Best movies like King Lear
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
Don Warrington stars as the tragic monarch in this acclaimed version of the Shakespeare play recorded at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 37
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, suspenseful, disturbing
Best tv shows and movies like King Lear (2016):
Similar in 86%
Barbie (2011)
Plot Summary:
Steve, an American physician, arrives at Pohang airport with his 13-year-old daughter Barbie. Mangtak welcomes and takes them in his old car to his brother Mangwoo’s house. In Mangwoo’s house, Steve watches Soonyoung, a 13-year-old girl, Soonyoung is the practical supporter of the family as she takes care of Soonja, her younger sister and Mangwoo, her mentally disabled father. Steve has come to Pohang to adopt Soonyoung into his family. Soonyoung can’t accept the fact that a stranger is now going to be her father. All this is Mangtak’s scheme to make a huge sum of money by sending Soonyoung to the U.S.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 301
Genere: Drama
Country: South Korea
Duration: 97 min
Plot tags: rough, serious, captivating, realistic, tragic ending, sad
Similar in 76%
King Lear (1974)
Plot Summary:
When England's aging King Lear renounces his throne to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, treachery, madness and murder soon follow. After banishing Cordelia, his most loyal daughter, Lear is betrayed and cast out by her elder sisters Regan and Goneril. Meanwhile, evil brews at the Gloucester castle as Edgar falls victim to his brother's deception. As battle lines are drawn and backs are stabbed, Lear rages against a fearsome storm. Can a man undo his wrongs? Will Cordelia be saved? Or will the wheels of fate crush all in its way?.
IMDB Rating: 5.8
IMDB Votes: 84
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 120 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
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 77%
King Lear (1970)
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: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: spiritual, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 76%
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 77%
Royal Shakespeare Company - Richard II (2013)
Plot Summary:
A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years.
IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 517
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: captivating, disturbing
Similar in 88%
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 78%
Hamlet (1964)
Plot Summary:
Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama
Country: Soviet Union
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, fairy tale, philosophical, spiritual, visually appealing, black and white, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative
Similar in 81%
Branagh Theatre Live: The Winter's Tale (2015)
Plot Summary:
A jealous king jeopardizes his family, friendships and succession.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 291
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 79%
King Lear (2008)
Plot Summary:
Sir Ian McKellen gives a tour-de-force performance as Shakespeare's tragic monarch, in this special television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company production of one of the playwright's most enduring and haunting works.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 644
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
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 88%
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 83%
Macbeth (1983)
Plot Summary:
Macbeth and his wife murder Duncan in order to gain his crown, but the bloodbath doesn't stop there, and things supernatural combine to bring the Macbeths down.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 381
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 148 min
Plot tags: artsy
Similar in 78%
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%
Hamlet (2015)
Plot Summary:
From its sell-out run at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre comes a film version of this unique and critically acclaimed production of Hamlet with BAFTA-nominee Maxine Peake in the title role. This ground-breaking stage production, directed by Sarah Frankcom, was the Royal Exchange's fastest-selling show in a decade.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 129
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 184 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, serious, captivating, contemplative, gloomy
Similar in 75%
King Lear (2018)
Plot Summary:
An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.
IMDB Rating: 6.2
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: thought provoking, bleak, psychological, rough, independent film, period drama
Similar in 88%
Hamlet (2009)
Plot Summary:
David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny.
IMDB Rating: 8.1
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Japan, USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, emotional, stylized, crying, sincere, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, period drama
Similar in 86%
Hamlet (1969)
Plot Summary:
Tony Richardson's Hamlet is based on his own stage production. Filmed entirely within the Roundhouse in London (a disused train shed), it is shot almost entirely in close up, focusing the attention on faces and language rather than action.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 849
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 117 min
Plot tags: fairy tale, psychological, tense, atmospheric, serious, independent film
Similar in 90%
Othello (1965)
Plot Summary:
The 1965 version of the Shakespeare play.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 165 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, clever, serious, emotional, realistic, vintage
Similar in 87%
Hamlet (2000)
Plot Summary:
To be or not to be, etc.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 242
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 178 min
Plot tags: psychological, atmospheric, emotional, stylized, serious, captivating, realistic, contemplative, gloomy, reflective
Similar in 81%
King Lear (1970)
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: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 925
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, Denmark
Duration: 137 min
Plot tags: sad, independent film, bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, talky
Similar in 80%
King Lear (1983)
Plot Summary:
An aging King invites disaster when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters and rejects his one loving, but honest one.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 853
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 158 min
Plot tags: bleak, serious, emotional, realistic, contemplative, talky
Similar in 85%
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1980)
Plot Summary:
Hamlet comes home from university to find his uncle married to his mother, and his father's ghost haunting the battlements and scaring the watch. Then his father's ghost directs him to seek revenge.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 653
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 210 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, captivating, realistic, gloomy
Similar in 79%
Hamlet (1964)
Plot Summary:
A stage production of Hamlet filmed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 510
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 191 min
Plot tags: light, atmospheric, sexy, thought provoking, enigmatic, breathtaking, melancholic, dramatic, affectionate, witty
Similar in 85%
National Theatre Live: Coriolanus (2014)
Plot Summary:
National Theatre Live will broadcast the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s searing tragedy of political manipulation and revenge, with Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, War Horse (film), BBC's The Hollow Crown) in the title role and Mark Gatiss (Season's Greetings at the National Theatre, BBC's Sherlock) as Menenius, directed by the Donmar's Artistic Director Josie Rourke. When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.
IMDB Rating: 8.5
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, History, War
Country: UK
Duration: 192 min
Plot tags: captivating, psychological, tense, epic, suspense, intense
Similar in 76%
Hamlet (1996)
Plot Summary:
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 40000
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 242 min
Plot tags: stylized, costume drama, atmospheric, captivating, serious, period piece, epic, fairy tale, sad, visually appealing
Similar in 78%
Hamlet (1990)
Plot Summary:
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, finds out that his uncle Claudius killed his father to obtain the throne, and plans revenge.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 23000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA, UK, France
Duration: 135 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, realistic, compassionate, bleak, psychological, serious, disturbing, costume drama, fairy tale, stylized
Similar in 81%
National Theatre Live: Macbeth (2013)
Plot Summary:
Performing from within the walls of a deconsecrated Manchester church, Kenneth Branagh takes the lead role in this ambitious production of William Shakespeare's tragic tale of ambition and treachery.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 415
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: psychological, captivating, suspense, tense, atmospheric, period drama
Similar in 87%
A Thousand Acres (1997)
Plot Summary:
A THOUSAND ACRES is a drama about an American family who meets with tragedy on their land. It is the story of a father, his daughters, and their husbands, and their passion to subdue the history of their land and its stories.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 6000
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 105 min
Plot tags: psychological, touching, serious, realistic, talky, gloomy, sentimental, inspirational, sexy, feel good
Similar in 84%
Macbeth (1971)
Plot Summary:
A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord siezes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 15000
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 140 min
Plot tags: disturbing, visual, atmospheric, bleak, spiritual, existential, fairy tale, emotional, political thriller, controversial