Which Romeo and Juliet should you experience?
Two families in Verona hate each other. Their children meet at a party, marry the next day, and are dead within the week. The Chorus tells you all of that before the first scene, and people have been retelling it anyway for more than four hundred years.
It has been filmed in period costume and in a modern city called Verona Beach, danced without a word, sung in French, moved to New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, a garden full of gnomes and a city in the sky, and told from the point of view of the girl Romeo was in love with first. None of them is the definitive one. Which one is right for you depends on what you want tonight.
Or browse every version
If quizzes aren’t your thing, browse instead: 31 versions across reading, watching and listening.
The Folger Shakespeare Library edition
The play on the right-hand page, help on the left.
No Fear Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
Every line twice: Shakespeare’s on one side, plain English on the other.
The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, ed. René Weis
The play, and every argument about the play.
Oxford School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
The complete play, packed for an essay.
Cambridge School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
The edition that expects you to stand up and say the lines.
The Norton Facsimile of the First Folio
The play as the 1623 collected edition printed it, photographed page by page.
The Arkangel Shakespeare recording
The play read by a cast, with Joseph Fiennes as Romeo.
Manga Classics: Romeo and Juliet
Every line of the play, drawn as manga.
Romeo and Juliet (George Cukor, 1936)
The 1936 film, with Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard as the lovers.
Romeo and Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968)
Verona in period, with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey as the lovers.
William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Shakespeare’s lines, in a modern city called Verona Beach.
Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
Troma’s version: raunchy, violent, and set in Manhattan’s underground.
Romeo & Juliet (Carlo Carlei, 2013)
A period Verona, Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth, and a trimmed text.
Romeo & Juliet (National Theatre film, 2021)
Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley, filmed in the backstage spaces of the National Theatre.
West Side Story (1961)
The feud as two gangs on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, set to Bernstein and Sondheim.
West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2021)
The same musical, filmed again sixty years later by Steven Spielberg.
Romeo and Juliet — The Royal Ballet (2019)
Prokofiev’s ballet in Kenneth MacMillan’s production, and not a word spoken.
Romeo and Juliet — The Royal Ballet, filmed by Paul Czinner (1966)
Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev dance Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet, on film.
Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette — The Metropolitan Opera (2024)
The play as French Romantic opera, with Nadine Sierra and Benjamin Bernheim.
Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet — The Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel (Decca)
The complete ballet score, with no stage and no words.
& Juliet — Original Broadway Cast Recording (2022)
What if Juliet got a second chance at life after Romeo? A musical to Max Martin’s songs.
Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (2007)
The feud between two yakuza families in modern Tokyo.
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong (2020)
Rival gangs in 1926 Shanghai, and a madness spreading through the city.
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
A young Shakespeare falls in love while writing the play.
Romeo Must Die (2000)
Jet Li and Aaliyah, between two crime families.
Romeo × Juliet (2007 anime)
A floating city called Neo Verona, and a Juliet in disguise.
Letters to Juliet (2010)
An American in Italy finds an unanswered letter written to Juliet.
Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
The feud as garden gnomes, for anyone old enough to sit through a film.
Warm Bodies (2013)
A zombie called R falls for a living girl called Julie.
Still Star-Crossed (2017)
What happens in Verona after the lovers are dead.
Rosaline (2022)
The play from the point of view of the girl Romeo dumped.
Start with the play itself
Which edition should you read? compares the Folger, No Fear, the two school editions, the Arden, the First Folio facsimile, the full-text manga and a full-cast recording. All of them are the complete play; the difference is what comes with it.
Every version is the full browsable list.