Romeo and Juliet (1968)

ROMEO AND JULIET (1968) Film
Review by Roger Ebert, on October 15, 1968

Like many victims of the American education system, I had a dislike for Shakespeare years before I got my hands on anything he had written. His name was a password to be profaned by 12-year-olds whose voices had started to change and who therefore had to act tough and cynical and, especially at 12, anti-intellectual.

But part of the problem came later, in the classroom, where we inched through "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth" at a velocity of ten lines an hour. It was impossible to read Shakespeare as slowly as we did and remember...