Scotland, PA is a version of MacBeth set in the 70’s. I’ll also second Titus - you’ll either love it or hate it, I’ve never met anyone who’s seen it and thought it was just mediocre.
Forgot - Scotland, PA does not retain the original dialogue, but the story and sequence of events is very close, and he names of the characters are mostly modernized versions of the original names, though some do keep the originals.
Titus is an excellent film! I love the dinner scene. Actually, I like most of the scenes. 
Tromeo And Juliet is Troma’s take on the classic play. Gotta love Lemmy as Chorus! And My name is Capulet, I’ve got a Corn Nut for a dick! pops into my head frequently.
Probably not another one with so many penises on parade either.
Another vote for TITUS (I can’t believe no one has mentioned ANTHONY HOPKINS STARS! Plus- Jessica Lange topless as a the mega-MILFy Goth Queen, and Alan Cummings as a really creepy Emperor Saturnius who seems to be channelling Jay Robinson’s Caligula.)
Honorable mention to Vincent Price & Diana Rigg in THEATRE OF BLOOD!
http://www.oberonbooks.com/frameset.htm
Jim Broadbent & Diana Rigg’s daughter starred in a stage version of THEATRE OF BLOOD earlier this year at The National Theatre in England! Dayum!
The link above has the script for sale- this link-
tells a little about it.
Nobody’s mentioned West Side Story for Romeo and Juliet yet? Yeesh!
:eek: I had NO IDEA that was a Shakespeare story! Well… that explains all the Shakespeare references and such…
MacBeth seems to be a popular story to use for stuff. A friend of mine made a movie called “John McGee’s MacBeth 2000” for his high school english class project. It involves soldiers in fatigues using guns, and MacBeth and MacDuff fighting with Katanas for the climactic battle.
And the suprise plot twist?
Lady MacDuff declaring “I am no man” before capping MacBeth in the dome. 
Oh, and Lord of the Rings also has elements of MacBeth in it, mostly centering around Saruman’s dealings. Tolkien apparantly thought MacBeth would have been much improved by having the forest actually attack the castle.
Huh. Nobody’s mentioned Bob & Doug’s riff on Hamlet: Strange Brew.
Hosers.
Is West Side Story that unusual? I can think of at least a couple of other musical Shakespeare adaptations.
I’d just like to point out that, approximately 15 hours after I wrote that post, I was sitting in a theater watching Almereyda’s new documentary about William Eggleston. Almereyda himself, the director of the abovementioned Hamlet remake, was in attendance. While I knew his name sounded familiar, I couldn’t specifically recall what he’d done, and so I walked right by him without even knowing enough to say something like, “I loved your Hamlet!”
When I got home I was sufficiently impressed with the movie to look him up, and only then did I realize he’d directed one of my favorite Shakespeare adaptations.
:smack:
The 1956 Sci-Fi film Forbidden Planet is a re-telling of The Tempest.
Well, my two picks have been mentioned more than once – Prospero’s Books is a really off-the-wall telling of The Tempest. Forbidden Planet is supposed to be based on The Tempest as well, as even the screenwriters claim, but I don’t buy it. You can line up the characters on a one-by-one basis, and the basic situation is there, but everyone’s motivations are different, and so are their importances. Prospero in The Tempest was on his island because he’d neglected his kingdom. Morbius is on Altair IV precisely because it is his job. At the end of The Tempest, Prospero wants to go back. Morbius never does. The Ship in The Tempest crashes and they all want to go off. In FP cruiser C57D is supposed to be there, and doesn’t crash at all. Prospero wants Miranda to marry the captain, and connives at it. Morbius wants his daughter to have as little to do with the crew as possible. Caliban is at best a potential threat, and ends up as comic relief. The Monster in FP drives the entire plot, and is the basis for all tension. I could go on – I had this argument with Literature type friends at boring length.
As for The Lion King, everyone mentions Hamlet, but nobody ever seems to pick up on Timon and Pumbaa’s serious Falstaffian Henry IV-V vibes.
Then there are the “updated” retellings of Shakespeare, like Ian McKellen’s WWII setting for Richard III:
This was actually a play within a movie, but in “The Goodbye Girl”, Richard Dreyfus plays an actor who is cast in Richard III. The unusual staging is that Richard III is not only gay, but flaming gay, and he has this hideous hump. The genius behind this interpretation of Shakespeare’s work is none other than Mr. Bentley from “The Jeffersons”
I hear Rosencrantz & Guilderstern are Dead has some Shakespeare connection.
Allright, I’ll be the voice of dissent - Tituswas awful. But it’s not the movie’s fault, really; I can’t say I care for Titus Andronicus at all. Too Senecan.
“Run, lads, it’s the copse!”
There are a ton of Shakespear references in gargoyles – MacBeth, Demona, Midsummer Night’s dream chars etc. But mostly just the characters.
Brian