Alice's Playhouse
In Alice's Playhouse you will discover an exceptional collection of feature films adapted from some of the most celebrated plays ever written. Often featuring towering performances, outstanding direction and exceptional writing, this collection is a superb archive of contemporary drama masterfully transferred to the silver screen.
Filmizations of The Bard's work may be scrolled via the 'Shakespeare' sub-feature in green on the left, along with other notable playwrights who have been adapted for celluloid.
For adaptations of novels and short stories, check the 'Special Interest' link and click on 'Based on...'
Right: Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh relax during the filming of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece, 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.
On Golden Pond (1981)
7.7/10
Director: Mark Rydell
Starring: Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Doug McKeon, Dabney Coleman
Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn play an aging married couple, Norman and Ethel Thayer, spending a dramatic summer in the woods. Their estranged daug... Read more
Cosi (1995)
6.9/10
Director: Mark Joffe
Starring: Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, Aden Young, Colin F...
A budding theatre director is haggled into staging a bizarre version of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte at a psychiatric hospital. Adapted from the winning st... Read more
The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare Retold (2005)
Director: David Richards
Starring: Shirley Henderson, Rufus Sewell, Jaime Murray, Stephen Tompkinson, Twiggy, Davi...
Katherine (Shirley Henderson) is a successful politician with a chance at the party leadership, but her abrasive temper has left her a 38-year-old sin... Read more
Home (1971)
6.6/10
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Starring: John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Dandy Nichols, Mona Washbourne, Warren Clarke
Two irrepressible legends of the British stage (Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson) lend elegance, wit and pathos in this made for television a... Read more
Stage Beauty (2004)
7.2/10
Director: Richard Eyre
Starring: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Tom Wilkinson, Rupert Everett, Ben Chaplin, Richard...
Adapted from Jeffrey Hatcher's play and based loosely on the life of Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup), a 17th century theatre star noted particularly for h... Read more
Love's Labour's Lost (1999)
6.1/10
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Alicia Silverstone, Nathan Lane, Richard Briers, Martin Scorses...
Shakespeare's breezy comedy is given some song-and-dance treatment in this mix of Bard and Broadway musical action that is set in the 1930's. A young... Read more
Sunday in the Park with George (1986)
9.2/10
Director: James Lapine
Starring: Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Frank Kopyc, William Parry
Based on Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte", which depicts people gathering on an island in the Seine. This music... Read more
Jakob the Liar (1999)
6.5/10
Director: Peter Kassovitz
Starring: Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Michael Jeter, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Lie...
In Nazi-occupied Poland during World War Ii, poor Jewish cafe owner Jakob Heym (Robin Williams) accidentally overhears a forbidden radio news bulletin... Read more
Beckett On Film: Volume 1 ( inc. Waiting For Godot ) (2000)
3.6/10
Director: Charles Sturridge, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Neil Jordan, Kieron J Walsh
Starring: Stephen Brennan, Barry McGovern, Julianne Moore, David Kelly, Milo O'Shea, Jerem...
Derived from the Gate Theatre Dublin's performances, this acclaimed 'Beckett on Film' project brings together a collection of films from the distingui... Read more
Diplomacy (2014)
7.1/10
Director: Volker Schlondorff
Starring: Niels Arestrup, Andre Dussollier, Robert Stadlober, Burghart Klaussner
As the Allies march toward Paris in the summer of 1944, Hitler gives orders that the French capital should be destroyed rather than fall into enemy ha... Read more