Best movies like Henry VIII
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Plot Summary:
Henry VIII is an opera in four acts by Camille Saint-Saëns, from a libretto by Léonce Détroyat and Armand Silvestre, based on El cisma en Inglaterra (The schism in England) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It was revived in 1991 at the Théatre Impérial de Compiègne in a production by Pierre Jourdan, with Philippe Rouillon as Henry VIII, Michèle Command as Catherine of Aragon and Lucile Vignon as Anne Boleyn. The production was made into this film.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 18
Genere: Drama, History, Music
Country: France
Duration: 200 min
Plot tags:
Best tv shows and movies like Henry VIII (1991):
Similar in 75%
L'Incoronazione di Poppea (2000)
Plot Summary:
Experience Claudio Monteverdi's three-act opera in the environment it was meant to be seen with this release of a filmed performance captured live during a 2000 production staged at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in France. Mireille Delunsch, Anne Sofie Von Otter, and Sylvie Brunet star, and conductor Marc Minkowski leads the Les Musiciens du Louvre, Grenoble. Klaus Michael Grüber directs for stage.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 14
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: France
Duration: 166 min
Plot tags: baroque
Similar in 82%
Madama Butterfly (2010)
Plot Summary:
The heroine of this beloved opera finds herself faced with a dreadful choice: life without dignity or death with honor. Hear some of Puccini's most soaring and captivating music in this classic story of colliding hearts and cultures.
IMDB Rating: 8.9
IMDB Votes: 9
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff (1982)
Plot Summary:
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IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Comedy, Music
Country: Austria
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Carmen (2007)
Plot Summary:
Georges Bizet's Carmen, filmed at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, and conducted by Antonio Pappano, tells the tragic story of a soldier who falls for the sultry Carmen and abandons his career and family to be with her.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 54
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK
Duration: 152 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Samson et Dalila (1981)
Plot Summary:
While the rest of the Hebrews bewail their fate, Samson alone trusts in God's promise of liberty. Abimelech, the Philistine satrap of Gaza, enters to mock the Hebrews' God, proclaiming the superiority of Dagon, and the Hebrews are afraid of him. But calls them to show some defiance, so Abimelech attacks Samson with his sword. Samson seizes the sword and strikes him dead. The Hebrews scatter and the High Priest of Dagon appears, cursing the Hebrews. When a messenger reports that the Hebrews are ravaging the harvest, the High Priest forms a plan to use Delilah to overcome Samson's strength. Delilah's beauty is such that Samson can't resist her for long. She begs to know the secret of his supernatural strength, but he refuses, though he says he loves her. Delilah betrays Samson by having some Philistine soldiers seize him and throw him into a prison in Gaza, where his hair is cut off.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 33
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: biblical
Similar in 80%
L'Incoronazione di Poppea (1979)
Plot Summary:
Live performance, part of Monteverdi cycle staged by Oper Zürich with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Zürich Opera House Monteverdi Ensemble. Staged and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.
IMDB Rating: 8.6
IMDB Votes: 51
Genere: Music, Drama
Country: West Germany
Duration: 164 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Macbeth (1993)
Plot Summary:
Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 31
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: UK, West Germany, France
Duration: 149 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Eugene Onegin (2007)
Plot Summary:
The Wiener Philharmoniker mounts, and Andrea Breth stages, this 2007 production of Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, starring Peter Mattei, Joseph Kaiser, Anna Samuil and Renée Morloc. The Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor lends added musical accompaniment, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 16
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Austria, Germany
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
Rodelinda (2005)
Plot Summary:
Live from Munich 2004.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 9
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Germany
Duration: 203 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 82%
Rigoletto (2010)
Plot Summary:
Guiseppi Verdi's opera about Rigoletto, the unattractive, hunchbacked jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua. The Duke has noticed a young lady going to church each Sunday and he plans to seduce her. When Count Monterone confronts the Duke for seducing his daughter. Rigoletto ridicules Monterone, the Duke laughs, and Monterone casts an awful curse on both of them.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 74
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Italy, UK, France, Japan, USA, Germany
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Othello (1992)
Plot Summary:
The complete version of Verdi's Otello performed by Placido Domingo and Kiri Te Kanawa, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Gala Performance in honour of Sir Georg Solti's 80th birthday.. 27 October 1992. BBC 2 Television live relay.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 82
Genere: Drama, Music, Romance
Country: UK
Duration: 147 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Macbeth (1982)
Plot Summary:
A Hungarian TV version of the play shot in just two takes.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 379
Genere: Drama
Country: Hungary
Duration: 62 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 76%
Antony & Cleopatra (1981)
Plot Summary:
Octavius Caesar (later renamed Augustus Caesar, son of the murdered Julius Caesar), Marc Antony, and Lepidus form the triumvirate, the three rulers of the Roman Empire. Antony, though married to Fulvia, spends his time in Egypt, living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with Queen Cleopatra. In Antony's absence, Caesar and Lepidus worry about Pompey's increasing strength.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 154
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 170 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
Lady Inger of Ostrat (1975)
Plot Summary:
This historical drama is based on a play by Henrik Ibsen and set in the year 1528. The central figure in the low-keyed story is a Norwegian noblewoman who is seeking to bring independence to that country despite the involved political intrigues of the Swedes and Danes, who are using Norway as a pawn in their rivalries.
IMDB Rating: 4.4
IMDB Votes: 59
Genere: Drama, History
Country: Norway
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 83%
Edward II (1970)
Plot Summary:
The reign of Edward II, King of England, is troubled from the start when he brings his male lover, hated by the nobles, out of exile.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 146
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Othello (1986)
Plot Summary:
Having previously staged Verdi's 1887 opera Otello at the Met and La Scala, filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli committed his production to film in 1986. Starring as the fatally jealous Moor of Venice is Placido Domingo, who had also headlined Zeffirelli's 1976 La Scala staging (production on the film was briefly interrupted while Domingo participated in the rescue operations following the Mexico City earthquake). While Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona and Justino Diaz as Iago perform their own singing, Zeffirelli's Cassio--played by real-life European prince Urbano Barberini--is dubbed by Ezio de Cesare. The director made several cuts in the original libretto and score in order to accommodate the film's two-hour time limit, but these excisions are done with taste and discretion. Because of the excessive violence in the third act--two murders, a suicide, a superficial throat-slashing--Otello was released with a PG rating.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 607
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: Netherlands, Italy, USA
Duration: 118 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, stylized, serious, captivating, realistic, light, inspirational, sexy, thought provoking, enigmatic
Similar in 83%
National Theatre Live: King Lear (2011)
Plot Summary:
An ageing monarch. A kingdom divided. A child’s love rejected. As Lear’s world descends into chaos, all that he once believed is brought into question. One of the greatest works in Western literature, King Lear explores the very nature of human existence: love and duty, power and loss, good and evil.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 42
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Henry VI Part 2 (1983)
Plot Summary:
The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 117
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 203 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
The Third Part of King Henry VI (1983)
Plot Summary:
The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 211 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 89%
Henry IV Part II (1979)
Plot Summary:
The death of King Henry the Fourth and the coronation of King Henry the Fifth.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 152
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Henry IV Part I (1979)
Plot Summary:
Henry Bolingbroke has now been crowned King of England, but faces a rebellion headed by the embittered Earl of Northumberland and his son (nicknamed 'Hotspur'). Henry's son Hal, the Prince of Wales, has thrown over life at court in favour of heavy drinking and petty theft in the company of a debauched elderly knight, Sir John Falstaff. Hal must extricate himself from some legal problems, regain his father's good opinions and help suppress the uprising.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 220
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 148 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
Macbeth (1981)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 109
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 75%
King Lear (1982)
Plot Summary:
King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 278
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: period drama
Similar in 82%
A Performance of Macbeth (1979)
Plot Summary:
Shakespeare's classic tragedy of ambition, witches and murder.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 896
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1984)
Plot Summary:
When Pericles discovers the dread answer to Antioch's riddle, he flees for his life straight into famine, shipwreck, love, fatherhood, and another shipwreck; he loses his wife and daughter, and doesn't find them again until the story moves us through resurrection, attempted murder, pirates, prostitution, and divine revelation.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 114
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 87%
National Theatre Live: Hamlet (2015)
Plot Summary:
Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, Doctor Strange) plays the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. Now seen by over 900,000 people worldwide, the original broadcast returns to international cinemas to mark National Theatre Live’s 10th birthday. As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralysed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 217 min
Plot tags: light, atmospheric, epic, captivating, emotional, entertaining, melancholic, talky, intense
Similar in 88%
Macbeth (1997)
Plot Summary:
In eleventh century Scotland, three witches foretell that Macbeth will become King, while Banquo will beget Kings. Macbeth accordingly has King Duncan slain, and is duly crowned in his place. But that's where his problems really begin.
IMDB Rating: 5.1
IMDB Votes: 252
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 129 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 84%
Richard III (1983)
Plot Summary:
Richard Duke of Gloucester, youngest brother of King Edward IV, will stop at nothing to get the crown. He first convinces the ailing King that the Duke of Clarence, his elder brother, is a threat to the lives of Edward's two young sons. Edward has him imprisoned in the Tower of London; killers in Richard's pay then drown Clarence in a barrel of wine. When news of Clarence's death reaches the King, the subsequent grief and remorse bring about his death. Richard is made Lord Protector, with power to rule England while his nephew (now King Edward V) is still a minor. Before the young king's coronation he has his two nephews conveyed to the Tower, ostensibly for their safekeeping. Richard's accomplice, the Duke of Buckingham, then declares the two boys illegitimate and offers Richard the crown, which after a show of reticence he accepts. After Richard's coronation, he and Buckingham have a falling-out over whether or not to assassinate the two children.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 226
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 239 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Rigoletto (1987)
Plot Summary:
Rigoletto is a jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua. He has a hunch-back and he's rather unattractive, but he's good at his job of humiliating the courtiers for the amusement of the Duke. The courtiers, of course, are not amused. The Duke is a ladies man who feels his life would be meaningless if he couldn't chase every skirt he sees. In fact, we learn as the opera begins that he's recently been noticing a young lady every Sunday on her way to church, and he's vowed to have his way with her. What nobody realizes is that the girl is the jester's beloved daughter, Gilda, and that Gilda has seen the Duke every Sunday and is smitten with him. Suddenly Count Monterone appears at court, furious that the Duke has seduced his daughter. Rigoletto ridicules Monterone, the Duke laughs, and Monterone casts an awful curse on both of them. Later, the courtiers discover that Rigoletto is secretly living with Gilda.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 364
Genere: Drama, Music
Country: West Germany
Duration: 128 min
Plot tags: freeze frame
Similar in 82%
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1984)
Plot Summary:
BBC rendition of Shakespeare's Coriolanus.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 136
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags: