I have watched every major screen version of Macbeth at least twice, sometimes three times, and the thing that always strikes me is how differently directors hear the same play.
Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy has been filmed and reimagined more than almost any other work in the English language, and for good reason. The story is a contained pressure cooker, a prophecy, a murder, a guilty conscience, a war, a death. Every director who takes it on ends up making a film about obsession, ambition, and the rot that spreads when power goes unchecked.
In this guide, I am going to walk you through the major screen versions of Macbeth, side by side, so you can decide which one belongs at the top of your watchlist. I will compare them on the scenes that matter most, the witches, Banquo’s ghost, the Birnam Wood march, and the bloody final act.
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Why filmmakers keep returning to Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy
Macbeth keeps getting filmed because it is built for cinema. It is a play of darkness, smothered voices, and sudden violence, and the camera loves all three.
There is also the famous curse. Actors whisper that you never say “Macbeth” inside a theater, only “the Scottish Play.” The superstition has fueled its own mythology, and that mythology draws directors who want to test themselves against it.
Roman Polanski made his version in 1971, just two years after his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson family. The violence in his Macbeth feels like grief translated onto film.
Then there is the text itself. The play is short, around 2,100 lines, which makes it manageable to film in a single sitting. Yet those lines contain some of Shakespeare’s most quoted passages: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,” “Out, damned spot,” and “Is this a dagger which I see before me.”
That is why I think this comparison matters. Each screen version of Macbeth tells you something about the era it was made in, the director’s preoccupations, and the kind of camera Shakespeare wanted to be filmed with on that particular day.
Orson Welles’ Macbeth (1948): The haunted low-budget masterpiece
Welles’ 1948 Macbeth is the screen version most Shakespeare fans argue about, and I happen to love it for exactly the reasons it frustrates other viewers.
Welles shot the film in 21 days on a leftover set from a Republic Pictures western. The production was so cheap that Welles had to use cardboard crowns and dub the entire film in a post-production sound booth.
By the time Republic released it, they had trimmed it to 86 minutes and rerecorded much of the dialogue without the actors present. Welles was so furious he disowned the version.
And yet, despite all of that, the film is alive. Welles plays Macbeth as a thick-necked, growling brute, more gangster than thane. His voice is honey poured over gravel.
The film is full of mud, fog, and faceless soldiers, and the silhouette work is gorgeous. The witches here are closer to vultures than to crones, and they appear in long, jagged shadows that turn ordinary scenery into something sinister.
What I love most about Welles’ Macbeth is the candlelit ritualism. The film feels like a fever dream of medieval Scotland. If you want the screen version of Macbeth that makes you feel the weight of prophecy, start here.
Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957): The Japanese feudal reimagining
Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is the most famous screen version of Macbeth that is not actually called Macbeth, and it is also one of the greatest Shakespeare adaptations ever made.
Kurosawa transposed the story to feudal Japan. Macbeth becomes Washizu, a samurai general who encounters a spider-like spirit in a forest web. The spirit tells him he will become lord of the North Castle, and then ruler of all.
His wife, Asaji, pushes him to murder, and the film becomes a study of ambition, fear, and the supernatural. The performance by Toshiro Mifune as Washizu is one of the great screen Macbeths.
His face goes from loyalty to exhilaration to paralysis in a single tracking shot. His wife, played by Isuzu Yamada, is a quiet, terrifying figure. She moves like smoke, and the camera seems to flinch when she enters a room.
What I love about Throne of Blood is the visual confidence. Kurosawa fills the frame with mist, fog, and moving trees. The famous Birnam Wood scene, where the forest appears to march on the castle, is filmed in the Foggy Forest outside Mount Fuji.
The actual trees seem to come alive in that sequence. The final sequence, where Washizu is pinned to a wall by his own cowardly arrows, is as terrifying as anything in horror cinema.
Throne of Blood does not quote Shakespeare. It reimagines him. Watching it is a reminder that the screen versions of Macbeth can be translations, not just adaptations.
Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971): The brutal, medieval-accurate vision
Polanski’s Macbeth is the screen version most people point to when they ask which Macbeth film is the most faithful to the play, and I think that is mostly right, though not entirely.
Polanski shot the film with the production design of a 12th-century Scotland. The castles are real, the mud is real, the weather is real. The color palette is mud brown, iron grey, and the dull red of dried blood.
Jon Finch plays Macbeth as a young warrior undone by prophecy. Francesca Annis plays Lady Macbeth as something we rarely see in adaptations, a young woman visibly cracking under the weight of her own ambition.
Polanski was blunt about why the film is so violent. He made it two years after his wife and unborn child were murdered. The murder of King Duncan in this Macbeth is hard to watch.
It is filmed with a real intimacy, and the dread lingers. The 1971 film was the first major screen Macbeth to depict the violence with that kind of unflinching clarity.
What I find most impressive about Polanski’s Macbeth is its pacing. It runs 140 minutes, and you feel every one of them. This is the screen version of Macbeth I recommend to students who want to see the play faithfully transformed.
The major weakness is the sound design. The battle scenes are noisy, and the score is forgettable. But the performances more than make up for it.
Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth (2015): The brooding, visual powerhouse
Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth is the screen version with the most extraordinary cinematography, and I mean that literally. The film is so visually overwhelming that it sometimes swallows the language.
Michael Fassbender plays Macbeth as a war veteran returning home from a brutal campaign. Marion Cotillard plays Lady Macbeth as a woman grieving a lost child. The funeral pyres at the start of the film are huge.
The whole story takes place against a sky the color of ash. The Scottish locations are genuinely bleak, and the battlefields look like something from a Bruegel painting.
The score, by Jed Kurzel (the director’s brother), is the best of any screen Macbeth. It is built on low strings, distorted choral work, and a thumping drum motif that follows Macbeth’s guilt. I have rewatched the opening credits half a dozen times just to listen to it.
Where Kurzel’s Macbeth loses some viewers is in its scale. The film is so obsessed with weather and landscape that the dialogue sometimes disappears under the wind. Fassbender’s Macbeth is more of a wounded animal than a calculating murderer, which frustrates viewers who want more verbal agility.
Cotillard’s Lady Macbeth is fascinating, but she is filtered through a French actress’s interpretation of Scottish English, which can feel remote. Still, I think Kurzel’s Macbeth is the most underrated screen version of Macbeth.
It is the one I return to when I want to feel the play as a physical experience, less about words, more about mood. If you loved the cinematography of The Revenant, this Macbeth is in the same visual conversation.
Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021): The stark, theatrical return
Coen’s 2021 version, the first screen Macbeth shot in black and white since Welles, is the most divisive major screen version of Macbeth, and I think that is part of what makes it special.
Denzel Washington plays Macbeth as an older, deliberate man. Frances McDormand plays Lady Macbeth not as a young schemer but as a hardened partner. The film’s setting is a pure theatrical void, black and white, with shot after shot of light cutting through geometric doorways.
It feels like a stage play filtered through cinema, not a film pretending to be a stage play. Coen leans into the play’s language more than any other screen version.
He cuts the text down, but he keeps the rhythm. The famous “dagger” speech is delivered in a single unbroken shot, and Washington’s voice carries the whole scene. The witches here are young women with pale skin and dead eyes.
They appear in a single bright room that looks like a church. The criticism I hear most about Coen’s Macbeth is that it feels cold and detached. I understand that reading, but I do not fully agree.
The film is restrained, yes, but it is also deeply serious. It treats Macbeth as a moral study, not a horror movie. Washington’s final “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” is one of the great screen soliloquies.
What I admire about this Macbeth is the discipline. Coen made it without his brother Ethan, and the result is a film that feels like a single, considering voice. It is the screen version of Macbeth I recommend to people who want to think about the play as literature.
How the major screen versions of Macbeth compare on key scenes
When I screen versions of Macbeth for a class, I always compare the same three scenes. Here is how the five major adaptations stack up.
The witches scene is the first test. Welles treats his witches as vulture-like figures in shadow. Kurosawa replaces them with a single, supernatural spirit in a web. Polanski uses crones with grotesque makeup that still haunts me.
Kurzel shoots the witches as shrouded figures in a stark white ruin, looking like they belong to a different film. Coen turns them into three identical pale women in a clean chamber, like a stained-glass vision.
The dagger soliloquy tells you how the director hears the play. Welles stages it as a slow, dreamlike monologue. Kurosawa skips it entirely. Polanski shoots it as a hyperventilating breakdown.
Kurzel films it as a slow whisper inside a misty hall. Coen shoots it as a single quiet take, with the camera finally revealing the dagger in a pool of light. Each one tells you what the director thinks Macbeth is.
The Birnam Wood scene tells you how the director handles spectacle. Welles uses a visual gag with branches. Kurosawa builds the Foggy Forest sequence I mentioned earlier. Polanski films it as a ragged, muddy march.
Kurzel fills the screen with a giant, slow-motion forest. Coen keeps it as a distant, almost abstract visual. I think Kurzel wins this one, but Kurosawa is the runner-up.
The sleepwalking scene is the final test. Cotillard’s quiet, almost silent version is the most modern. Annis’s young, cracking version is the most historically vivid. McDormand’s slow, dignified version is the most literary.
Mifune’s wife in Throne of Blood is the most operatic. Each one reveals a different Lady Macbeth.
Which screen version of Macbeth should you watch first?
This is the question I get most often, and the honest answer is that it depends on who you are and what you want.
If you are a Shakespeare student or a teacher looking for the most faithful screen version of Macbeth, start with Polanski’s 1971 film. It is grim, thorough, and respectful of the text.
If you are a film lover who wants to see the most visually striking version, choose Kurzel’s 2015 take. The cinematography alone is worth the runtime.
If you want the most thoughtful, literary adaptation, watch Coen’s 2021 version. It treats the play as drama, not spectacle, and it rewards close attention.
If you want something genuinely different, watch Throne of Blood. It is one of the greatest films ever made, and it is a Shakespeare adaptation that does not feel like one.
If you want to see how a flawed production can still produce greatness, watch Welles’ 1948 Macbeth. The dubbed audio is a real obstacle, but the imagery is unforgettable.
After you watch one of those, branch out. The 2005 BBC ShakespeaRe-Told version (with James McAvoy) is a modern, working-class Macbeth set in a restaurant. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003) is a Bollywood gangster adaptation set in the Mumbai underworld.
Scotland, PA (2001) is a deadpan comedy set in a 1970s fast-food restaurant. Each one is a different answer to the question of what Macbeth means.
FAQ: The questions readers ask about Macbeth on screen
Which film version of Macbeth is the best?
Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth is the most faithful to the play, Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth is the most visually striking, and Coen’s 2021 The Tragedy of Macbeth is the most literary. The best version depends on whether you want accuracy, atmosphere, or restraint. Most Shakespeare scholars I know point to Polanski first, but I think Coen’s version will age well.
Why can’t you say Macbeth in theaters?
The play is rumored to be cursed. Actors have died, sets have burned, and productions have been plagued by accidents dating back centuries. The tradition is to call it ‘the Scottish Play’ inside a theater, and only use the real name in rehearsal. The superstition is part of why the play feels dangerous to stage, and part of why directors keep filming it.
What is the most accurate version of Macbeth?
Roman Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth is the most accurate screen version. It uses the full text, sets the action in historically appropriate medieval Scotland, and keeps most of Shakespeare’s original dialogue intact. Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is the most acclaimed, but it is also a free adaptation that changes the culture, names, and supernatural elements.
Is Throne of Blood a Macbeth adaptation?
Yes. Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957) is a Macbeth adaptation set in feudal Japan, with the characters renamed and the culture changed. Washizu is Macbeth, Asaji is Lady Macbeth, and the witches become a single spirit in a spider web. It is widely considered one of the greatest Shakespeare films ever made, even though it does not quote a single line of the original text.
What modern movies are based on Macbeth?
Several modern films are adapted from Macbeth. Justin Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth is the most recent big-budget example. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003) is a Bollywood gangster version. Scotland, PA (2001) is a 1970s fast-food comedy. The BBC ShakespeaRe-Told Macbeth (2005) is set in a Glasgow restaurant. Each one moves the play into a new setting while keeping the core story of ambition, murder, and guilt.
Final verdict: ranking the major screen versions of Macbeth
After watching these screen versions of Macbeth again this year, here is how I rank them, and I want to be clear that this is personal, not definitive.
Number one for me is Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. It is the most fully realized vision of the play’s themes, and it has aged the best of the five. Number two is Polanski’s 1971 Macbeth, for sheer textual faithfulness and acting.
Number three is Coen’s 2021 The Tragedy of Macbeth, for its restraint and intelligence. Number four is Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth, which I think is the most beautiful to look at but the most uneven as storytelling.
Number five is Welles’ 1948 Macbeth, which I love for its flaws as much as its strengths. If you watch all five in order from oldest to newest, you will see how each director inherited the previous version’s choices and pushed back against them.
That is the gift of having multiple screen versions of Macbeth, because each one is a conversation with the others. Start with whichever one matches your mood.
If you want to think, watch Coen. If you want to feel, watch Kurzel. If you want to learn, watch Polanski. If you want to forget you are watching Shakespeare, watch Kurosawa. If you want to see how a masterpiece can survive a disaster, watch Welles.
Whichever screen version of Macbeth you choose, you will be watching one of the most filmed plays in the English language, in a year 2026 when Shakespeare still owns the screen. That is the only ranking that matters.