Best movies like Dream of a Summer Night

If you had a love-potion, who would you make fall madly in love with you? Timothy, prone to escaping his dismal high school reality through dazzling musical daydreams, gets to answer that question in a very real way. After his eccentric teacher casts him as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he stumbles upon a recipe hidden within the script to create the play's magical, purple love-pansy.

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, New York, a gang of Polish-American teenagers called the Jets compete with a rival gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, the Sharks, to "own" the neighborhood streets. Tensions are high between the gangs but two romantics, one from each gang, fall in love leading to tragedy.

With freshly rechristened characters and brand-new dialogue, this British TV production of Othello is a "rethinking" of Shakespeare's play, albeit still retaining the original's power and potency. The story is set in the London of the near future, a crime-ridden metropolis virtually torn apart by racial hostilities. By order of the Prime Minister, black police officer John Othello (Eamonn Walker) is promoted to Commissioner, a post dearly coveted by Othello's friend, mentor and fellow officer Ben Jago (Christopher Eccleston). Seething with jealousy, Jago contrives to discredit Othello in the eyes of the public, and to destroy John's interracial marriage to the lily-white Dessie (Keeley Hawes). Among those used as unwitting dupes to gain Jago's ends are Othello's trusted lieutenant, Michael Cass (Richard Coyle), scrupulously honest police constable Alan Roderick (Del Synnott), and Jago's own wife, Lulu (Rachael Stirling).

A gangster's wife drives him to kill as she pushes him to the top.

The lovely Hermia is to wed Demetrius, but she truly cares for Lysander. Hermia's friend, Helena, is in love with Demetrius, while other romantic entanglements abound in the woods, with married fairy rulers Titania and Oberon toying with various lovers and each other.

Peter Hall's film adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy, filmed in and around an English country house and starring actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Joe McBeth is a hard-working but unambitious doofus who toils at a hamburger stand alongside his wife Pat, who is much smarter. Pat believes she could do better with the place than their boss Norm is doing, so she plans to usurp Norm, convincing Mac to rob the restaurant's safe and then murder Norm, using the robbery as a way of throwing the cops off their trail.

In 1930s Budapest, naïve orphan Luisa Ginglebuscher becomes an usherette at the local movie house, determined to succeed in her first job by doing good deeds for others and maintaining her purity. Luisa's well-meaning lies get her caught between a lecherous businessman, Konrad, and a decent but confused doctor, Max Sporum. When Luisa convinces Konrad that she's married to Max, Konrad tries everything he can to get rid of the baffled doctor.

It's the greatest mystery of all time; who wrote the works of Shakespeare? DEREK JACOBI leads an impressive cast on a quest to uncover the truth behind the world's most elusive author and discovers a forgotten nobleman whose story could rewrite history.

David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny.

Adaptation of the Dickens novel.

Antonio Barracano is a respected man among the Neapolitan underworld, keeping order and administering justice in Rione Sanità according to his own criteria, beyond the law. One day he's faced with a difficult decision after a young man asks him permission to kill his father.

An early film adaptation of the Beard's comic fantasy-- and perhaps the first screen adaptation of a Shakespeare play.

A film adaptation by Max Reinhardt of his popular stage productions of Shakespeare's comedy. Four young people escape Athens to a forest where the king and queen of the fairies are quarreling, while meanwhile a troupe of amateur actors rehearses a play. When the fairy Puck uses a magic flower to make people fall in love, the whole thing becomes a little bit confused...

A modern retelling of The Taming of the Shrew shot in wartime Italy.

The Glyndebourne Opera's 1981 production of the Benjamin Britten opera, based on Shakespeare's play.

When Berke Landers, a popular high school basketball star, gets dumped by his life-long girlfriend, Allison, he soon begins to lose it. But with the help of his best friend Felix's sister Kelly, he follows his ex into the school's spring musical. Thus ensues a love triangle loosely based upon Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", where Berke is only to find himself getting over Allison and beginning to fall for Kelly.

Produced by RAI and filmed in the Turin studios in 1979 but edited years later, in 2001-2002, this is the staging for TV of Carmelo Bene's play of the same name. One of his last works, it premiered in 2002, on March 18, immediately after his death, at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.

In the summer of 2013, a community theatre group from Albuquerque, NM decided to stage a production of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Since the majority of the play takes place in an enchanted forest, the troupe thought it would be a good idea to rehearse in the woods. So they rented a cabin... In the woods... They never returned.

Young lovers living under an oppressive state-rule flee their home-city to change their lives, and end up changing the world. After all, love changes everything.

On a Midsummer’s night, four young lovers find themselves wrapped in the dream-like arms of an enchanted forest where sprites lurk and fairies rule.

An all-singing, all-dancing, star-spangled musical leap around the biblical story of the Nativity, set in 1972. With a comic twist, this familiar story is brought to life through the eyes of the innkeeper. Despairing after a bad year, he contemplates suicide but his attempt is stalled by a voice from above who points out that King Herod is coming to town.

A film adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy, based on a popular stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. A small boy dreams the play, which unfolds in a surreal landscape of umbrellas and lightbulbs.

Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry.

A romantic reimagining of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream set against the turbulent backdrops of the 1962 Argentinian military coup and the 1982 war for the Falkland Islands.

A small-town girl tells a small fib to a wealthy businessman; complications ensue.

A modern take on William Shakespeare's King Lear.

An acclaimed actor and his equally acclaimed actress wife, who have been married for less than a year, are already showing signs of strain in their marriage. The actor believes his wife is capable of infidelity and sets out to prove this is so. Disguising himself as the kind of man he believes she fancies (a Russian military officer), the actor woos his wife while she believes her husband to be out of town.

A modernized adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night".

Shakespeare’s romantic comedy is re-told in the Caribbean and brought into the 21st Century when Theseus and Hippolyta, returning Nationals, come home to Barbados to be married during Crop Over festival time. The island’s early history, folklore, culture and stunning landscape, lends itself perfectly for the mysticism, comedy and chaos that ensues, the night before the nuptual celebrations.

Fairies, magic, celebration and comical confusion! Join Swashbuckle's Cook and Line as they help William Shakespeare put together a magical production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Filmed at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, the production features lots of CBeebies favourites, including Justin Fletcher as Nick Bottom - the star of the play within a play who undergoes a magical transformation! Whoever heard of a talking and singing donkey? English

Royal Shakespeare Company's televised adaptation of Moliere's play with Antony Sher in the title role of Tartuffe.

The award-winning show is re-imagined as a live concert event, featuring an all-star cast of recording artists, set during the last week of Jesus' life as he deals with betrayal, love and jealousy, and told from the perspective of Judas.

Based loosely on Shakespeare's play, Plutarch's "Life of Antony", and Pietro Cossa's dramatic poem, "Cleopatra", this movie was spectacular for its time. It offers location shots made in Italy and Egypt, large crowd scenes (e.g., the Roman army embarking in Alexandria), lots of emotional drama (Marc Antony & Cleopatra, his wife Octavia, sister of Antony's rival Octavian, unhistorically coming to Alexandria to beg him to return to her, and some mean, mean looks exchanged between Octavia and Cleopatra.

Torn between his desire to escape his family's narcotics business and loyalty, Hamlet comes of age wrestling with his identity and his destiny.