The Tragedy of King Lear

The Tragedy of King Lear

Staged as seen in the 16th century.

1982 · 182 min · ★ 8.0 · Drama

King Lear, old and weary, divides his kingdom among his daughters, placing great weight on their declarations of love for him. However, when Cordelia, the youngest and most honest, refuses to flatter the old man in exchange for his favour, he banishes her and seeks support from his remaining daughters. Goneril and Regan, however, harbour no love for him and instead conspire to seize all his power. In a parallel, Lear’s loyal courtier Gloucester favours his illegitimate son Edmund after being deceived by lies about his faithful son Edgar. Tragically, both ill-fated fathers are consumed by madness and experience immense suffering.

Directed by Alan Cooke

Your Rating

Cast

Mike Kellin King Lear
Darryl Hickman Earl of Kent
Charles Aidman Earl of Gloucester
David Groh Edmund
Jeremy Whelan Soldier / Courtier
Helen Rubio Soldier / Courtier
Gela Nash Goneril
Kitty Winn Cordelia
Melora Marshall Regan
Sam Anderson Duke of Albany
Carl Strano Duke of Cornwall
Bart Braverman Duke of Burgundy

More from Alan CookeSee all →

Armen and Bullik

Armen and Bullik · 1993

Armen and Bullik

MovieActionComedy

Lieutenant Joe Armen is a devoted cop who loves his job. Tom Bullik is his Young partner. While on the run from hired killers who want to stop them from testifying against a mafia boss, Joe and Tom witness the kidnapping of Marion.

Peer Gynt

Peer Gynt · 1972

MovieDramaFantasy

The 1972 BBC adaptation of Ibsen’s epic dramatic fantasy about a man in search of his soul.

Separate Tables

Separate Tables · 1970

Separate Tables

MovieRomanceDrama

A play by Terence Rattigan about the stories of several people staying at a seaside hotel in Bournemouth which features dining at "Separate Tables."

Pygmalion

Pygmalion · 1983

MovieComedyTV Movie

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

Paint Me a Murder

Paint Me a Murder · 1984

Paint Me a Murder

MovieDramaHorror

Luke Lorenz is a artist whose paintings don't sell. His imaginative wife Sandra reasons that sales of his works would increase tenfold if he were to die, so they fake his death.

Jumping Bean Bag

Jumping Bean Bag · 1976

Jumping Bean Bag

MovieDramaMusic

At an end-of-term school play, Ozzie and his band join in with a hard rock contribution. However, this leads to the unexpected fame of the schoolboy rock group, and they find that there is a darker down-side to fame and being successful music stars.

Airwolf

Airwolf · 1984

SeriesSci-Fi & Fantasy

As part of a deal with an intelligence agency to look for his missing brother, a renegade pilot goes on missions with an advanced battle helicopter.

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes · 1971

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

SeriesMysteryCrime

An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

Murder, She Wrote

Murder, She Wrote · 1984

Murder, She Wrote

SeriesMysteryCrime

An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.

Quincy, M.E.

Quincy, M.E. · 1976

SeriesCrimeDrama

Los Angeles County medical examiner Quincy routinely engages in police investigations.

Lou Grant

Lou Grant · 1977

SeriesComedyDrama

The trials of a former television station manager turned newspaper city editor, and his journalist staff.

Theatre 625

Theatre 625 · 1964

Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.

Out of the Unknown

Out of the Unknown · 1965

Out of the Unknown

SeriesSci-Fi & FantasyDrama

Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was a dramatisation of a science fiction short story; some were created for the series, but most were adaptations of already published stories. The first three years were exclusively science fiction, but that genre was abandoned in the final year in favour of horror and fantasy. A number of episodes were wiped during the early 1970s, as was standard procedure at the time.

Matlock

Matlock · 1986

SeriesDramaCrime

Thrifty, folksy and cantankerous, Matlock charges a premium for his services but is worth every penny: This renowned attorney, always clothed in his trademark light-gray suit and driving his signature Ford Crown Victoria, has an uncanny knack for finding overlooked clues and exposing murderers in dramatic courtroom scenes.

The Right Prospectus

The Right Prospectus · 1970

The Right Prospectus

MovieFantasyDrama

A school story with a noticeable difference - the adults regress to children.

Uncle Silas

Uncle Silas · 1968

MovieThrillerHorror

After her father's death, Maud, a young heiress, is sent to live with her Uncle Silas. She finds her new guardian living in a gothic nightmare of a mansion, and soon realizes that he wishes to murder her and claim her inheritance.

More Like This

You, the Living

You, the Living · 2007

You, the Living

MovieDramaComedy

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

The Pianist

The Pianist · 2002

The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

Titanic

Titanic · 1997

MovieDramaRomance

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

The English Patient

The English Patient · 1996

The English Patient

MovieDramaRomance

In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.

Romeo + Juliet

Romeo + Juliet · 1996

MovieDramaRomance

In this contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.

The Great Escape

The Great Escape · 1963

The Great Escape

MovieAdventureDrama

The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet · 1968

Romeo and Juliet

MovieDramaRomance

Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy.

2:37

A contemporary, ensemble drama that tells the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven with situations that so many of today's youth are faced with. The story takes place during a normal school day. At precisely 2:37 a tragedy will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers.

Hedda

MovieDramaThriller

Hedda Gabler finds herself torn between the lingering ache of a past love and the quiet suffocation of her present life. Over the course of one charged night, long-repressed desires and hidden tensions erupt—pulling her and everyone around her into a spiral of manipulation, passion, and betrayal.

Battle Royale

Battle Royale · 2000

MovieDramaThriller

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter