Curator Watchlist
A sharp, stylish Shakespeare adaptation that relocates the play into an alternate fascist 1930s Britain, giving the familiar power struggle a chilling modern charge. Ian McKellen’s Richard is the main attraction: charismatic, grotesque, funny, and terrifying in equal measure.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 44m
Director: Richard Loncraine
Starring: Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent
Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.
Richard Loncraine
Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent
A sharp, stylish Shakespeare adaptation that relocates the play into an alternate fascist 1930s Britain, giving the familiar power struggle a chilling modern charge. Ian McKellen’s Richard is the main attraction: charismatic, grotesque, funny, and terrifying in equal measure.
Richard III is one of those adaptations that understands the play’s real engine: not history, but charisma. By shifting the action into an imagined 1930s Britain, the film turns court intrigue into a fascist pageant, making Richard’s rise feel less like distant monarchy and more like a modern political nightmare. The result is sleek, nasty, and often darkly funny.
Ian McKellen is the reason the film endures. He plays Richard as a performer inside the performance, constantly inviting the audience into the conspiracy while making the character’s cruelty feel almost seductive. The fourth-wall breaks, bold production design, and brisk pacing all help the material feel alive rather than museum-bound.
It’s not the most emotionally subtle Shakespeare film, but it is one of the most accessible and visually distinctive. If you want a classical text reimagined with real bite, this is an easy recommendation.
Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 (4★) · 291 likes
Interesting to watch this fictional tale of a fascist, dictatorial United Kingdom now that I find I am actually living in the real thing.
DirkH (5★) · 171 likes
Shakespeare adaptations don't get much better than this... Richard III isn't one of Shakespeare's best known plays, mainly because the titular character is the villain of the piece. Richard plots and schemes his way to power and kills most of his rivals on his way to the top. Though probably not historically correct (to emphasize the evil of Richard, Shakespeare made him a hunchback with a lazy eye), he is a wonderful villain, a complete bastard with a silver tongue.
𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖎𝖊 (3.5★) · 147 likes
Robert Downey Jr getting killed while getting a blow job is possibly the best piece of cinema i’ve ever witnessed
Adem (3.5★) · 111 likes
You know, this Ian McKellan guy might just have a future in acting.
Tomas Marinera (4★) · 87 likes
Oh sure, when Sir Ian McKellen quotes The Bard while using a urinal it's "cinema" that's worthy of great acclaim. Yet, when I do the same, it's "frightening behavior" that's worthy of getting me thrown out of an Applebees! Us Americans have no culture evidently.
A companion piece on Shakespeare, performance, and the challenge of making the text feel immediate on screen.
Another acclaimed Shakespeare adaptation with a strong sense of pageantry, war, and political leadership.
For viewers who want another prestige Shakespeare film built around a magnetic central performance and courtly betrayal.
A modernized Shakespeare adaptation that similarly turns classical power politics into contemporary conflict.
A lean, serious political Shakespeare film centered on ambition, rhetoric, and betrayal.
A cutting royal power drama where family dynamics and succession politics become a battlefield.
A British period drama about monarchy, image, and the fragility of power, with sharp wit and bite.
A classic historical drama about political maneuvering, conscience, and the machinery of power.
For audiences drawn to bold, stylized reinterpretations of canonical texts and morally charged performance.
A baroque, theatrical, and viciously stylized study of appetite, corruption, and spectacle.
An elegant period puzzle with formal wit, manipulation, and a chilly sense of social gamesmanship.
A wicked court-intrigue film that mixes power games, dark humor, and ruthless ambition.
power struggle, political ambition, betrayal, villain protagonist, alternate history, fascism, Shakespeare adaptation, court intrigue
Shakespeare adaptation, alternate history, fascist aesthetics, political thriller, period drama, villain protagonist, court intrigue, dark satire, stage-to-screen, British cinema