The first Hamlet movie that comes to mind has always been Kenneth Branagh’s full-text adaptation. I only remember it because I watched his word-for-word version of the William Shakespeare tragedy in high school English. It was four hours. It took us four days to get through. The only thing I remember was Kate Winslet’s wild performance as Ophelia and how Branagh’s Hamlet treated her like shit.
There have been too many stage productions and film adaptations to count. There’s the Franco Zeffirelli 1990 version with Mel Gibson. Both men have a problematic past (Just Google it). If you want to go way back into the archives, check out the 1948 film directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. In 2000, Michael Almereyda directed a very “new millennium” iteration with Ethan Hawke in the titular role.
Last year, Aneil Karia premiered his cinematic vision of the Bard’s play starring Riz Ahmed at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival before it debuted in UK theaters on February 6, 2026. The film finally hits stateside this weekend, and thank God it’s not 4 hours.
With a reasonable 113 minutes, this contemporary version is highly melanated with gorgeous brown Asians. Seeing Ahmed aggressively race down the expressway and furiously shift gears while flawlessly delivering the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy was a clever choice. The Oscar-winning actor’s portrayal of Hamlet is nuanced and engaging, while Karia frames Michael Lesslie’s screenplay with an intense, frenetic beauty. Lesslie approaches Shakespeare’s play as if he’s a mindful diner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, picking the best parts and assembling a satisfying representation of the text without making it feel bloated.
Fun fact: the actress who plays mother Gertrude is Bollywood actress Sheeba Chaddha, who also appears as Ahmed’s mother in Bait — a show I highly recommend. I talked about this and more on my recent appearance on the They Call Us Bruce podcast:
