Film

Macbeth

Name: Macbeth
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: 1987
Cast: Mato Valtonen, Pirkko Hämäläinen, Antti Litja, Pertti Sveholm, Turo Pajala

Other titles called Macbeth: the 1948 film, the 1971 film, the 1983 film, the 2006 film, the 2015 film.

Drama
Crime
Very dark

Aki Kaurismäki's 1987 *Macbeth* transplants Shakespeare's tragedy to a gritty Finnish underworld of petty criminals and small-time hustlers. It's spare, deadpan, and bleakly funny—more *Gomorrah* than *Laurence Olivier*. A film for people who love formal ambition colliding with vernacular speech, and who aren't afraid of a little artistic strangeness.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love Shakespeare stripped to bare bones and rendered as a cold, stylized crime parable, where the tragedy lands through silence and stiff, deliberate gestures rather than rhetoric.

Skip it if you want the verse and full sweep of the play; the dialogue is spare and the acting can feel deliberately flat, reading as distance rather than craft.

What it asks of you: Little more than an hour, it moves in short, clipped scenes with long held stillness, asking patience for a stark, dry atmosphere rather than steady momentum.

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

If you liked this

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos uses formal precision and off-kilter dialogue to wring tragedy from a contemporary setting. Like Kaurismäki's Shakespeare: technically exact, emotionally cold, morally devastating.

But Deliberately strange pacing and tone; the affected dialogue will feel artificial unless you surrender to it immediately.

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's philosophical sci-fi shares Macbeth's meditative approach to ambition and desire. Long takes, sparse dialogue, and a profound sense of dread—cinema as philosophical inquiry rather than entertainment.

But Glacially paced at 163 minutes; the ideas matter far more than plot momentum or visual spectacle.

The Long Goodbye1973

Altman's Marlowe film is similarly offbeat and understated, treating genre material with ironic distance. Conversational, elliptical, willing to let scenes breathe into absurdity.

But The deliberate anti-style can feel like watching someone's home video; the plot barely seems to matter.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Macbeth

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Crime and Punishment2002

Kaurismäki again: same formal control, same willingness to locate tragedy in working-class specificity. If you loved the *Macbeth* approach, here's the director proving it wasn't a one-off.

Kaurismäki's adaptation of Dostoevsky—a modern Helsinki, a student murderer, the same Finnish understatement applied to Russian soul-sickness. Same director, same ambition of fidelity through radical departure.

But Requires familiarity with Dostoevsky; Kaurismäki assumes you know the philosophical weight he's working from.

Umberto D.1952

De Sica's neorealist masterpiece about an old pensioner and his dog has the same clear-eyed dignity in the face of systemic indifference. Quiet observation of people pushed to the margins.

But Almost nothing happens in the conventional sense; a patient viewer is essential.

The Third Generation1979

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's dark comedy about would-be terrorists is formally controlled and brutally funny about how ambition corrodes. Sharp-eyed about ideology and delusion.

But Deliberately artificial performance style; the German politics will baffle those unfamiliar with the era.

Under the Skin2014

Jonathan Glazel and Scarlett Johansson create something formally austere and deeply unsettling. Long takes, minimal dialogue, and an atmosphere of dread—art cinema discipline applied to genre material.

But Methodically paced to the point of being hypnotic; some viewers will find it tedious rather than meditative.

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's ravishingly composed film about longing and restraint is technically virtuosic while remaining emotionally intimate. A master class in form serving feeling.

But Deliberately slow and circular; the plot is secondary to mood and visual composition.

Winter Light1963

Bergman's icy chamber piece about spiritual and emotional emptiness matches Macbeth's cold precision. Dialogue-heavy and philosophically unsparing about human connection and its failure.

But Relentlessly bleak and abstract; three characters in a church discussing despair for 80 minutes.

Requiem2006

Where Kaurismäki finds Shakespearean form in Nordic crime, Schmid finds the reality underneath. Thematically aligned but tonally and materially opposite: one constructs tragedy, the other documents it.

Hans-Christian Schmid's documentary about Guttorm Hanssen, a young man caught in addiction and petty crime in Norway. The same unsparing eye for systemic failure and human smallness; real people living out the tragedy Kaurismäki dramatizes.

But Documentary, not drama—no narrative closure or catharsis; a record of slow decline without redemption.