Richard III

Richard III (1995), directed by Richard Loncraine, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy you can watch online on iFILM. Ian McKellen — who developed the concept for the National Theatre stage production and co-wrote the screenplay — transplants the play from medieval England into a 1930s Britain on the edge of fascism. The royal court becomes a military regime, the soliloquies land like propaganda broadcasts.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, wants the throne and removes every obstacle with surgical calm: a brother imprisoned, nephews who vanish into the Tower, allies discarded the moment they become inconvenient. McKellen plays him as a man who finds seduction and murder equally elegant exercises. The cast around him is extraordinary — Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jim Broadbent, Nigel Hawthorne.

Loncraine shot it as a genuine political thriller, not filmed theatre: black uniforms, Nuremberg-style rallies, propaganda newsreels cut into the action. Shakespeare's text gains sharpness in the new context rather than losing it. Watch Richard III (1995) online on iFILM.