Romeo and Juliet (1968)

IMDb plot summar: When two young members of feuding families meet, forbidden love ensues.
Directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Starring Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, and Milo O'Shea.

This has never been a Shakespeare play I've particularly cared for, but this is an astonishingly good version of it. The two lovers here are so, so young, their dramatic outbursts so childlike, their immediate impulses so unchecked that it feels nearly impossible to keep them from hurting others or themselves with their very raw emotions. Mercutio too gets an interesting spin here-- truly cruel and malicious in the scene with the nurse, seemingly mentally unstable from a few of his isolated scenes-- and his death, where no one realizes he isn't doing a bit until he is actually dead, is fascinating. The best Shakespeare performances make the poetry of the words seem like the most emotionally natural things for these characters to say, and that's certainly true here. It almost makes me actually like the play.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Romeo and Juliet > Fish Story
Romeo and Juliet > The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Romeo and Juliet < Jean de Florette
Romeo and Juliet < 10 Cloverfield Lane
Romeo and Juliet < Key Largo
Romeo and Juliet > Shakespeare Behind Bars
Romeo and Juliet > Hawking
Romeo and Juliet > My Name Is Joe
Romeo and Juliet > The Graduate
Romeo and Juliet < The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Final spot: #671 out of 3040.