Hamlet

Hamlet is Shakespeare's most famous play, a 400-year old tragedy about incest, revenge and madness.

The title character is the son of King Hamlet, who appears in a ghostly meeting to the young prince. The dead king accuses his brother (young Hamlet's uncle) of murdering him. As Prince Hamlet investigates, he faces a conspiracy involving schoolmates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; Ophelia's father Polonius; and even his own mother. Homicide, suicide and duels to the death follow.

Hamlet's only friend in the lengthy play, his schoolchum Horatio, is the only major character who doesn't die. When Hamlet feigns mental illness to cover his unusual activities, he confides to Horatio, "I am only mad north by northwest" and "There's a method to my madness".

Major film versions of the play have starred Laurence Olivier, Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh and Ethan Hawke. For years, Olivier's performance was considered an inapproachable ideal. The Gibson version used modernized English and portrayed a grittier, tougher Hamlet. The Branagh version clocks in at 4 hours because it includes every line in the play. The Ethan Hawke version is set in Manhattan with Denmark as a corporation and Julia Stiles as a girl friend driven to suicide by Hamlet's antics.