Loosely based on The Tempest, the 1956 sci-fi classic still feels bold and unexpected in its conception today, seven decades after it was first released. But what lands Forbidden Planet a spot on this list is the elegance with which director Fred Wilcox and writers Cyril Hume, Irving Block and Allen Adler manage to translate the eerie beauty and unease that defines what might well have been the last play Shakespeare ever wrote.
See also: Derek Jarman’s deeply weird and sexy Tempest (1979), starring Hearthcote Williams as Prospero and Karl Johnson as Ariel, the “airy spirit.”
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y4crGU7dkg ]