Hamlet

Hamlet (2000) is Michael Almereyda's modern-day retelling of Shakespeare that you can watch online on iFILM. The setting shifts to corporate Manhattan at the turn of the millennium.

Ethan Hawke plays Hamlet as a brooding film student rather than a prince. His father ran the Denmark Corporation; when the old man dies, uncle Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan) seizes the company and marries the widowed Gertrude (Diane Venora) within weeks. Hamlet's revenge takes the form of a homemade video collage, "The Mousetrap," screened to flush out the truth. Julia Stiles is Ophelia, Liev Schreiber her brother Laertes, and Bill Murray turns up as a fussy Polonius.

Almereyda keeps Shakespeare's original lines but drops them into a world of fax machines, surveillance tape and Blockbuster aisles — Hawke delivers "To be or not to be" wandering a video store. It's a divisive experiment, not a safe costume drama, and that's exactly why it's worth a look. Stream Hamlet (2000) online on iFILM.