Best movies like National Theatre Live: King Lear

The lives of an Iowa farmer's three daughters are shattered when he suddenly decides to bequeath them the family's fertile farm.

Seeking shelter from a storm, a family finds themselves trapped in a bathroom for days with no sign of rescue and untold evils lurking just beyond the walls.

Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons, Virgil and Andy, journey to the wild country of 1890s Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face-to-face with tornadoes, bears and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing – including murder – to drive them out.

Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.

John, an ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker, meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.

Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.

A descendant of Shakespeare tries to restore his plays in a world rebuilding itself after the Chernobyl catastrophe obliterates most of human civilization.

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

Kate is a young woman visiting her grandmother to talk about her mother "Eve" but instead she surprisingly ends up as both chauffeur and chaperone on her grandmother's romantic dinner date with a widower named Joe.

The owner of an Illinois coal mine struggles to keep his business in operation, all the while unaware that among his employees is a saboteur planning destruction and chaos.

Iona returns to the island where she was born with her teenage son to seek refuge from a violent crime in Glasgow. Iona's return exposes her tormented son, Bull, to a way of life she rejected when she left the island and sends a shockwave through the family she left behind.

Reporter Charles Wills, in Paris to cover the end of World War II, falls for the beautiful Helen Ellswirth following a brief flirtation with her sister, Marion. After he and Helen marry, Charles pursues his novelistic ambition while supporting his new bride with a deadening job at a newspaper wire service. But when an old investment suddenly makes the family wealthy, their marriage begins to unravel — until a sudden tragedy changes everything.

A woman adjusting to life after a loss contends with a feisty bird that's taken over her garden — and a husband who's struggling to find a way forward.

Young David Kinemon is a good-natured, easy-going lad in a mountain village. Circumstances force him to take his brother's place as mail carrier for the community, and this brings him into deadly contact with the vicious Hatburn brothers.

An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending storm. The patriarch of the clan is a retired soda pop tycoon. He is currently dating a children's TV evangelist. Also living at the farm is his layabout daughter and her precocious 8 year old daughter, his would-be artist son, the son's fiancée, and the black maid. Also thrown into the mix is the daughter's ex-husband, a ne-er-do-well who is seeking to get back in his ex-wife's good graces.

TV producer James has an extremely vivid dream, in which he is a prince struggling to keep the kingdom at peace against the wishes of his warfaring brother, while at the same time competing with his brother for a woman's love. The figures in his dream match those in his real life, with his brother being an aggressive business man trying to buy James out, the king being James' advisor, and the woman being an actress recently cast for a commercial at his studio. Seeing his dreams as a message about his life, James decides to act on their guidance, even though they lead him into the fight of his life.

Jefferson Steel, a washed-up Hollywood action star, is desperate to revive his flagging career. When his sleazy agent signs him up for what he believes is a high-profile Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear at Stratford upon Avon, Steel thinks he has finally landed the plum role he has been waiting for. However, he soon discovers that he has been tricked into joining an amateur dramatics group for a charity production.

An ageing monarch. A kingdom divided. A child’s love rejected. As Lear’s world descends into chaos, all that he once believed is brought into question. One of the greatest works in Western literature, King Lear explores the very nature of human existence: love and duty, power and loss, good and evil.

Mark is a struggling actor stuck between the life he once knew and the one waiting for him. When the mother of his two-year-old son suddenly passes away, Mark is forced to confront his shortcomings. Their fates, now intertwined, hang in the balance as Mark grapples with his ability to grow up. When he meets Lydia, a young mother, he is no longer able to live in the comfort of denial.

An ex-boxer, living with the knowledge that his fight career was cut short by a crooked manager, channels his bitter disappointment in a single-minded quest for boxing championships for his three sons. We see them in pee-wee Silver Glove matches with dad constantly pushing them. Ten years later, they're young men, with dad as both father and manager. A professional promoter, Nick Everson, wants to sign the boys, but dad rejects those offers. Then, in expressions of their varied relationships with their father, each son makes his own decisions. Can dad ever step aside, and can the family hold together?

Bitter over their divorce, a wealthy businessman prevents his ex-wife from seeing their child. She then takes him to custody court and a judge tries to determine what will be best for the child.

Stranded in the heat of a barren African desert, eleven bus-passengers shelter in the remnants of an abandoned town. As rescue grows more remote by the day and anxiety deepens, an idea emerges: why not stage a play. However the choice of King Lear only manages to plunge this disparate group of travelers into turmoil as they struggle to overcome both nature's wrath and their own morality.

A bitter widow and a grumpy widower find themselves stuck in a hotel that is cut off from the outside by a snowstorm. Although both have no intention of getting married again, they begin to fall for each other. Their children, however, are determined to see that the "romance" never gets off the ground and do everything they can to see that they are kept apart.

An aging King invites disaster when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters and rejects his one loving, but honest one.

A divorced mother faces the bitter irony of being suspected of child abuse when in fact her own teen son is taking verbal and physical swipes at her.

In the face of an apocalyptic world, father and daughter are forced to grapple with their relationship while facing a pandemic that threatens to eliminate humanity. While the world decays around them they seek shelter and protection within their own house. Civilization slowly slips away leaving them forsaken and isolated, until a group of survivors suddenly shows up on their doorstep seeking help and shelter. Bringing in the survivors forces them to unite and a power struggle ignites within the house as each individual attempts to cope with the tragedy enveloping them. Even in this test of preserving the human spirit, these nine individuals begin to learn what it takes to be human and live within a rapidly changing world.

Lydia, a successful professional organizer, is constantly trying to grow her business, but even her ambition takes a back seat to love when she meets Robert, a frazzled widower with two young children. A toy inventor, Robert is asked to present his new Christmas toy line to a superstore. His challenge is he only has 12 days to get his life and his business in order. Talk about a Christmas rush! Lydia shows Robert that this task goes way deeper than messy junk drawers and encompasses every aspect of his life. While she’s intent on helping him straighten out details he had long ignored, Robert teaches the buttoned-up Lydia that messiness can be a delightful part of life.

As young and recently single parents, Clara and Alex have two completely different styles of parenting. While helicopter mom Clara hovers over her son Oliver, Alex's daughter Emma feels out of touch with her father's life. Their two worlds collide when Alex proposes that his marketing company shoot a commercial at the kids' school and Clara, up for election as the parent group president, objects the idea. The commercial is Alex's last hope for keeping the company afloat, so in a moment of desperation, he nominates himself for parent group president. In a surprising turn of events, Clara and Alex tie for president and must work together to run the group until the mandated re-vote. The bitter rivals struggle for power, outfoxing each other any chance they get, until the matter of raising their children puts things into perspective. Clara and Alex come to a mutual understanding and even ignite a spark of romance.

Siblings Geoff and Rich Brewer have competed all their lives for parental affection, career ambitions, and romantic pursuits. Rich, the elder brother, always comes out on top leaving Geoff to struggle in his shadow. Tragedy strikes their family in a freak accident. In a panic, Geoff seeks out a backwoods cult rumored to have supernatural powers. The bumbling cult's ritual initially solves the problem, but it soon becomes apparent that they have unleashed a sinister force on their unsuspecting, Midwestern town.

A modern take on William Shakespeare's King Lear.

A young girl and her brother come of age at their great grandmother's house in Virginia during the 1940s. After a family tragedy, a young girl moves from New York with your younger brother to live with their great grandmother on a Virginia farm and comes closer to understanding the land and roots that inspired her father's writings while discovering herself, the love of family, and the power of truly believing.

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.

Performing from within the walls of a deconsecrated Manchester church, Kenneth Branagh takes the lead role in this ambitious production of William Shakespeare's tragic tale of ambition and treachery.

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

An aged king decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, according to which of them is most eloquent in praising him. His favourite, Cordelia, says nothing. Simon Russell Beale, whose recent appearances at the National include Timon of Athens and Collaborators, takes the title role in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Liz McAdams is haunted by the memories of a tornado that destroyed her home 25 years ago. Now a professional storm tracker, she and her family are in danger once again as another devastating twister rapidly gains momentum. Caught in the path of destruction, Liz and her estranged husband struggle to save those they love...

One summer's evening, two ageing writers, Hirst and Spooner, meet in a Hampstead pub and continue their drinking into the night at Hirst's stately house nearby. As the pair become increasingly inebriated, and their stories increasingly unbelievable, the lively conversation soon turns into a revealing power game, further complicated by the return home of two sinister younger men.

In this re-imagining of Shakespear's King Lear, Patrick Stewart stars as John Lear, a Texas cattle baron, who, after dividing his wealth among his three daughters, is rejected by them.

A devout Evangelical Christian struggles with his faith and against the insistent pressures from his family and community after a sudden and unexpected tragedy.

As a boy copes with his difficult home life and his parents' failing marriage, a mysterious girl suddenly appears. Faith, family and a special kind of magic come together as his new friend teaches them all about love, forgiveness and healing.

A new English adaptation of the classic French tragedy Phèdre by Jean Racine (1639-1699). It retells the ancient Greek tale of the wife of the Atenian King Theseus, who conceived a forbidden love for his son (by an earlier wife) Hyppolytus. All ends badly for all.

Hamlet has the world at his feet. Young, wealthy and living a hedonistic life studying abroad. Then word reaches him that his father is dead. Returning home he finds his world is utterly changed, his certainties smashed and his home a foreign land. Struggling to understand his place in a new world order he faces a stark choice. Submit, or rage against the injustice of his new reality. Simon Godwin (The Two Gentlemen of Verona 2014) directs Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet in Shakespeare's searing tragedy. As relevant today as when it was written, Hamlet confronts each of us with the mirror of our own mortality in an imperfect world. Hamlet played in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until throughout summer 2016.

Three stories of strangers meeting on the edge of war. A conscientious objector and a roaming artist find tenderness as the carnage of the Second World War unfolds across the English Channel. A bereaved mother struggles with bitterness and love in recollecting her estranged son, lost in the Falklands. Deep in the Black Forest of Germany, an ageing holocaust survivor seeks to bring peace to disturbed young boy and his equally wild stepfather.

A venerable San Francisco publishing family becomes embroiled in a bitter power struggle between the iron-fisted, but ailing, patriarch's son and a ruthless businessman who tries for a takeover.

King Lear has ruled for many years. As age begins to overtake him, he decides to divide his kingdom amongst his children, living out his days without the burden of power. Misjudging his children’s loyalty and finding himself alone in the wilderness, he is left to confront the mistakes of a life that has brought him to this point. Antony Sher plays King Lear, one of the greatest parts written by Shakespeare in this, one of Shakespeare’s most epic and powerful plays.

A live performance of the tragedy "Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare. Set in Roman times, the play deals with the bloody revenge of Roman general Titus Andronicus for the atrocities committed against his family by Tamora, the captive queen of the Goths, and her faction. Grotesquely violent and daringly experimental, Titus was the smash hit of Shakespeare's early career, and is written with a ghoulish energy he was never to repeat elsewhere.

A powerful story of the son of America's most famous outlaw: Jesse James. Jesse, Jr. struggles to return to the town which his father lived. His love interest is Elizabeth Montgomery.

An American family celebrates their 28-year-old daughter's pregnancy. The celebration is interrupted when a Satanic cult leader, Henrik Brandr, unexpectedly visits their ranch. Henrik offers to pay the family a large sum for ownership of their land. Jacob Richardson, the father, rejects the offer due to the priceless sentimental value of the ranch. Henrik, displeased, begins to put devastating curses on the Richardsons, trying to force them off their land - even if it means murdering them. After suffering unexplainable tragedies, the Richardsons seek help from Marybeth, a white witch high priestess. They soon discover a terrible secret about their house, revealing why their land is so valuable to the cult. They realize they must protect their house from the cult at all costs, and a violent battle between good and evil ensues.

Samantha Holt had the perfect life with a handsome fiancée and a future that couldn’t look brighter. But an unexpected turn on a dark lonely road puts her on a collision course with Bruce Miller, a devoted family man who descends into madness when he loses everything he ever cared about. One year later, Bruce decides to give Samantha the punishment he believes she escaped. Samantha has struggled with her own demons since that fateful night, and Bruce will take her struggles to the edge when he implements a demented plan to teach her a twisted lesson that may cost her the ultimate price.

Stella Benton, a young society girl who has lost her beautiful voice through the death of her father, goes to live with her brother Charles, in the lumber camp. Charles Benton is having a struggle to make both ends meet, and when his cook quits, he makes his sister do the work for the hundred men in the lumber camp. Jack Fyfe, a neighboring lumber man, meets Stella and gradually falls in love with her, but love is not reciprocated. Seeing that she is being overworked, Fyfe offers to marry her, in spite of the fact that she does not love him. A child is born of this loveless marriage, and the couple are reasonably happy, until Walter Monahan, a wealthy lumberman, begins to make love to Stella.