Part of Swoon: A Love Series and Music City Mondays

Director Baz Luhrman gives the bard’s classic tale of forbidden love the ‘90s treatment in this iconic slab of over-the-top romantic teen angst cinema. Featuring brilliant performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the titular lovers and a soundtrack overflowing with hits from the era’s top alternative bands.

“Amid the clamor from outraged purists and Shakespeare spinning in his Stratford-on-Avon, England, grave, you should notice that Luhrmann and his two bright angels have shaken up a 400-year-old play without losing its touching, poetic innocence.” —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone (Nov 1, 1996)

“It is a Shakespearean work thoroughly conceived for the screen (itself a modern mode of storytelling) and for an audience unfamiliar and/or impatient with the Bard's Elizabethan trappings… In terms of sheer spectacle, I can hardly think of another work this year that compares with ROMEO & JULIET. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes once again prove that they are two of the best actors of their generation. And William Shakespeare has once more demonstrated that he is a storyteller for all time.” —Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle (Nov 1, 1996) 

“It may be the most visually imaginative Shakespeare film since Akira Kurosawa’s RAN, and certainly one of the more operatic Hollywood creations of recent years.” —Alex Ross, Slate Magazine (Nov 6, 1996)