Hamlet

The story

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

What critics & audiences say

Tomatometer96%Fresh#17 of 98 winners

IMDb7.520K votes#70 of 98 winners

Metacritic82/ 100#56 of 93 winners

TMDB7.4/ 10

Famous lines

Quotes via Wikiquote

Fun facts

1. Eileen Herlie, who plays Hamlet's mother Gertrude, was 29 years old when the film was made. Laurence Olivier, playing her son, was 40.Wikipedia · Casting and filming
2. Olivier voiced the Ghost himself by recording an amplified whisper and playing it back at reduced speed. For years, even film reference books wrongly credited the voice to John Gielgud.Wikipedia · Casting and filming
3. For the eerie noise before the Ghost appears, Olivier blended up to fourteen soundtracks, including fifty women shrieking and a dozen violinists scraping a single note, aiming for "the lid of hell being opened."Wikipedia · Casting and filming
4. The Ghost's pulsing heartbeat was borrowed from a Jean-Louis Barrault stage production, and Olivier wrote for permission and insisted on paying for the idea.Wikipedia · Casting and filming
5. Hamlet was the first British film, and the first non-American film, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.Wikipedia · Introduction
6. Laurence Olivier is the only actor to win an Oscar for a Shakespearean role, and he was the only actor to direct himself to an Oscar-winning performance until Roberto Benigni in 1998.Wikipedia · Awards and honours
7. Olivier cut Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Fortinbras entirely, explaining that "one great whacking cut had to be made." Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film restored everything Olivier left out.Wikipedia · Critical reception
8. Two future Hammer horror stars appear: Peter Cushing as the foppish courtier Osric, and Christopher Lee in an uncredited, non-speaking role as a guard. A future Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton, plays the Player King.Wikipedia · Cast
9. Stanley Holloway played the Gravedigger after Irish actor F. J. McCormick died before he could film his scenes.Wikipedia · Cast
10. Hamlet was the only film to win both the Golden Lion at Venice and the Best Picture Oscar until The Shape of Water did it in 2017.Wikipedia · Awards and honours