The best Macbeths to watch online

The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from a Shakespearean adaptation because film-goers want to be entertained, not anointed with the chrism of high art. Macbeth is one of the texts that frequently attracts directors.

Justin Kurzel’s 2015 version (Amazon Prime) didn’t triumph at the box office despite two fetching performances from Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland and the snow-wreathed mountains of Skye. The trailer is a marvel. Two exhilarating minutes of virile swordplay, ravishing scenery and dramatic cathedral interiors.

The film itself is a cold, muddy slog. Michael Fassbender plays the thane as a gruff Celtic robo-hunk married to a skinny, nun-like beauty, Marion Cotillard. Many of her lines are whispered unintelligibly and her role has been severely cut and neutered. Rather than inspiring Macbeth to kill, she plays the role of a powerless chattel who watches in statuesque horror as he murders enemy after enemy. When Lady Macduff is abducted and burned alive (not put to the sword as in the play), Lady Macbeth is seen kneeling at the pyre while a sad tear slithers down her cheek. The film is marred by a soundtrack of mournful stringed instruments, going non-stop, like the howl of a gale in a chimney.

Rupert Goold turned his Chichester Festival Theatre version into a film for the BBC in 2010 (Amazon Prime). Knowing the text and, more importantly, loving every line of it, he created a dazzling psychological thriller. Goold sets the play in a besieged hospital in the 1940s during the final stages of a world war. His settings are tiled kitchens and bleached corridors where severe-looking nurses bustle around in starched frocks.

Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth, all booming self-assurance and martial severity, is matched by Kate Fleetwood in a crimson frock.