What film adaptation of Shakespeare to throw on your television? Channeling Romeo, it’s a question of picking your poison. There are always the classics: Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1944) and Hamlet (1948), and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar (1953), to name three. More recently, directors have taken liberties with dress, dialogue, and settings, and in many cases have turned out movies that maintain the spirit of their source material but with innovative spins. In its new streaming collection, “Pop Shakespeare,” the Criterion Channel has focused on modern and inventive takes. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), Derek Jarman’s The Tempest (1979), and Kenneth Branagh’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000) are on the menu. As you like it! —Jack Sullivan
Arts Intel Report
Pop Shakespeare
Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, 1996.
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Sept 14, 2025 – July 26, 2026
In select theaters beginning November 17; streaming on Netflix beginning December 1