Adaptations
Ranking the 8 Best Romeo & Romeo-Inspired Performances
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
It’s a question that has been echoed back at audiences for more than 400 years, since William Shakespeare first wrote the essential tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet in 1597. The tale of two teenagers so devastatingly in love that death sounds sweeter than life apart has become a timeless icon of sweeping romances and generation-defining heartache.
Since the advent of filmmaking, Romeo and Juliet has also become one of the most frequently adapted stories. Over the years, the role of Romeo has been a training ground and a rite of passage for the next generation of heartthrobs. But who are the best Romeos to ever grace the screen? And what about the characters inspired by Romeo? Where do they fall?
Here’s our ranking of the Romeos in all his many forms. Which one is your favorite? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
9. Romeo and Juliet (1936)
While Hollywood constantly tries to find new ways to tell Romeo and Juliet’s story, sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. This sweetly simple adaptation from director George Cukor was among the first attempts to give Romeo and Juliet the lavish Old Hollywood treatment with massive sets and stunning costumes. It works, for the most part. But the biggest thing working against the film was the insistence on using established (and therefore older) actors to play the title characters. When this film was released, its Juliet, Norma Shearer, was 32, and its Romeo, Leslie Howard, was nearly 40. Howard managed to present the elegant facade that any Romeo probably wishes he could have for his Juliet, but the role today just feels like the casting missed the mark by a generation (or two).
8. Romeo & Juliet(2013)
Most people don’t know that the most recent outright adaptation of Romeo & Juliet came out, albeit quietly, in 2013 with Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth in the title roles. Adapted by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, the film had a certain flair to it that amplified the high drama already baked into Shakespeare’s work. But it was an otherwise forgettable take on the story, despite a stellar cast that also included Ed Westwick, Paul Giamatti, and Damian Lewis. Booth’s Romeo doesn’t stand out much either, though it is clear his casting and performance took into consideration what audiences were hungry for at the time –– the Edward Cullen type from Twilight, that is a silently pained loner with a deep well of desires. If only this Romeo would have been that deep.
7. Romeo and Juliet(1954)
One of the most critically adored versions of Shakespeare’s story was this British venture that leaned heavily into the medieval origins of the play. To his credit, director Renato Castellani tried something new by expanding the story to place the young lovers in the context of their time, where Catholicism reigned supreme, and the class wars would have certainly led to divides like the one between the Montagues and the Capulets. Laurence Harvey plays Romeo with boyish charm, which is actually quite appropriate for the story of a teenage boy swept up in the rush and melodrama of love. He’s a fun Romeo, which resonates in a story famous for having a bummer of an ending.
6. Reefer Madness (2005)
Even in the realm of obscure Romeo-inspired films, Reefer Madness is a deep cut. This Showtime movie musical parody of the 1939 propaganda film that warned parents of the scourge of marijuana among their impressionable teens is a confection of naughty numbers (it’s based on a stage musical), filthy humor, and an incredible cast (Kristen Bell! Neve Campbell! Ana Gasteyer! Alan Cumming!). But it’s all at the expense of the naivete of young love. Its version of Romeo is named Jimmy Harper (Christian Campbell), a promising whippersnapper who loses sight of his Juliet (Bell as Mary Lane) in favor of drugs and eventually learns his lesson — even if it’s too late for his better half. Before tragedy strikes, the couple even sings a song called “Romeo and Juliet,” a little ditty about aspiring to get the same happy ending that Shakespeare gave his characters. Clearly, they haven’t finished their homework.
5. Gnomeo & Juliet(2011)
After a few centuries, you have to get creative with how you tell the same story for the hundredth time, and that’s definitely what happened with this animated movie about rival families of garden gnomes going to war while one of their own falls for the enemy. Need we say more than James McAvoy? Sure, he’s not actually onscreen, but there’s something about the confidence and charisma of him embodying even a silly version of Romeo that just works. Opposite Emily Blunt as Juliet, these gnomes don’t meet the same fate as their literary counterparts, but they do go to war over lawnmowers, and that’s the kind of thing you write love stories about today, right?
4. Warm Bodies (2013)
Yes, the Nicholas Hoult zombie movie is inspired by Romeo and Juliet. Don’t believe us? Look at the facts. It follows R (Hoult), a zombie who falls in love with a human named Julie (Teresa Palmer). R is meant to stay with his kind, the mindless wanderers who don’t have much left to do with their afterlife besides munch on brains and live vicariously through the memories stored within the lobes. Julie is not meant to stray from her human contingent, let alone find love with the undead. But they risk it all to give each other a reason to live other than just surviving. It is a sweet, inventive take on Shakespeare, and Hoult may be the most charming zombie Romeo ever — even if he’s just grunts and moans.
3. West Side Story (1961 & 2022)
Tony is a former Jet, Maria is the sister of the Sharks’ leader. The romance at the heart of 1961’s West Side Story, and the Steven Spielberg-directed remake from 2022, shouldn’t have worked — and it didn’t in the end. But for a fleeting moment when audiences first met Tony and Maria, a thinly veiled spin on Romeo and Juliet, they played on our hope that one day we will see a couple rewrite Shakespeare’s ending. Transplanted to the streets of New York City, the timeless tale comes to life as it never has before through song and dance. And it’s Tony, a man looking for a better life only to get himself fatally pulled into a street gang war, gives the already traumatic story a dose of blue-collar ambition.
2. Romeo & Juliet (1968)
If you are a millennial, it is likely that you watched the 1968 version of Romeo & Juliet in your English class on a TV rolled in on a cart. There was something about this particular adaptation that felt in line with Shakespeare’s intention, or at least that teachers said when they cued it up. Bookended with narration by Laurence Olivier, it is among the most stylish and sexually frank adaptations, arriving in the heart of the free love movement. But most notably, this is the one where the dashingly handsome Romeo (Leonard Whiting), who looks like one of the Beatles, stands up from the bed and bares his butt, a truly scandalous thing for high schoolers to be shown in class. (It was all for the sake of education, right?) Though today, the legacy of the film comes with an asterisk after two lawsuits were filed by the main actors, Whiting and Olivia Hussey, who sued Paramount Pictures for $500 million for allegedly allowing director Franco Zeffirelli to film them naked without their consent.
1. William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996)
There has never been a more culturally consequential Romeo as the one played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s violently contemporary take. At the outset of his reign as the defining star of his generation, DiCaprio debuted this Venice Beach-dwelling Romeo that wore button-up beach shirts and toted a gun, while still speaking in the romantically old-fashioned tongue of Shakespeare. The interplay of the f**k boy persona with the intellectual artist, the sensitive soul with the angry kid proved irresistible for audiences and Claire Danes’ Juliet, who fell madly in love with the floppy haired livewire who wouldn’t let anyone come between them. We’re not sure why we think this, but something tells us Shakespeare would have liked this wildly energetic spin on his work. Maybe that’s just crazy talk, or maybe it’s because DiCaprio has never been better at commanding every inch of the screen. Melodramatic, unpredictable, and arrestingly inventive, Romeo + Juliet is the quintessential example of how Shakespeare’s story can live forever, as long as it can continue to reinvent itself for the moment.
