Film

Romeo and Juliet

Name: Romeo and Juliet
Genre: Drama, Music
Released: 1966
Cast: Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Michael Somes, Anthony Dowell, Leslie Edwards

Other titles called Romeo and Juliet: the 1968 film.

Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet transforms Shakespeare's tragedy into a full-length ballet of stunning invention. Nureyev and Fonteyn embody the lovers with astonishing grace and humanity. It's not spectacle for its own sake—this is a story told through movement, tender and devastating, where every gesture carries weight. For anyone who thinks ballet is decorative, this will rewire your brain.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you care more about physical storytelling than spoken dialogue, and you'd happily treat Nureyev and Fonteyn's partnering as the main event.

Skip it if you need spoken dialogue or quick cuts; the story arrives through mime and classical steps over 124 minutes, which can drag if ballet is new to you.

What it asks of you: Expect the full two hours of a ballet score, with long stretches of wordless movement that reward patience and steady attention more than speed.

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If you liked this

Anastasia1997

A full-length narrative ballet with real dramatic stakes and a redemptive arc. Like Romeo and Juliet, it proves ballet can tell intricate human stories without a single word of dialogue.

But It's a lesser-known work, and some of the choreography hasn't aged as gracefully as the MacMillan ballets. The production values can feel a bit television-bound.

Cinderella1950

Frederick Ashton's version has a lightness and wit that's infectious. It proves ballet can be funny and touching at once, and the pacing—the rhythm of how scenes unfold—is masterful.

But The Ugly Sisters comedy can feel broad, and the happily-ever-after ending offers none of the emotional complexity you've just experienced in Romeo and Juliet.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Romeo and Juliet

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Pina2011

Both MacMillan and Bausch saw dance as a vehicle for human emotion that could rival literature or film. Both made bodies speak in ways that transcend technique.

Wim Wenders' documentary about the visionary dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, filmed in 3D with her company performing her work. It's dance cinema at its most innovative—not a stage production but film thinking in movement. A wildly different aesthetic, but the same commitment to making bodies tell truths.

But Modern dance isn't ballet, and Bausch's language is deliberately raw and earthbound where MacMillan is elegant. Some may find it too experimental or physically uncomfortable to watch.

The Red Shoes1948

Both ask whether love can survive the demands of being an artist. Both conclude it cannot, and both break your heart for it.

Powell and Pressburger's masterpiece about a dancer caught between love and art. It's not ballet in the strict sense—the famous 15-minute ballet sequence is embedded in a dramatically-driven film. The colour cinematography is ravishing, and the tragic ending has the same inevitability as Romeo and Juliet.

But It's a film about ballet rather than pure ballet. If you want uncompromising dance without narrative framing, this hybrid approach may feel unfocused.

Nocturne2019

Like Romeo and Juliet, it uses dance to explore fate, desire, and the price of ambition. But it does so with a contemporary eye, proving MacMillan's narrative approach can be reinvented for a new era.

A contemporary ballet film about a shy student at an elite school who discovers a mysterious notebook that gives her supernatural powers. It's visually stunning—shot for cinema rather than stage—and blends classical technique with modern storytelling. Gothic, tense, and utterly gripping.

But It's deliberately contemporary and has a young-adult sensibility. If you prefer the grandeur of classical ballet, the smaller scale and modern setting may feel diminished by comparison.