Film

All Is True

Name: All Is True
Genre: Drama, History
Released: 2018
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Kathryn Wilder, Lydia Wilson

Drama

Kenneth Branagh directs and stars as Shakespeare returning to Stratford after the Globe burns, confronting the family he abandoned for twenty years. It's a chamber piece dressed as historical drama—intimate, sorrowful, sometimes awkward. For anyone curious about the man behind the plays, or who finds quiet regret more moving than spectacle.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like quiet, grown-up character studies where a famous man's silences matter as much as his speeches, and where the real craft lies in the performances and the small domestic details.

Skip it if you want the sweeping, energetic romp of a Shakespeare biopic, since this is a slow, reflective piece with little plot, and its gentle pace may feel thin.

What it asks of you: Plan on about an hour and forty minutes of unhurried conversation, long pauses and a muted mood that rarely lifts.

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

If you liked this

Shakespeare in Love1998

A romantic fantasy about the playwright's muse and creative fire. Gorgeous, funny, and unapologetically fun. If you want to feel Shakespeare's hunger and passion ignite on screen.

But It's entirely invented and rather silly. If you prefer your Shakespeare grounded in historical plausibility, this goes the opposite direction.

Amadeus1984

Another aging artist confronting his gift and his failures. Salieri's jealousy and regret create the emotional core. Both films ask what it costs a family when genius demands everything.

But It's much longer and more baroque in style. The theatrical excess might feel at odds with All Is True's quietness.

The Hollow Crown2012

Branagh directing Shakespeare's histories with the same textured, actor-focused approach. You see his visual language applied to the plays themselves. Essential if you want more Branagh-Shakespeare.

But It's a miniseries, not a film, and demands real time. Also assumes some familiarity with the source texts.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from All Is True

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both track the moment a brilliant man realizes he's sacrificed everything that mattered for work that will outlive him. Both are elegies for the roads not taken.

Charlie Kaufman's labyrinthine film about a theater director building a replica of New York inside a warehouse as his life collapses. It's about art consuming the artist, ambition eating family alive, time running out. Structurally wild but emotionally devastating.

But It's deliberately confusing and doesn't resolve neatly. If you want clarity and linearity, this will frustrate you badly.

Darkest Hour2017

Branagh again explores a great man in isolation, wrestling with doubt and duty. Gary Oldman delivers a career-best performance. Both are about legacy under pressure.

But It's a war film, not a domestic one. The scale and pacing are entirely different from All Is True's chamber-drama feel.

The Private Life of Henry VIII1933

An early, wickedly entertaining look at a famous Englishman in private. Charles Laughton is mesmerizing. It pioneered the 'great man, small room' approach that All Is True uses.

But It's from 1933 and moves at a very different speed. The tonal register is far lighter and more comedic.

A Man for All Seasons1966

Paul Scofield as Thomas More, refusing compromise with power. A stately, philosophical meditation on conscience and duty. Same DNA as All Is True—the personal cost of principle.

But It's deliberately austere and can feel more like a moral argument than a drama. Not everyone connects with that register.

Capote2005

Philip Seymour Hoffman as the writer at the height of fame, but poisoned by ambition and isolation. A precise, uncomfortable study of narcissism and talent in collision.

But It's bleak and claustrophobic in ways that might feel repetitive. Hoffman's performance can overshadow the emotional landscape.

The Iron Lady2011

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in old age, revisiting a life of sacrifice and power. It's about the loneliness at the top, and what you lose getting there.

But The framing device is sometimes clunky, and the film pulls its punches on the harder political questions. Streep carries it.

The Crown2016

A prestige ensemble exploring duty, distance, and family fracture across decades. If you want the same emotional archaeology applied to another iconic figure in English history.

But It's massive—multiple seasons, multiple casts. A huge time commitment, and some storylines flatten into soap opera.

Hiroshima Mon Amour1959

Both use a homecoming—literal or emotional—to excavate decades of suppressed feeling. Both ask what happens when two people who've drifted can't quite reconnect.

Alain Resnais's French New Wave masterpiece: a woman and man entangled in memory, impossibility, and the gap between what we carry and what we can say. Shot in black-and-white, structured in fragments. Unbearably moving about silence and distance.

But It's experimental and poetic rather than narrative. If you need plot momentum and clear story beats, you'll find it maddening.