Film
Romeo + Juliet
Baz Luhrmann takes Shakespeare's words and blasts them through MTV editing, gang warfare, and a Radiohead needle-drop, setting the feud in a hallucinatory Verona Beach of billboards and gun-toting Montagues. It's gaudy, breathless, and unexpectedly faithful — the language is untouched, only the volume's been turned to eleven. Great for anyone who found the play boring in school and needs proof it was always meant to be this alive.
If you liked this
Moulin Rouge!2001
Luhrmann's other great tragic romance, cranked even louder — same jukebox-collage energy, same doomed lovers, same conviction that excess is a valid emotional register, not a flaw.
But If the sensory overload of R+J wore you out, this one doubles down and doesn't apologise for it.

Strictly Ballroom1992
The film that invented Luhrmann's whole toolkit — heightened colour, swooning music, misfit lovers against a rigid establishment — but funnier, sweeter, and set in the world of competitive dance.
But Lower stakes and a much smaller budget; it's charming rather than operatic.

West Side Story1961
The gang-feud musical that got there before Luhrmann, transplanting the same story to 1950s Manhattan with equally bold, stylised design and music that hits just as hard.
But It's a full-blown musical with dance numbers, which is a bigger ask than Luhrmann's soundtrack-driven approach.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Romeo and Juliet1968
Same play, same director's-eye ambition to make it feel urgently alive to a young audience — but where Luhrmann detonates tradition, Zeffirelli trusts it completely. Watching both back to back shows exactly what choices Luhrmann made.
Franco Zeffirelli's version, made when 'faithful' still meant doublets and candlelight rather than gang tattoos and Hawaiian shirts — gorgeous, sincere, and startlingly young-feeling for its era.
But Slow by modern pacing standards and entirely without irony; it plays the tragedy completely straight.

More like this (8)
10 Things I Hate About You1999
Proof that Shakespeare survives a total teen-movie makeover just as well as a Verona Beach makeover — sharp, funny, and quietly loyal to its source.
But It's Taming of the Shrew, not Romeo and Juliet, and the tone is comedy first, tragedy never.

Titanic1997
DiCaprio again, a year later, playing the same kind of reckless, doomed romantic — if you want more of that specific ache, this delivers it at maximum scale.
But Three hours long and considerably more sentimental than ironic; no Shakespeare, no visual anarchy.

Shakespeare in Love1998
A witty, romantic riff on how Romeo and Juliet might have gotten written in the first place, with real affection for the play underneath the jokes.
But Gentler and more traditionally costumed — none of Luhrmann's neon chaos, just clever period romance.

The Great Gatsby2013
Luhrmann and DiCaprio reunite for another tragic love story dressed in maximalist excess — parties, longing, doomed grandeur, the whole house style intact.
But Some found it style without soul; if that's your worry, it may confirm it rather than answer it.

Elvis2022
Latest Luhrmann fever dream — same whiplash editing and operatic sincerity, this time aimed at a real life instead of a play, with a tragic arc of its own.
But No romance-as-plot-engine here; it's a music biopic, so the emotional shape is different.

Bram Stoker's Dracula1992
Coppola's equally baroque, velvet-and-blood take on a classic text — lush, theatrical, unafraid of melodrama, a good companion piece in pure visual ambition.
But It's horror-romance, not tragedy in the Shakespearean sense, and considerably more explicit.

Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela2013no page yet
It's the same engine — feuding families destroying their own children's love — rebuilt inside a completely different popular-cinema tradition, proving Luhrmann's maximalism isn't a Western indulgence but a global instinct for telling this story.
A Bollywood Romeo and Juliet — rival clans, forbidden love, and the same operatic collision of music, colour and violence Luhrmann trades in, just sung in Hindi and even more extravagant.
But Nearly three hours with full musical numbers; commitment to the format is required, and subtitles if you don't speak Hindi.
City of God2002
Strip Luhrmann's film down to its skeleton — feuding factions, guns, a generation destroyed by grudges it didn't start — and you get something close to this. Same bones, entirely different, harsher register.
A ferocious, kinetic Brazilian crime drama about kids consumed by a war they inherited, not one they chose — the same doomed-youth machinery as Verona Beach, minus the romance and the mercy.
But It's genuinely brutal and unflinching; there's no love story to soften the tragedy, just consequence.

People
Cast
Leonardo DiCaprioRomeo
Claire DanesJuliet
Jesse BradfordBalthasar
Vondie Curtis-HallCaptain Prince
Brian DennehyTed Montague
John LeguizamoTybalt
Miriam MargolyesNurse
Harold PerrineauMercutio
Christina PicklesCaroline Montague
Pete PostlethwaiteFather Laurence
Paul RuddDave Paris
Paul SorvinoFulgencio Capulet
Directing
- Baz LuhrmannDirector
- Martin WaltersFirst Assistant Director
- Miguel GilFirst Assistant Director
- Miguel LimaFirst Assistant Director
- Sydney GilnerScript Supervisor
- Efren del MoralSecond Assistant Director
- Everardo GoutSecond Assistant Director
- Grant LucibelloSecond Assistant Director
- Harry JarvisSecond Assistant Director
- Monica CastellanosSecond Assistant Director
Writing
- William ShakespeareAuthor
- Baz LuhrmannScreenplay
- Craig PearceScreenplay
Production
- Catherine MartinAssociate Producer
- Jill BilcockAssociate Producer
- David RubinCasting
- Ronna KressCasting Associate
- Martin BrownCo-Producer
- Jorge GuerreroExtras Casting
- Lily FlaschnerLocation Manager
- Baz LuhrmannProducer
- Gabriella MartinelliProducer
- Héctor López LechugaProduction Manager
- Michael NelsonProduction Manager