Television series
The Hollow Crown
Four Shakespeare plays fused into one continuous fall of kings, filmed with the hush and gilt of prestige British telly. Irons, Kinnear and a heartbreakingly boyish Hiddleston carry the crown through betrayal, guilt and Agincourt mud, while Simon Russell Beale's Falstaff nearly steals the whole thing. Slow, verse-heavy and gorgeous — history with iambic pentameter instead of dragons.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love Shakespeare's language delivered in long, rich speeches and enjoy watching power politics unravel across a whole reign, with the stone and landscape of real places behind it.
Skip it if you want a tidy, self-contained story, since this is a long chain of linked plays where a fresh viewer may feel lost in the court intrigue and the verse.
What it asks of you: Patience and a tolerance for dense Elizabethan verse; it moves slowly through council chambers and camps, rewarding attention over momentum across a long, sustained watch.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Wolf Hall2015
Mark Rylance's Cromwell watches Henry VIII's court the way you watch a chess game you can't win — quiet, coiled, devastating. Same appetite for language and consequence, a century further into the Tudor rot.
But Slower and more interior; whispered scheming rather than battlefields, which some viewers find airless.
The Crown2016
The title isn't a coincidence — it's the same question asked in cashmere and Rolls-Royces: what does the office do to the person wearing it? Modern monarchy, identical rot at the centre.
But No Shakespeare, no verse — glossy soap-opera pacing instead of poetry, which can feel like a downgrade.
Elizabeth1998
Cate Blanchett's coronation-to-hardened-queen arc is basically Hal's story with lipstick and poison, all cinematic swagger and Renaissance intrigue crammed into two brisk, thrilling hours.
But Historically loose and stylistically flashier — closer to a pulp thriller than a history play.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Hollow Crown
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Succession2018
Strip away the doublets and it's the same machine — who inherits power, what it costs the people who want it, a family devouring itself over a throne that might not be worth having.
Corporate America's answer to the history plays: cruel, hilarious, endlessly quotable, and just as obsessed with what a crown does to the person who wears it — even a cardboard one.
But No poetry, no battles — just boardrooms and yachts. If you loved the solemnity, this trades it for viciousness and jokes.
More like this (7)
Richard III1995
Ian McKellen relocates the same Plantagenet self-destruction to a fascist 1930s Britain, proving these scripts survive any century you drop them into. Gleefully evil, visually audacious.
But The fascist rebrand is divisive — some call it a brilliant reframe, others call it a stunt.
Macbeth2015
Fassbender and Cotillard bring the same blood-soaked ambition and guilt that runs through Henry IV, but compress it into raw, muddy, nearly wordless dread.
But Heavily mumbled dialogue and art-house pacing trade clarity for atmosphere more aggressively than Hollow Crown does.
Rome2005
Swap English kings for Roman generals and you get the same rise-fall-betray machinery, just with more nudity, more blood, and no bother with iambic pentameter.
But Much pulpier and more violent — closer to soap opera than Shakespeare, deliberately so.
The Tudors2007
Want the English-monarchy-in-crisis feeling without the verse? This delivers it dressed in silk and scandal — Henry VIII's court as glossy, horny melodrama.
But Historical accuracy takes a back seat to romance and skin; tonally it's miles from Hollow Crown's restraint.
The White Queen2013
The same Wars of the Roses chaos Hollow Crown eventually reaches, told from the women scheming in the margins the plays barely mention.
But Soapier and more romance-novel than history play — less poetry, considerably more bodices.
Chimes at Midnight1965
Same Henry IV material, same Falstaff who nearly runs off with Hollow Crown, shot by Orson Welles in stark black-and-white with a chaotic, muddy battle scene that changed how war gets filmed.
Welles plays Falstaff as a man watching his own irrelevance arrive, in a film many call the finest Shakespeare adaptation ever made — scrappy, mournful, technically dazzling despite having almost no money.
But Rough, low-budget production values and patchy sound; it looks its age and its poverty in every frame.
Henry V1944
Same play, same St Crispin's Day speech Hiddleston delivers, but filmed in 1944 as actual wartime propaganda to rally a nation at war — the direct cinematic ancestor of every Henry V since.
Shot in eye-popping Technicolor theatricality that begins on a recreated Globe stage before bursting into open battlefield, this is Shakespeare deployed as a war-morale weapon, and it's magnificent.
But The verse-speaking is declamatory and old-fashioned by modern standards, and the propaganda intent is unmistakable and unapologetic.
People
Cast
Recommended by
Elizabeth R, Richard III, The White Queen, Chimes at Midnight, El buen espíritu: Detrás de la puerta del Opus Dei, Looking for Richard, All Is True, An Age of Kings, Dancing on the Edge