What's your favorite version of Hamlet?

Claudius.

The Golden Girls one with Stan's brother Ted.

‘Amlet.

My Fourth Grade class production. It was the best. I can still almost remember my soliloquy:

"Thou hast it now, king, Cawdor, Glamis, all as the weird women hath promised. And I fear thou playdest most foully for it...."

It was the best Hamlet production the school had ever seen. Though the critics panned it. Those bastards.

Hamlet was a manlet!

1. The Kenneth Branagh film version. The delivery was beautiful, as was the set design. I saw patterns I'd been taught in school but not really experienced in other performances, like the three princes, Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras. Claudius, Ophelia, and Laertes were presented as a real family that Hamlet inadvertently destroys. Showing that Ophelia and Hamlet had had a more intimate relationship deepened the piece and explained why more effort wasn't taken to save Ophelia from drowning -- she was pregnant.

The Ghost, played by Brian Blessed, a Branagh favorite, was scary for once. I liked that instead of Olivier's film summary of Hamlet as a man "who could not make up his mind," Branagh shows us that Ghost might be unreliable, and as a "modern" person, Hamlet must independently determine the truth. For the first time, I saw that by accidentally killing Polonius, Hamlet could be viewed as a nut job, justifying Polonius's decision to send him out of the country.

It was intriguing that the film was called "Hamlet," not "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," and there were frequent shots of a bust of Hamlet Senior, indicating that Hamlet's father's actions were responsible for something being rotten in the State of Denmark.

2. Ralph Fiennes's performance of Hamlet on Broadway.

Great post, R6. I enjoy the Branagh version for its completeness and fidelity to the text.

The Mel Gibson version. Glenn Close was the definitive…I’m kidding. I just couldn’t keep a straight face.

Actually, the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet was pretty good. I liked the authenticity of Branagh's as well. Those two. I have never see it performed live. Macbeth has always been my f avorite.

The Lion King

The Kenneth Branagh version. Beautiful production design, and Julie Christie is really good - as always - as Gertrude. (god, that’s an ugly name, tho!)

Ghost. Is Whoopi the only actor to win an Oscar for playing Hamlet?

Hamburger Hamlet

If anyone truly loves Hamlet, or theatre in general, I can't recommend highly enough the Canadian comedy-drama Slings & Arrows (free on YouTube). You need to watch at least the first two episodes before you start to see why, but the opening number alone should tell you it's something you want to watch.

The musical version! From Gilligan and the rest of the castaways.

r14 Damn, it's just 19 episodes, I'll for sure watch it, thanks for the recommendation. And wow, my perpetual celeb crush Luke Kirby is in it as well, not used to seeing him with this youthful glow.

Luke Kirby plays Hamlet, opposite the young Rachel McAdam.

Kozintsev's 1964 film.

Music by Shostakovich.

Another vote for the Branaugh/ Mel Gibson versions. I liked them both. Back in the day, before Mel Gibson became a monster, when he was just pretty, I thought he did a really good job. I was surprised because all I knew about him was Lethal Weapon the the Mad Mx stuff.

If Mary Ann isn't playing Laertes, I'm not watching it.

Andrew Scott a few years ago in London.

The Branagh version really impressed me, and repeated viewings don't diminish that. Nicholas Farrell presents a definitive and memorable Horatio, and equally outstanding are Julie Christie (Gertrude), Richard Briars (Polonius, as crafty rather than doddering), Timothy Spall (Rosenkrantz), Reece Dinsdale (Guildenstern); and Billy Crystal gives an insightful and rich performance as the First Gravedigger. I am less pleased with Derek Jacobi (a Claudius who seems too timid to have undertaken the plot against Hamlet Sr.), Kate Winslet (a too-brittle Ophelia; more initial normalcy would have served the production better), and Charlton Heston seems uncomfortable in his role as the player king. Many of the drop-ins for cameo actors who couldn't I guess be on-set when their scene was being filmed seem poorly integrated (for instance, those of Robin Williams and Richard Attenborough). But despite the just-mentioned few reservations, I'm enthusiastic about the production . . . up until the final scene (killing and aftermath), which seems clumsily handled, with gratuitous Christ-imagery for defunct Hamlet, and . . . well, I just don't know what the intention was with the statue-smashing at the end (which seems more in line with the aspirations of Claudius). Looking at it as a whole, the completeness of the presentation energizes the otherwise familiar scenes, giving them vitality when their familiarity otherwise would flirt with staleness.

The 1980 BBC [italic]Hamlet[/italic], with Derek Jacobi as Hamlet rather than Claudius, Eric Porter as Polonius, Claire Bloom as Gertrude, and Patrick Stewart as Claudius, is also quite good, despite a tendency towards scenery-chewing on the part of Jacobi.

For me, the two abovementioned productions make all others seem truncated, gratuitously gimmicky, or ill-managed.