10 Movies & TV Shows You Didn’t Know Were Based on Shakespeare

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Summer has said his series, following a biker gang in the town of Charming, California, was heavily inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Using Jax Teller, the focal gang’s conflicted leader, as a stand-in for the morally compromised Prince of Denmark, the award-winning FX drama directly referenced Hamlet in numerous episode titles across its seven-season stint. Alongside the obvious Hamlet comparisons, Sons of Anarchy has also drawn parallels between other Shakespearean works, namely Macbeth through the gang matriarch Gemma’s chilling similarities to the ruthless, scheming Lady Macbeth.

Though originally pitched as “Bambi in Africa,” according to director Rob Minkoff, the 1994 Disney classic The Lion King slowly started resembling the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet once the creatives mapped out the film’s plot. After the similarities between the play and the burgeoning animated feature were noted, Minkoff leaned further into Shakespeare’s tragedy and began incorporating other elements of Hamlet into the film. Also drawing inspiration from the biblical tales of Joseph and Moses, the original, much more morbid ending for The Lion King even included the line “Good night, sweet prince,” an unforgettable quote from Horatio to a dying Prince Hamlet near the conclusion of the play.

A modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew, the 1999 teen romcom 10 Things I Hate About You stars Julia Stiles as Katarina Stratford, a misanthropic loner and stand-in for Shakespeare’s titular “shrew” Katherina, and Heath Ledger as the rebellious Patrick Verona, the bad boy of the high school and a facsimile for The Taming of the Shrew’s Petruchio. Serving as big Hollywood breakouts for both stars, 10 Things I Hate About You was both critically and commercially successful, pulling in more than $50 million worldwide and spawning a twenty-episode spin-off series for ABC starring Lindsey Shaw.

Drawing inspiration from both Shakespeare’s King Lear and playwright James Goldman’s 1966 play The Lion in Winter, Lee Daniels’ musical drama series Empire is a must watch. The show follows the Lyons, a wealthy family fighting for control of Empire Entertainment, an entertainment and production company founded by the ailing family patriarch, hip hop mogul Luscious Lyon. Even containing a direct reference to the Shakespearean drama during the show’s pilot episode, both Empire and King Lear follow three siblings vying for control of their dying father’s kingdom—in the case of King Lear, the literal kingdom of Britain, and in Empire, the powerhouse media company founded by Lyon.

Set in Manhattan’s Upper West Side during the 1950s, West Side Story follows the forbidden relationship of Tony and Maria, affiliates of the clashing white American Jets and Puerto Rican-American Sharks gangs. Initially titled East Side Story and imagined as a musical taking place in Manhattan’s Lower East Side chronicling a conflict between an Irish Catholic and Jewish family, the modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was eventually reworked to instead follow tensions in a multiracial neighborhood. Though both works tackle themes like forbidden love, familial tensions, and suffocating social constraints, West Side Story features a less tragic ending than Romeo and Juliet with the exclusion of Juliet’s suicide—instead ending with the Jets and Sharks uniting to mourn the slain Tony and Maria taking up the end of the procession.

Drawing inspiration from numerous Shakespearean works including King Lear, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series (and subsequent film and television franchise) is heavily inspired by Shakespeare’s works despite Tolkien’s self-professed disdain for the playwright, particularly taking issue with his unflattering characterization of elves which also appear throughout Tolkien’s work. Despite Tolkien’s derision for Shakespeare’s writing, he admitted that some elements in The Lord of the Rings, most notably Ents (a species of anthropomorphic giant trees that appear throughout the series), were inspired by Tolkien’s total disappointment in a plot point near the end of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Based on Isaac Marion’s 2010 best-selling novel of the same name, Warm Bodies is a 2013 zombie rom-com inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Starring Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer, the film follows the unlikely budding romance between a wayward zombie named R, and Julie, a survivor of the zombie apocalypse that devastated the planet almost a decade before the film begins. A decidedly more lighthearted interpretation of the Shakespearean tragedy, director Jonathan Levine’s deadpan comedy (pun not intended) feels like a midpoint between the cheesy romance of the Twilight series and the absurd humor of Simon Pegg’s beloved Shaun of the Dead.

Yet another adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, 1953’s Kiss Me Kate was not only inspired by the aforementioned Shakespearean work itself but also by the acrimonious on- and off-stage quarreling between actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne throughout their 1935 stage production of the comedy at New York City’s August Wilson Theatre. Kiss Me Kate is a fun meta-story that follows two divorced musical theatre actors who play the leads in a musical adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew and feud relentlessly during the production. Most critics thought this to be a faithful adaptation of the stage musical it came from and a fun take on Shakespeare’s work, though it wasn’t a financial smash-hit.