Twelfth Night

Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night (1996) is a satisfying, humorous movie.  It's like watching a good Branagh-produced film without the unfortunate side effect of having to watch Mr. Banagh, himself.  Ben Kingsley is fantastic as Feste, one of my favorite Shakespeare character types, the wise fool.  There's a great musical scene that alternates between Kingsley playing a concertina and another character playing the same song on the piano.  While musically beautiful, it's also pretty awkward, as Nunn decides to maximize the sexual tension between Viola (disguised as a young man named Cesario) and Orsino, a mature man who betrays some weakness to Cesario's subtle advances.  Taking this and Orsino's rapture and finding that Cesario, whom he has believed to be a man, is actually a woman, thus eligible for marriage, shows Nunn's willingness to expose the homoerotic undertones of Shakespeare's gender-bending comic plots.
Another attempted seduction provides a highlight as Malvolio, played by Nigel Hawthorne clad in yellow stockings, struts his stuff for Olivia, played wonderfully by Helena Bonham Carter.  If you've seen Branagh's Much Ado about Nothing, or Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream, this film is familiar territory.  So, if you like those films, you'll probably like this one, as long as you don't mind a slightly lower sound and color quality.  The acting is solid, and Shakespeare's language shines brilliantly.