Romeo + Juliet

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is an Academy Award nominated 1996 American movie adaptation of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy "Romeo and Juliet". It was directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles.
The movie is a version of Shakespeare's play designed to appeal to a younger modern audience. It is set in present-day fictional Verona Beach, Florida, but uses the style of language from the original novel. The fighting families (the Montagues and the Capulets) are represented as competing business empires, swords are replaced by guns etc. Despite the adaptation, the movie retains Shakespeare's original dialogue, though edited for modern cinema audiences.
Response.
Critics gave the movie good reviews. On the review given by Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of critics gave the movie positive reviews, based on 38 reviews. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" disliked the movie, giving it 2 stars and said "This production was a very bad idea. I have never seen anything remotely approaching the mess that the new punk version of Romeo &amp; Juliet makes of Shakespeare's tragedy." Ebert wrote that Pete Postlethwaite and Miriam Margolyes were "the only actors in the movie who seem completely at home" and said "In one grand but doomed gesture, writer-director Baz Luhrmann has made a movie that (a) will dismay any lover of Shakespeare, and (b) bore anyone lured into the theater by promise of gang wars, MTV-style."
The movie won several awards. At the Berlin International Film Festival in 1997, Leonardo DiCaprio won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actor and director Baz Luhrmann won the Alfred Bauer Award. Luhrmann was also nominated for the Golden Bear Award for Best Picture.