I have... never seen one.

Okay listen, I looooove that play and one of the reasons I love Shakespeare in general is the lack of stage direction (which I'm sure is not just him but probably just a thing of that era, idk). The fact that the play never indicates how a thing should be said or done and even leaves most of the action to implication means that I can imagine ANYTHING!! It's my oyster! I can make this part a raging tirade one day and a heartbroken whimper the next and no matter what, I'm not WRONG because there's nothing in the text that says I can't, and that's SO MUCH FUN. Every time I read it, it's a little different. Watching a performance is a lot of fun too, and I absolutely want to see the ways that other people interpret the text because it's always fascinating to me, but I guess for that reason I've never really been bothered to go watch a bunch of them. Well, for the film versions anyway, the main reason I've never seen it on stage is just that I haven't had the chance yet. I do OH MY GOD I just remembered. I have watched a film adaptation of Hamlet and I got too excited to talk about the text and forgot it.

Okay so I guess by default my favorite is the 1964 Russian film directed by Grigori Kozintsev (I had to look that up) but I'm not mad about that in the slightest because at least visually it's fucking STUNNING. It's black and white of course which helps but the atmosphere is borderline spooky, like quite somber overall but with these really sick high contrast shots. The absolute best part was the ghost of the king walking in slow motion, silhouetted completely black against the sky. Jesus. I don't even remember the performance especially well (it's been years) but I will never forget that one shot. It had some other neat bits I remember like a shot of Hamlet's feet walking up stairs as he did one of the soliloquys. I have to watch it again soon, it really is incredible.

Massive shoutout to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) and the film version (1990) for being my favorite spin-off and the thing that got me into hamlet originally (full disclosure, it was a fanfic, but I'll say it was rgad) and another to Sarah Bernhardt, who in 1900 became the first actor (not first woman, first actor PERIOD) to play Hamlet on film.

And little post script for the adaptations I plan on watching eventually: Ophelia with Daisy Ridley, and the German silent film version starring Asta Nielsen which was actually based on some dude's academic assertion that Hamlet is Actually For Real A Woman based on the fact that he uh [checks notes] is hysterical and in love with Horatio. Baby, he can do that shit as a man, too, but I do love how Asta looks as this little haunted doll of a boy.