Film

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Name: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Romance
Released: 1999
Cast: Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart

Other titles called A Midsummer Night's Dream: the 1935 film, the 1968 film, the 1996 film, the 2016 film.

Comedy
Light-hearted

Michael Hoffman's radiant 1999 film wraps Shakespeare's most enchanting comedy in turn-of-century Italian romance. It's lush, silly, exuberant—a dream made visible. The cast throws themselves into the chaos of love and magic with infectious joy. A film that understands the play's real subject: how thoroughly irrational desire makes us all.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love Shakespeare played with a wink and a sparkle, where the verse is lush, the lovers are giddy, and the fairy-world spectacle is part of the joke.

Skip it if you want a faithful, reverent staging of the text or a fast plot, since the film lingers on its pretty tableaux and leans into broad physical comedy.

What it asks of you: Roughly two hours of patience for a comedy that moves at a dreamy, meandering pace, asking you to surrender to its lush visuals and heightened, playful tone.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Love's Labour's Lost2000

Kenneth Branagh's adaptation embraces the comedy's musicality and visual excess with similar warmth. It's playful, romantic, and unafraid to look foolish in service of Shakespeare's wit.

But The plot circles more than it builds. Some find the constant wordplay exhausting rather than delightful.

Much Ado About Nothing1993

Branagh again, this time with Beatrice and Benedick's sparring at the film's heart. Sharp, sexy, and funny in ways that feel immediate and modern without betraying the language.

But At nearly three hours, it demands patience. The romantic leads' chemistry matters enormously, and that won't work for everyone.

Twelfth Night1996

Trevor Nunn's production is bright and touching, with Imogen Stubbs radiant as Viola. It captures the melancholy hiding under Shakespeare's comedy better than most.

But Less visually sumptuous than Hoffman's vision. Some of the supporting characters feel thin compared to the romantic leads.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from A Midsummer Night's Dream

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both explore how desire remakes reality. In the forest and in the dream, people become versions of themselves that don't exist until someone loves them.

Like *Midsummer*, a film about desire and identity in a dreamlike space where the normal rules don't apply. Lynch trades Shakespeare's forest for Los Angeles, but the disorientation—and the emotional truth buried underneath—is remarkably similar.

But It's willfully cryptic and bleak. Hoffman's warmth and clarity are replaced by ambiguity and dread. Some see it as profound; others find it pretentious.

The Tempest2010

Julie Taymor brings visual imagination as generous as Hoffman's, with an island of puppetry and movement. It's Shakespeare as spectacle, which works beautifully when the story turns toward forgiveness.

But Helen Mirren is excellent, but the film's gender-swapped Prospero doesn't solve the play's inherent problems with its final act.

Enchanted2007

If you loved the romantic chaos of *Midsummer*, this live-action/animated hybrid captures similar delight in love's absurdity. It's Disney channelling fairy tale logic with genuine warmth.

But It's deliberately light and artificial. If you want emotional stakes, this trades them for whimsy.

The Princess Bride1987

Romance, adventure, and comedy at perfect pitch. It understands that the biggest emotional moments work better when you're laughing. Endlessly quotable and genuinely moving.

But Everyone has already seen it. If you haven't, that's wonderful; if you have, there's nothing new here.

Stardust2007

Another fairy-tale adventure that takes its own mythology seriously while staying playful. Magic and sword fights and star-crossed lovers, all without winking at the camera.

But It sprawls a bit. Some secondary characters feel underdeveloped next to the central romance.

EverAfter1998

A *Cinderella* retelling for adults that's witty and romantic in equal measure. Drew Barrymore is charming, and the film trusts its own sincerity.

But It's aggressively earnest in places. The feminist reframing won't resonate if you prefer your fairy tales less explicitly political.

Ella Enchanted2004

Chaotic, silly, and full of music and magic. Anne Hathaway commits completely to the nonsense, and the film's commitment to fun is genuine.

But The plot barely holds together. If you need logical storytelling, this will frustrate you.

Orpheus1950

Both use supernatural logic to explore romantic love as a force that unmakes the world. Cocteau is Hoffman's opposite in nearly every way, but they share the conviction that desire is the most real thing there is.

Cocteau's modernist *Orpheus* relocates the myth to 1950s Paris jazz clubs, where Orpheus is a poet and Eurydice works at a nightclub. It's visually audacious, passionate, and genuinely strange—a masterpiece about love as obsession.

But The black-and-white cinematography and theatrical acting style feel remote. The mythological material is abstract and sometimes impenetrable. It's more challenging than *Midsummer*.