Film

Ophelia

Name: Ophelia
Genre: Drama, Romance, History
Released: 2019
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, George MacKay, Tom Felton

Drama

A bold feminist reclaiming of Hamlet's most tragic figure. Daisy Ridley's Ophelia is vivid and willful, caught between genuine passion for Hamlet and the brutal politics that use her as a pawn. It's a sumptuous, angry film that asks what happens when you give Shakespeare's silent casualty a voice and agency. For anyone tired of watching women die to advance men's stories.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want the Elsinore story told from the margins, with a lady-in-waiting's view of court politics and a romance that pushes against the play's old rules.

Skip it if you come to it expecting Shakespeare's verse or a faithful retelling of the tragedy, since it reworks the familiar plot into a softer, more sentimental romance.

What it asks of you: It runs just under two hours at an unhurried pace, so it wants patience with quiet interior glances and a court full of schemes you must keep track of.

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

If you liked this

The Favourite2018

A woman-centered reframing of history with genuine bite: two ladies-in-waiting weaponize their positions at court. Like Ophelia, it finds dark comedy and real stakes in female power plays within rigid hierarchies.

But The tonal shifts between comedy and cruelty can feel jarring. It's visually baroque to the point of distraction for some viewers.

Crimson Peak2015

Gothic romance with a heroine who refuses to be merely decorative. There's betrayal, passion, and a woman actively solving the mystery rather than waiting to be saved. Equally lush and similarly interested in female agency.

But Leaning heavily into Gothic melodrama means some moments veer toward the overwrought. The plot becomes fairly predictable in its back half.

Mary Queen of Scots2018

Another woman trapped by court politics and male ambition, but one who fights back. Saoirse Ronan gives a performance of controlled fury. The parallels to Ophelia's powerlessness are illuminating.

But The filmmaking is functional rather than inspired. Some historical liberties will irritate anyone who knows the actual timeline.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Persona1966

Both films center on a woman's interior silence as resistance against a world that demands she perform. Both are fascinated by the gap between external beauty and internal devastation.

Bergman's masterpiece about a woman who stops speaking and the nurse assigned to her. Like Ophelia, it's about female interiority and what happens when a woman's silence becomes her only power. Visually austere where Ophelia is ornate, but spiritually identical.

But It's nearly two hours of two women in a room with minimal plot. The philosophical abstraction will lose anyone expecting narrative momentum, and the print quality on most copies is poor.

The Nightingale2018

A visceral, uncompromising portrait of a woman's survival and agency during occupation. Like Ophelia, it refuses to let its heroine be a passive victim of circumstance, and it doesn't soften the cost of resistance.

But It contains graphic violence and sexual assault. The pacing is deliberately slow and punishing—this is not cathartic entertainment.

Lady Macbeth2016

Set in 19th-century rural England, it follows a young wife who seizes power through manipulation and murder. Like Ophelia, it's visually stunning and obsessed with how women weaponize the limited tools they're given.

But It's a bleak, cold film with almost no sympathetic characters. The violence is shocking and the ending is deliberately unsatisfying.

Annihilation2018

A woman at the center of mystery and danger, forced to act rather than simply be acted upon. The visual opulence and female agency in the face of incomprehensible forces echoes Ophelia's spiritual core.

But It's science fiction rather than period drama, and the abstract ending confuses many viewers. Some find it philosophically pretentious.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Deeply unsettling exploration of how family structures collapse and women bear the weight of male transgression. It has Ophelia's dark fatalism about female powerlessness, but in a contemporary setting.

But It's slow-burn horror that feels suffocating. The formal, almost clinical direction makes it emotionally distant for some, which feels like the point but can feel tedious.

Under the Skin2014

Scarlett Johansson commands a film that's as much mood and visual poetry as plot. It shares Ophelia's interest in a woman's interior life and the gap between how others see her and what she actually is.

But There's virtually no dialogue and almost no conventional story. For many viewers, it's an endurance test that demands patience and rewards very little.

Loving Vincent2017

A mystery told through painted animation, investigating Van Gogh's death. It's visually stunning like Ophelia and interested in the gap between how history remembers someone and the truth of their life.

But The rotoscoped animation is beautiful but can feel gimmicky. The mystery itself is fairly thin and the emotional payoff is modest.

The Witch2016

Both films center on a young woman caught between patriarchal systems that demand her silence or destruction. Both are visually sumptuous while being narratively suffocating.

A teenage girl accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England, forced to navigate impossible male authority and religious hysteria. It shares Ophelia's gothic atmosphere and its refusal to let the girl be innocent or guilty—just trapped. Also in 35mm, gorgeously shot.

But The dialect is thick and often hard to parse. It's a slow-burn horror that doesn't deliver scares so much as dread, and some find it unbearably bleak.

La Haine1995

Both films use visual splendor as ironic counterpoint to narratives of entrapment. Both argue that beauty and charm are powerless against structural cruelty. Both end with their protagonists destroyed by forces larger than themselves.

A day in the lives of three young men in the French banlieue, shot in black and white with urgent, propulsive energy. It's thematically opposite to Ophelia—about male power rather than its absence—but it's equally interested in how systems trap people and how beauty can't redeem injustice. A masterpiece about powerlessness from a different angle.

But It's entirely in French with no English dubbing option on most releases. The violence and social critique feel dated to some viewers, and the gender politics are those of 1995.