Hamlet 

(1996)

 Directed by Kenneth Branagh 


Writing credits:
 William Shakespeare (play),
 Kenneth Branagh 

 
Plot Summary:  When Hamlet returns to his elaborate palace at Elsinore after his studies, he finds his uncle Claudius married to his mother Gertrude. Bernardo, Horatio, and Marcellus show him a ghost who looks like his father, so Hamlet pursues him into the woods, where he is told to avenge his father's murder by his own uncle. Hamlet debates with himself, and even visualizes himself skewering Claudius from a confession box, but wants not to send him to heaven. When the king and queen bring Hamlet's school friends to see what is wrong with him as he puts on an air of madness, he assembles a play similar to his father's murder, which has him chased throughout the palace, and sent to Norway and to England. When Hamlet kills his girlfriend Ophelia's father, Polonius, counsel to the king, her brother Laertes sets out to avenge his death. Meanwhile, the Prince Fortinbras of Denmark, whose father was killed by old Hamlet, sets out to take the area lost in battle with him, often shown in flashbacks, as are many scattered memories throughout the film...from IMDB 

for an even more detailed summary, go back to the  BBC Hamlet  page 

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