Hamlet

Well, it is Hamlet alright. There are many adaptations of Shakespeare's famous play, Olivier's one is often seen as one of the best. Not the most fateful (as the film is considerably shorter than the play), but I'm not one to judge about that, as I'm hardly a fan of this type of theatricality.

Hamlet returns home after his father has died. When he arrives, he finds his mother has already remarried, and his uncle is now the king. Hamlet is requested to marry Ophelia, but then his father appears to him as a ghost and informs Hamlet that his uncle and his mother conspired against him, putting Hamlet in a difficult position.

This was barely a film, just a stage play on location. The performances were highly theatrical, the cinematography was dire and purely functional, the soundtrack almost entirely absent. And this goes on for a good 150 minutes, telling a story that's been done countless times before. Not my idea of great cinema.