National Theatre Live: After Life (2021)

Ghost

After a young man is murdered, his spirit stays behind to warn his lover of impending danger, with the help of a reluctant psychic.

National Theatre Live: The Audience

For sixty years, Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace, a meeting like no other in British public life, it is private.

No End

1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.

City of Angels

When a guardian angel – who invisibly watches over the citizens of Los Angeles – becomes captivated by a strong-willed heart surgeon, he ponders trading in his pure, otherworldly existence for a mortal life with his beloved. The couple embarks on a tender but forbidden romance spanning heaven and Earth.

Stratford Festival: King John

When the King of France demands that John relinquish his crown in favor of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur, war is the inevitable result. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion, and assassination all contribute to political turmoil and personal grief for a mother who has lost her son.

The In Between

After surviving a car accident that took the life of her boyfriend, a teenage girl believes he's attempting to reconnect with her from the after world.

Flatliners

Five medical students want to find out if there is life after death. They plan to stop one of their hearts for a few seconds, thus simulating death, and then bring the person back to life.

National Theatre Live: Phèdre

A new English adaptation of the classic French tragedy Phèdre by Jean Racine (1639-1699). It retells the ancient Greek tale of the wife of the Atenian King Theseus, who conceived a forbidden love for his son (by an earlier wife) Hyppolytus. All ends badly for all.

Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway

Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.

Dead Like Me: Life After Death

When George and her colleagues get a new boss whose focus is on moving souls quickly and enjoying life without consequences, the team begins to break the strict reaper rules. While her friends fall victim to their desires for money, success, and fame, George breaks another rule by revealing her true identity to her living family.

National Theatre Live: Othello

The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.

National Theatre Live: Antigone

In the unstable aftermath of a civil war, Creon, the new King of Thebes, asserts his authority by forbidding anyone from honouring the death of the traitor Polyneices. But Antigone, Polyneices' sister, will not obey. When Creon's authority is challenged, a gripping conflict emerges between the power of an individual and the state. Polly Findlay's electric 2012 production brings Sophocles' tragedy into the modern world as a gripping political thriller.

Heaven Can Wait

Spoiled playboy Henry van Cleve dies and arrives at the entrance to Hell, a final destination he is sure he deserves after living a life of profligacy. The devil, however, isn't so sure Henry meets Hell's standards. Convinced he is where he belongs, Henry recounts his life's deeds, both good and bad, including an act of indiscretion during his 25-year marriage to his wife, Martha, with the hope that "His Excellency" will arrive at the proper judgment.

True West

A screenwriter gets conned out of selling a script to a Hollywood producer by his brother, who pitches his own idea for a movie. This video recording of the 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production was later broadcast by PBS.

Always

The spirit of a recently deceased expert pilot mentors a newer pilot while watching him fall in love with the girlfriend that he left behind.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Zia, distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend, decides to end it all. Unfortunately, he discovers that there is no real ending, only a run-down afterlife that is strikingly similar to his old one, just a bit worse. Discovering that his ex-girlfriend has also "offed" herself, he sets out on a road trip to find her.

Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― #2 Transition

After the events of Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― #1 revival, Seiran General Arts Institute challenges Seisho Music Academy to a revue with the right to perform the play "Starlight" at stakes. Who will win this Cultural Exchange Program?

Candide

The innocent Candide discovers that human beings aren't all they are cracked up to be and ultimately focuses on building his own life on his own terms.

National Theater Live: The Crucible

A witch hunt is beginning in Arthur Miller's captivating parable of power with Erin Doherty (The Crown) and Brendan Cowell (Yerma). Raised to be seen but not heard, a group of young women in Salem suddenly find their words have an almighty power. As a climate of fear, vendetta and accusation spreads through the community, no one is safe from trial. Lindsey Turner (Hamlet) directs this contemporary new staging, design by Tony award winner Es Devlin. Captured live from the Olivier stage of the national theater.

Kati Kati

Bereft of earthly memories, a new arrival in the afterlife struggles to recover the past, in this poetic fantasy that offers a dark reflection on personal atonement in the shadow of Kenya’s violent past. Imagine waking up one day in a barren wasteland. Amnesia leaves you clueless as to your whereabouts, your identity, and how you arrived. A small group of strangers welcomes you to a nearby oasis resort, and they reveal to you the nature of this new reality. You are dead. And this is the afterlife. This is what happens to Kaleche (Nyokabi Gethaiga) in the enigmatic opening sequence of Kati Kati, writer-director Mbithi Masya's poetic first feature film.

Company

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

Repeat

A zealous cognitive psychologist stumbles across an unbelievable discovery – a way of communicating with the other side. His joy is short-lived, however, as his daughter is put into potentially grave danger and when all leads go cold, he takes matters into his own hands to find out the truth.

National Theatre Live: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Christopher, fifteen years old, has an extraordinary brain – exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. When he falls under suspicion of killing Mrs Shears' dog Wellington, he records each fact about the event in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of the murder. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

Truly Madly Deeply

Nina is totally heartbroken at the death of her boyfriend Jamie, but is even more unprepared for his return as a ghost. At first it's almost as good as it used to be – hey, even the rats that infested her house have disappeared. But Jamie starts bringing ghostly friends home and behaving more and more oddly.

Book of Blood

Based on the wraparound story penned by Clive Barker in the author's "Books of Blood" collection, the story centers on a paranormal expert who, while investigating a gruesome slaying, finds a house that is at the intersection of "highways" transporting souls to the afterlife.

National Theatre Live: Hamlet

As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.

National Theatre Live: Coriolanus

When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.

Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds

Having died unexpectedly, firefighter Ja-hong is taken to the afterlife by 3 afterlife guardians. Only when he passes 7 trials over 49 days and proves he was innocent in human life, he’s able to reincarnate, and his 3 afterlife guardians are by his side to defend him in trial.

National Theatre Collection: Translations

Owen, the prodigal son, returns to rural Donegal from Dublin. With him are two British army officers. Their ambition is to create a map of the area, replacing the Gaelic names with English. It is an administrative act with radical consequences.

National Theatre Live: Consent

Why is Justice blind? Is she impartial? Or is she blinkered? Friends take opposing briefs in a rape case. The key witness is a woman whose life seems a world away from theirs. At home, their own lives begin to unravel as every version of the truth is challenged. Nina Raine’s powerful, painful, funny play sifts the evidence from every side and puts justice herself in the dock. Consent received its world premiere in a co-production with Out of Joint at the National Theatre in April 2017. This archive recording was captured on 9th May, 2017.

The King and I

Widowed Welsh mother Anna Loenowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.

National Theatre Live: The Seagull

Emilia Clarke makes her West End debut as Nina in Anya Reiss’ unique 21st century modernisation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, with direction by Jamie Lloyd.

The Black Vampire

A cabaret performer tries to protect her daughter from a mysterious killer while resisting the advances of the prosecutor pursuing the criminal.

Spirited Away: Live on Stage

A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family. The film version of the stage production was shot during the play’s 2022 run at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo.

What Dreams May Come

Chris Nielsen dies to find himself in a heaven more amazing than he could have ever dreamed of. There is one thing missing: his wife. After he dies, his wife Annie killed herself and went to hell. Chris decides to risk eternity in Hades for the small chance that he will be able to bring her back to heaven.

Defending Your Life

Is there love after death? After he dies suddenly, the hapless advertising executive Daniel Miller finds himself in Judgment City, a gleaming way station where the newly deceased must prove they lived a life of sufficient courage to advance in their journey through the universe. As the self-doubting Daniel struggles to make his case, a budding relationship with the uninhibited Julia offers him a chance to finally feel alive.

The Bothersome Man

Forty-year-old Andreas arrives in a strange city with no memory of how he got there. He is presented with a job, an apartment - even a wife. But before long, Andreas notices that something is wrong. Andreas makes an attempt to escape the city, but he discovers there's no way out. Andreas meets Hugo, who has found a crack in a wall in his cellar. Beautiful music streams out from the crack. Maybe it leads to "the other side"? A new plan for escape is hatched.

National Theatre Live: War Horse

Based on Michael Morpurgo's novel and adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford, War Horse takes audiences on an extraordinary journey from the fields of rural Devon to the trenches of First World War France.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have wronged him and decides to take up his old profession.

Tiempo

Christina wakes up in the middle of nowhere without remembering how she got there, but after a long walk she meets El Tiempo, a mysterious being who seems to know a lot about her and who, by giving her answers, will create greater questions about herself and about what she wants in life.

Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano has a prominent nose but also a gift with words by which he helps handsome Christian to conquer Roxane. Also in love with the girl he chooses not to reveal to her that every word of Christian comes out of his own heart. In cinema, this ROSTAND classic filmed live from the Comédie Française.

National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art

National Theatre Live’s 2010 broadcast of Alan Bennett’s acclaimed play The Habit of Art, with Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour, returns to cinemas as part of the National Theatre's 50th anniversary celebrations. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station. Alan Bennett’s play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion’s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art.

Into the Woods

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

The Metropolitan Opera: Dead Man Walking

American composer Jake Heggie’s compelling masterpiece, the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years, arrives in cinemas in a haunting new production by Ivo van Hove. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir about her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer, Dead Man Walking matches the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s beautiful and poignant music and a brilliant libretto by Tony and Emmy Award–winner Terrence McNally. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato starring as Sister Helen. The outstanding cast also features bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, soprano Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, and legendary mezzo-soprano Susan Graham—who sang Helen Prejean in the opera’s 2000 premiere—as De Rocher’s mother.

Rent

The story of several friends in New York City facing financial poverty, homophobia, AIDS, and, of course, rent.

Hamlet at Elsinore

The ghost of the King of Denmark tells his son Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the new king, Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. An historic BBC production taped on location in and around Kronborg castle in Elsinore (Denmark), in which the play is set.

Henry V - Live at Shakespeare's Globe

Shakespeare’s masterpiece of the turbulence of war and the arts of peace tells the romantic story of Henry’s campaign to recapture the English possessions in France. But the ambitions of this charismatic king are challenged by a host of vivid characters caught up in the real horrors of war. Henry V, which opened the new Globe with the words ‘O for a muse of fire’, celebrates the power of language to summon into life courts, pubs, ships and battlefields within the ‘wooden O’ - and beyond.

National Theatre Live: Barber Shop Chronicles

For generations, African men have gathered in barber shops to discuss the world. These are places where the banter can be barbed and the truth is always telling. Follow along as we leap from a barber shop in Peckham to Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos and Accra over the course of a single day.