Shakespeare adaptations are a dime a dozen—we’ve been putting his work on film practically from the moment film was a thing—but we’re particularly fascinated by a small, persistent subset of movies that aim to bring the Bard’s work to the youth of the day. Some plays seem like a natural fit (Romeo and Juliet already stars teen protagonists in the original) while others are more surprising (who saw a basketball-themed version of Othello coming?).
We’ve gathered 13 such adaptations below. In the best of them, Shakespeare’s work serves as a jumping-off point for meditations on the core truths about the human condition—discussions on race, sexuality, or gender roles presented in a way that speaks to a younger, modern generation. Plus, serious bonus points for including outrageous musical numbers.
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
How is it updated? Romeo and Juliet are the children of wealthy warring families in “Verona Beach”—which seems to be the bastard lovechild of Venice Beach and 1990s Miami. The soundtrack is a mix of Radiohead, The Cardigans, and Garbage.
The standard by which all are judged. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is still one of the best Shakespeare adaptations around, because rather than binding itself to the text, it claws its way into the heart of the play. Luhrmann’s take gives us an African-American, bisexual, glitter-dusted, Ecstasy-popping Mercutio (whose love for Romeo seems a lot more real than the titular couple’s crush…), John Leguizamo as Juliet’s cousin Tybalt, and an energetic, multicultural, genderfluid explosion of color and language.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
How is it updated? A nerd (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with a crush on the prettiest girl in school (Larissa Oleynik) pays a bad boy (Heath Ledger) to date her mean older sister (Julia Stiles).
The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare’s plays that best lends itself to high school, what with the overbearing father forbidding his popular daughter from dating until her social outcast sister does, the thin line between love and hate, and the cliques with their various motivations for helping or hindering the process. Part of what makes 10 Things such a classic is how much it builds upon The Taming of the Shrew’s premise; so many lines are classics on their own right. (We still haven’t figured out if we can ever be just whelmed.) And if watching Heath Ledger serenade Julia Stiles on the soccer field with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” then letting her return the favor with a poem that begins “I hate the way you talk to me” is what teaches kids Shakespeare—then let this be a staple for every generation.
Hamlet 2 (2008)
How is it updated? Time travel, an extended cameo by none other than Jesus, some epic showtunes, and the idea that forgiveness can heal psychological wounds.
Steve Coogan is Dana Marschz, a high-school drama teacher who learns his department is about to be shut down. As a last-ditch effort to save his job, keep his wife, and encourage a ragtag group of students to follow their dreams, he comes up with Hamlet 2. He rewrites Hamlet into a sort of time-traveling analysis session, in which both Hamlet and Jesus are able to forgive their respective fathers, mostly so that Marschz can work out his own daddy issues. The kids performing the play are awesome, and Coogan has great chemistry with them. Parts of this film are brilliant, but it can never quite decide if it’s mocking inspirational teacher movies, or if it actually wants to be an inspirational teacher movie. But it gave us “Rock Me Sexy Jesus,” and for that we should be grateful.
West Side Story (1961)
How is it updated? This Bernstein/Sondheim musical recasts Romeo and Juliet as Tony and Maria, two kids from rival gangs in 1950s New York.
Though not as recent as the other entries on this list, West Side Story deserves a spot for being one of the first Shakespeare adaptations to take the struggles of modern teenagers seriously. (Well, as “seriously” as an elaborately choreographed dance-fighting musical can, anyway.) Gone is the ennui of Verona’s noble elite, replaced with a look at the hardscrabble lives eked out by blue-collar kids and recent immigrants in a claustrophobic urban setting. And by removing the parents from the action entirely, the story focuses on the pressures the teens place on themselves to stick with their own kind—you’re either a Shark or a Jet, till your last dying day.
Get Over It (2001)
How is it updated? High schoolers use their spring musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to act out their various love triangles.
The poor man’s 10 Things, Get Over It earns its spot by getting even zanier with its Shakespeare adaptation—not surprising, considering it’s based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This movie has everything: A show (musical, rather, overseen by Martin Short as a crazed theater teacher) within a show; Shane West as a haughty Australian boy-bander; Colin Hanks and Sisquo (of “The Thong Song” fame) as the protagonist’s best buds; a drunken rendition of Elvis Costello’s “Allison”; and some truly awful (and one pretty) song inspired by the Bard’s crazy tale of mismatched lovers.
She’s the Man (2006)
How is it updated? Amanda Bynes plays up her screwball comedy talents as Viola, who pretends to be her twin brother Sebastian so she can play on his boarding school’s soccer team after her girl’s soccer team gets cut.
This take on Twelfth Night is one of the cheesiest ones in the list, a rom-com lacking the subtlety of 10 Things. Consider that “Sebastian’s” way of befriending his roommate Duke (Channing Tatum) involves squealing at mice and using tampons to stop nosebleeds. The movie shows its immaturity in a lot of dumb jokes and off-screen genitalia-flashing to prove which twin is which. And this is just one of several Twelfth Night adaptations wherein a teenage girl secretly infiltrates a boys’ sports team, with wacky results! Word to the wise: Stay away from the Disney Channel Original Movie Motocrossed and the ’80s classic Just One of the Guys. The fact that She’s the Man is the best in this particular subset of teen movies probably means Hollywood should give it a rest.
Hamlet (2000)
How is it updated? The regicide and familial drama of Hamlet is updated into a Millennial corporate environment, in which Claudius has murdered his brother over the Denmark Corporation, rather than actual Denmark.
Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet is a film student, while Julia Stiles plays his younger squeeze Ophelia. (Hawke was about to turn 30, but since Stiles was only 19, and since the film updates the play’s setting to a super-slick corporate Manhattan environment, we’ll assume this adaptation was aimed more at youth audiences.) Hamlet works as a commentary on corporate culture and the corruption of the superrich, turning Hamlet into a Holden Caulfield-esque figure: a troubled, privileged, isolated young man who allows himself to be drawn into his family and its intrigues rather than asserting himself and becoming his own person.
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
How is it updated? Gus Van Sant took Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V and entangled the themes of conquest and coming-of-age into a tale of street hustlers in Portland, Oregon.
Mike is a young gay man, in love with his bisexual best friend Scott. The two men are guided by an older man, Bob Pigeon, who acts as the Falstaff to a group of street kids. We soon learn that Scott is only flirting with the dangerous life of a hustler while he waits to come into his inheritance; as the son of Portland’s wealthy mayor, he’ll inherit both an enormous fortune and instant mainstream cred as soon as he turns 21. When the mayor dies, Scott turns his back on the group to take on his rightful place in society. Mike is brokenhearted, and Bob dies from grief. River Phoenix is amazing as Mike, and Keanu Reeves tries really hard to imbue Scott’s dialogue (some of which is verbatim from the Henrys) with gravitas and emotion. The film draws out the core of the Henry plays as an exploration of identity and responsibility. Is Scott’s duty to his biological father, or to Bob? Does Mike’s life as a street hustler diminish his intrinsic worth as a person?
Romeo Must Die (2000)
How is it updated? The Montagues and Capulets are now the Sing and O’Day familes, who are embroiled in a racially-driven turf war.
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is the great classic, obviously, but Romeo Must Die’s take on Shakespeare has the better fight sequences. Rather than arguing over a family feud, here the lovers are kept apart because their families hate each other. Han, played by Jet Li in his second U.S. starring role, is investigating his brother’s murder when he becomes the Romeo by falling for Aaliyah’s Trish O’Day. Her brother was also murdered, and it’s looking very likely that their respective family gangs are responsible. Can these two crazy kids work it out? How many spines will Jet Li have to break before he can know love?
A Midsummer Night’s Rave (2002)
How is it updated? It’s at a warehouse party! The characters are all teenagers, and they’re all craaaaazy high!
We’re introduced to the characters in rapid succession, learn who’s secretly in love with whom, and then we traipse through the woods to a secret rave, which lasts, no joke, the entire rest of the film. Puck (seen above) is a former prostitute who’s now the group’s hot-pink-boa-clad drug dealer. Nick, the strung-out Bottom stand-in, plays a donkey character at children’s parties, and at one point he swears he’ll get straight by announcing, “I am not an ass!” right before he passes out. Most of the giant declarations of love take place on inflatable furniture in the chill-out room, which looks like a bower. If any of you want to revisit a certain best night of your life subset of 1990s culture, this is your Shakespeare adaptation.
O (2001)
How is it updated? The setting has been moved to a Southern boarding school, and the battles are basketball games.
O’s greatest strength lies in its foregrounding of the racist subtext of Othello. O is Odin James, the star basketball player at an elite boarding school, where he is also the only black student. Iago is Hugo, whose father, the basketball coach, loves O like a son; and Desdemona is Desi (Julia Stiles again, who just has Shakespeare coming out of her pores!), the Dean’s daughter, who loves him, but has to hide their relationship from her father.
Since Hugo can’t bear to see O happy, he initially plans to accuse him of raping Desi, but then instead manipulates everyone around him until O is convinced that Desi is cheating on him with his best friend. Terrible violence ensues. The film either makes a bold move or a huge misstep by giving Hugo an emotional backstory that somewhat explains his actions, but the pressures on O to be a perfect student, boyfriend, and flawless young black male all come through perfectly in this setting.
Warm Bodies (2013)
How is it updated? What’s the highest-stakes way you could reimagine the Montagues versus the Capulets? By making them the Living and the Dead.
Isaac Marion’s novel (and the subsequent movie) follows R, a zombie who falls in love with human Julie after eating her boyfriend’s brain. (Awkward.) By absorbing the dead ex’s memories and creating new ones with Julie, R begins to regain his humanity, bit by bit. It’s a loose adaptation, but all the pieces of star-crossed love are here—there’s even a balcony scene! While Romeo and Juliet is one of the most-adapted Shakespeare plays (and takes up the most spots on our list), this retelling stands out by starting with death instead of ending with it.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
How is it updated? It isn’t a true adaptation, but it features Shakespeare as performed by a high school student in the 1950s, so we’ve included it.
What most people remember about this movie is, of course, Robin Williams as John Keating. But the tragedy in the last third of the movie is actually not motivated by anything that goes on in Keating’s classroom, or in Welton School at all: one of his students joins a community theater production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, and after the kid’s slightly overbearing parents freak the hell out, things rapidly spin out of control. What we see of the play itself looks pretty good. Shakespeare’s work, and specifically the character of Puck, is used as a sort of beacon to nerdy misfit boys, particularly Robert Sean Leonard’s Neil, who looks like a perfect preppy achiever, but actually wants to become and actor and free himself from his high-pressure family.
Let us know in the comments if we’ve been light of brain and missed one of your favorites!
Originally published in March 2015.
Weird synchronicity: just as I was beginning to read this article, what should start playing on my Pandora channel but Prokofiev’s “Romeo & Juliet”.
I just love “10 things”, and the poem in the end is just perfect.
Oh, Heath, you are sorely missed …
I would imagine Hamlet ADD would qualify.
The Kate Beckinsale Much Ado About Nothing is excellent, if involving several non-teen characters and issues.
Private Romeo?
Interesting. I always through of it as the Emma Thompson Much Ado About Nothing, but to each his own!
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is one of my favorite renditions of this play, and in a big part because of Brian Dennehy and Paul Sorvino as the fathers. And man, do these two actors take two pretty small roles and make them their own. You really see these two as powerful heads of families, granted casting these particular actors doesn’t hurt either. And when Sorvino does the “get thee to a nunnery” scene…well that’s worth the price of admission all by itself. Sorvino is frightening, and angry, and physical, and he’s amazing.
And….
well….
I love West Side Story because I love anything Sondheim, and Rita Moreno because she’s Rita Moreno (I’ll leave now)
No mention of the Candle Wasters or the youtube adaptations? Otherwise great list, who doesn’t love 10 things?
BBC adapted a bunch of Shakespeare’s plays into TV movies. Among these is Macbeth with James MacAvoy as the titular character. Imo he’s amazing in it.
The three witches are three garbage workers, they’re also one of the best parts of the film.
Luhrman’s movie is pretty good. My chief complaint is that so much of Juliet’s part was cut to highlight Romeo. I thought Claire Danes was brilliant. I’m old enough to have been completely bewitched by the Zeffirelli R&J, which had an excellent Juliet, too.
one of the best things about 10 Things is that I like it much better than the source play, which is aging increasingly badly. And Julia Stiles and the whole cast, including a hilarious Allison Janney, are terrific.
additions to the list? Macbeth on the Estate, with James Frain and (I think) Blair Underwood as one of the best Macduffs ever (it’s available on a YouTube in 9 parts). And the Shakespeare Retold version of Much Ado, with Sarah Parrish (“Don’t you DARE turn your back on me while I’m shouting at you!”) and Damien Lewis, plus Billie Piper. Also Josh Whedon’s black and white Much Ado, which has a brilliant Beatrice (Sarah Ackerman?), Nathan Fillion as the first funny Dogberry of my lifetime and “Agent Coulson” equally good as LEonato. There’s also a very hard to find version of As You Like It shot by Christine Edzard (sp?) on waste ground in London, plainly showing the exiles as homeless people. The budget for this was so small that Edzard used the same actor for Oliver and Orlando, with some resulting staging problems, but I enjoyed it very much.
In R+J the supporting roles were so much better than the leads. Not that DiCaprio and Danes were bad, but they often seemed to be reciting the text rather than playing the roles. Although they were perfect in the party scenes. Leguizamo was the best Tybalt I’ve seen on film and Mercutio and Benvolio were perfect.
The problem with any production of Romeo and Juliet is that by the time any two actors are experienced enough to pull off the lead roles they are too old for them. Juliet is, after all, supposed to be only 13, and Romeo is still a teenager.
@6 – LOL. I focused on Kate because this article is focused on teen issues and she was the lead teen (and it actually was the first movie role of her long career). Emma Thompson is great too, as well as other adults in the cast.
In the animation world, we have Disney’s Gargoyles, which heavily mines the entire Shakespeare canon, featuring the immortal MacBeth, the Three Witches, Oberon, Titania, and Puck, as well as Gargoyles named for Iago, Desdemona and Ophelia. It even uses Shakespearean rhyming couplets for faerie magic (as opposed to human magic, which uses Latin). The justification seems to be that Shakespeare was writing based on true events (though being no more accurate than he did in his “historical” plays).
Another personal favourite is Romeo X Juliet from Studio Gonzo. Set in a future/alternate world, Neo-Verona is a floating city where nobles ride dragon-steeds. It also brings in elements of Anastasia (the Capulets were exterminated, but for one daughter, raised in secret) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (said daughter becomes a flamboyant masked vigilante –which brings her to the attention of Romeo, the son of the man who murdered her family). It’s one of the very few versions of Romeo & Juliet where I can actually see what draws the two together –Juliet is bold and decisive while Romeo is genuinely compassionate and level-headed.
One of my favourite films: Were The World Mine, which takes place at an all-boys boarding school, where the female drama teacher (Nadine from Twin Peaks!) chooses A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the next school production. The protagonist, a gay boy bullied by his classmates, lands the role of Puck & invents a ‘love juice’ based on ingredients mentioned in the play. He then proceeds to spray the whole town in revenge for its homophobia. Whackiness ensues!
@10 That’s the always excellent Amy Acker as Beatrice in Joss Whedon’s Much Ado. It’s one of my faves, too, though I wouldn’t say it’s specifically aimed at teens.
I’d recommend the comic retelling of MacBeth set in the 70s otherwise known as “Scotland, Pa.” The witches are replaced with hippies. Maura Tierney and James Le Gros play Pat and Joe McBeth, ambitious owners of a hamburger stand, and Christopher Walken plays “Lt McDuff.
Juliet is, after all, supposed to be only 13, and Romeo is still a teenager.
Is he, though? I don’t think we ever get a good idea of how old he’s supposed to be. He’s young, sure, but as far as I can remember the text supports him being 20 or 25 or 30 just as readily as it supports him being 16.
He’s definitely older than Juliet. Juliet is not considered of marriageable age by her father (I.ii) but Romeo is by Juliet (I.v). How much older, though, we’re never told…
@9 I thought of that one too, but I refrained from mentioning it because I don’t know if it could be described as “aimed at teens”. For those who don’t know, the series in question is called Shakespeare Retold, and it includes Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew — with Rufus Sewell and Shirley Henderson perfectly cast in the lead roles — and Much Ado About Nothing. Macbeth is re-envisioned as a chef in a five-star restaurant who murders the head chef to take his job. Best line is when one of the junior chefs mentions Gordon Ramsay and is told that it’s bad luck to mention him by name: “Just call him ‘The Scottish Chef’.”
(Also, bit of movie trivia: James MacAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan — aka the younger and older versions of Professor Xavier and Magneto in the X-Men cinematic franchise — have all played the title role in film adaptations of Macbeth.)
@10 Didn’t know about Macbeth on the Estate; I’ll have to check it out. I’m rather fond of James Frain.
I’ll add 2013’s Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song to the list – set one summer in a run-down New Zealand beach-side caravan park. Described as a ‘trash opera’ using a most of the original words, with performances in a variety of music styles including hip hop, rock, pop, ballad and gospel. Some fine comedic moments among the tragedy.
i would imagine hamlet ADD would qualify