Film | 1955 |
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| Twelfth Night [39] | TV | 1966 |
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| Twelfth Night | TV | 1970 |
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| "Twelfth Night" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1980 |
| Released in the US as part of the Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare series. | ||
| Twelfth Night [40] | Film | 1986 |
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| Twelfth Night | TV | 1988 |
| Music by Patrick Doyle and Paul McCartney | ||
| "Twelfth Night" ( Shakespeare: The Animated Tales ) | TV | 1992 |
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| Twelfth Night | Film | 1996 |
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| Twelfth Night, or What You Will | TV | 2003 |
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| She's the Man | Film | 2006 |
| Adapts the story to a high-school setting. | ||
| Twelfth Night | Film | 2013 |
| "Globe on Screen": All-male cast in an "original practice" production. |
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
| Title | M | C | Y | Directors | Starring | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Spray of Plum Blossoms (Chinese :一剪梅; pinyin :Yī jiǎn méi) | Silent film | 1931 |
| The film is noted for its attempted "Westernized stylings" including its surreal use of decor, women-soldiers with long hair, etc. The film also had English-subtitles, but as some scholars have noted, since few foreigners watched these films, the subtitles were more to give off an air of the West rather than to serve any real purpose. [41] [42] | ||
| "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" ( BBC Television Shakespeare ) | TV | 1983 |
| Released in the US as part of the Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare series. |
