Did Ophelia ask Hamlet to bed?
Was Gertrude incestuously wed?
Is anything certain?
By the fall of the curtain
Almost everyone's certainly dead.

— A. Cinna, found in The Penguin Book of Limericks

Hamlet is probably Shakespeare's best-known play (although Romeo And Juliet gives it stiff competition for that), and certainly his most over-analyzed. It is very widely considered the most important work of literature in the English language.

Shakespeare did not invent the story of Hamlet's quest to bring the murderer of his father to justice. The earliest surviving "record" is in the twelfth-century Gesta Danorum ("Deeds of the Danes"), by Saxo Grammaticus, wherein Hamlet — or Amleth (Amlóði) as he's called in that version — is shown as a legendary character who succeeds in destroying his uncle and becoming king, only to die in a later battle. The story was abbreviated and amended numerous times and had been presented as a play in English more than once when Shakespeare decided to tackle the story. By that time it had been changed almost beyond recognition — Hamlet's mother, who had originally been forced to marry her brother-in-law, was now an accessory to his usurpation of the throne, while Hamlet had been turned into a Christian and aged a number of years.

Even more than is usual for Shakespeare, Hamlet is filled with expressions that have become clichés; examples include "Hoist By His Own Petard," "The lady doth protest too much," "Frailty, thy name is woman," and "The play's the thing." Oh, and something about whether or not to be that was really difficult to translate into Klingon.

Trope Namer for:

Notable productions include

A 1948 film starring and directed by Laurence Olivier, which remains the only filmed Shakespeare to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. This is a heavily cut version (excluding such characters as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern entirely), with a murky Gothic aesthetic, and a prominent Freudian leaning (it carries Playing Gertrude to extremes—the actress playing Gertrude was eleven years younger than Olivier!)
A 1961 German made-for-TV production starring Maximillian Schell as Hamlet (with Ricardo Montalban dubbing Claudius into English). This version is most notable for being featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
A 1980 BBC production starring Derek Jacobi and directed by Rodney Bennett. This is an almost full-text production, made as part of the BBC's complete Shakespeare series. Also notable for featuring Patrick Stewart as Claudius.
A 1990 film starring Mel Gibson and directed by Franco Zefirelli. This is heavily cut and rearranged and ~~probably~~ even more Freudian than the Olivier version. However, Gibson was praised for playing a youthful, energetic Hamlet (despite being thirty-three years old...).
Another 1990 version is a filmed version of the play starring Kevin Kline.
A 1996 film starring and directed by Kenneth Branagh. This is a highly lavish, cinematic full-text^*
^{with the exception of a few transposed lines, and thus clocking in at around 246 minutes long}
version set in the 1800s, which includes BRIAN BLESSED (as the Ghost) and a Falling Chandelier Of Doom. Oh, and Robin Williams as Osric.
A 2000 film directed by Michael Almereyda. Claudius is the CEO of Denmark Corp., and Hamlet is a disaffected film student.
Director Gregory Doran's 2008 production for the RSC had David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius. A film version was released in January 2010.

Since Hamlet is almost always performed with cuts (performing the whole thing usually takes nigh on four hours), arguably every production is an adaptation. Still, sometimes the basic idea is what's adapted, more or less faithfully, and little or none of the original language is used.

Some notable adaptations include:

The German play Hamletmaschine by Heiner Müller, a celebrated surrealist adaptation of Hamlet which still enjoys frequent performances 30 years after it was written... despite being completely incomprehensible.
Playwright Tom Stoppard wrote a Lower Deck Episode version called Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. It was later made into a film with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.
Several weird internet versions, including:
- The text adventure.
- The stick figure version
- The Manga version —Currently incomplete (but up to Act III) and starring characters from the anime Slayers.
- Gamelet, an in-production video game with a You Will Be Beethoven premise.
- The Facebook news feed edition.
The Lion King is a rather loose adaptation by Disney. Minus the downer ending, obviously.

Many of the aforementioned film versions of the play, plus several others (nine total), are compared and contrasted in this neat little article

Tropes include:

Agent Scully: Horatio.
Alas Poor Yorick: The Trope Namer.
Alternate Character Interpretation: The debates have been raging unabated for 400 years.
- Hamlet: Insane, or faking it? Too Good For This Sinful Earth prince manipulated into evil^*
  ^{No, seriously; this was in vogue in the 19th century.}
  ? Deeply troubled youth wrestling with moral and honor codes? Spineless whiny git who killed in cold blood many times before hitting his actual mark? All of the above?
- Ophelia: Sweet but fragile girl who got caught in the political crossfire between her father and boyfriend? Pathetic and stupid doormat who got what was coming to her?
  - Or, as was the trend in the psychoanalytic interpretations of the 1960s and 1970s, a sexually-frustrated young woman torn between her lust for her Hamlet and her lust for—wait for it—Laertes. Hey, we said 'overanalyzed', didn't we?
  - "Cut the crap, Hamlet! My biological clock is ticking and I want babies NOW!"
- Horatio: Motivated by friendship and loyalty? Something else entirely? Is he even Danish? Did he even know Hamlet very well beforehand? If not, what the hell is he doing in Denmark?
- Fortinbras: Noble war hero who acted the most logically and justly of the cast? Bloodthirsty barbarian prince who's willing to send hundreds to their deaths for a scrap of land? Deus Ex Machina on legs? Expy for King James?
- Polonius: Magnificent Bastard or stupid, stupid, stupid bastard?
- Gertrude: Loving mother forced to marry her brother-in-law to save her son's life or deceitful accomplice in a palace coup? (Some believe that Hamlet's emphasis on revenge over capturing the throne for himself implies that Gertrude was the queen regnant, and both Hamlet's father and Claudius were only kings consort — which at the time would have made them the rulers, not her. If this is the case, the play may also have been in part Shakespeare's approval of Elizabeth I's unmarried status.
- King Hamlet: Ever read ~~Macbeth~~ The Scottish Play? There's this great line: "and oftentime, to win us to or harms, the instruments of darkness tell us truths." King Hamlet states he went to hell. Consider if the above quote applies to him, if he's actually an evil spirit. Mind you, some scholars would say that any good Elizabethan would consider any spirit as an evil one.
Anachronism Stew: Hamlet attends a university that was not founded until 300 years after the play was set.
Anti Hero
Author Filibuster: Hamlet's famous lecture on properly acting a scene he'd written.
Beam Me Up Scotty: Many, including "Hoist By His Own Petard", "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," and "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well."
Black And Gray Morality: Few if any of the primary characters are indisputably virtuous.
Bluffing The Murderer: Hamlet's reason for staging The Murder of Gonzago.
Break The Cutie: Ophelia. See also Butt Monkey, Kill The Cutie, and The Woobie.
Butt Monkey: Ophelia. Except it's not played for humor. See also Break The Cute, Kill The Cutie, and The Woobie.
Captain Obvious: Polonius is the master of this trope. Appropriately enough, his last words are, "O! I am slain!"
- Several minor characters in the play find themselves playing this trope as Hamlet verbally spars with them; they revert to saying inanities because they're so vastly outmatched in wit — witty though they might be compared with almost anyone in almost any other play.
Comforting The Widow: Claudius "comforts" Gertrude. It helps win him the throne. (On the other hand, he does seem to genuinely love her.)
- It is not an unpopular theory that the throne was an afterthought and Claudius killed the king solely for Gertrude.
Dead Baby Comedy: Hamlet's roundabout explanation for what happened to Polonius's body.
Dead Person Conversation: With the ghost of King Hamlet.
Deconstruction: Of the "revenge drama" in vogue at the time.
Defeat Means Friendship: At least between Laertes and Hamlet. Even if said defeat results in death.
Does Not Like Shoes: In many adaptations — theatrical productions, films, paintings, etc. — Ophelia is barefoot during the mad scene.
Double Entendre: Ubiquitous throughout the entire play. Let these guys do it instead. Scroll down to #2 .
"Do you think I mean country matters?"
- The 2008 RSC production made this into a Single Entendre by leaving a pause between the first and second syllables of 'country'.
Due To The Dead
Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory
Emo Teen: Hamlet, the original emo kid, dresses all in black and pontificates about suicide.
Evil Uncle: Claudius.
Fatal Flaw: It's widely agreed that Hamlet has one. There's rather less agreement on what, specifically, it is.
Fridge Logic: Several issues.
Get Thee To A Nunnery: The Trope Namer.
Good Night Sweet Prince: The Trope Namer.
Gondor Calls For Aid: Fortinbras's entrance is somewhere between this and Deus Ex Machina.
Hoist By His Own Petard: The Trope Namer. Claudius and Laertes are killed by their own poison; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern deliver their own death warrant, thinking it's Hamlet's.
Hurricane Of Aphorisms: Polonius.
Hurricane Of Puns: The whole play.
Hypocritical Humor: Polonius. For example, he gives the well-known line "brevity is the soul of wit", but then follows it up by rambling on unnecessarily, while giving advice that he himself doesn't follow.
Ho Yay: More than one person has wondered if Hamlet/Horatio might not be the Official Couple.
Ignored Epiphany: Claudius comes to realize what evil he's done, but keeps right on being evil.
My words fly up: my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Karmic Death: Ophelia and King Hamlet didn't suffer this. Everyone else who died — i.e., almost the entire cast — did, in one way or another.
Kick The Dog: In the 1990 and 1996 film adaptations, Laertes explicitly breaks the rules of the dueling conduct to wound and poison Hamlet. In the lines of the play, Claudius lets Gertrude drink from a cup of wine he knowingly poisoned for Hamlet to drink, only telling her to not drink from it (which she does anyway) as opposed to rushing over to ensure she doesn't — despite earlier claiming that he really does love her.
- The second bit differs by production. Derek Jacobi in Branagh's film version is visibly shaken at not being able to stop her from drinking.
Kill Em All: The play has become famous for this, even though it was a standard trope in tragedy at the time. Actually, Horatio and Fortinbras are both still alive at play's end.
Kill Him Already: A major part of the premise.
Kill The Cutie: Ophelia.
Like A Weasel: The Trope Namer. Polonius is like this all the time.
- Osric, too.
Love Hurts: It also kills.
Mad Oracle: Possibly Ophelia, in her mad scene.
Malicious Slander: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny."
The Masochism Tango: Hamlet's terrible treatment of Ophelia.
Nietzsche Wannabe: "What a piece of work is man ... and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me."
The Ophelia: Another Trope Namer.
Pet The Dog: Claudius prays and confesses his sins, unaware that Hamlet is watching him. He also states that it will not be enough to absolve him as he still benefits from his sins.
Politically Correct History: The Kenneth Brannagh version has many black people. In Scandinavia.
Rasputinian Death: Claudius. Although it's likely Hamlet's determination to make sure he's Killed Off For Real.
Recursive Canon
Revenge: Hamlet was written in the tradition of the revenge tragedies that were popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
Rocks Fall Everyone Dies: The final scene sees most of the cast dead with almost farcical suddenness.
Seinfeld Is Unfunny: The sheer number of lines in the play that have become established expressions in English can make it seem like all Shakespeare has done is just string a bunch of clichés together.
Show Within A Show: The Murder of Gonzago.
Spin Off: Many, many, many. The most famous is Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. A more recent example is John Updike's novel Gertrude and Claudius.
Stealth Insult: Hamlet's weapon of choice.
Surrogate Soliloquy: The Alas Poor Yorick bit.
Sword Fight: Hamlet vs. Laertes.
That Cloud Looks Like
Those Two Guys: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Tragic Hero
Tragic Mistake: Hamlet's downfall can be traced back to the moment where he sees Claudius at prayer and decides to wait until later to avenge his father.
Upper Class Twit: Polonius. Osric.
Wangst: Numerous references are made to Hamlet's depression.
What An Idiot: Pointer: if you have the perfect opportunity to kill the villain, even if he'll go to heaven for saying his prayers, take it! You could spare yourself a lot of tragedy.
- Especially since when Claudius is done praying he reveals that he didn't really mean anything he prayed for.
- Also, Hamlet chose to pretend to be insane for no reason at all. No one except Horatio and the guards (who were sworn to secrecy) had any idea that King Hamlet's ghost told them about the murder. Not only was Hamlet's act pointless but it made Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius suspicious, which just made things worse for Hamlet. Note: this assumes that Hamlet is, in fact, sane; some scholars argue that he actually does go bonkers.
What Happened To The Mouse: Reynaldo is an agent of Polonius's sent to both spy on and ruin the reputation of Laertes when the latter leaves for France. Whatever actual impact Reynaldo has on anything is never touched on, and he hasn't returned to Denmark by the end of the play.
The Woobie: Ophelia. See also Break The Cutie, Kill The Cutie, and Butt Monkey.
- Almost everybody, depending on your point of view.
Writers Cannot Do Math: Hamlet is at least 27 if his memory of Yorick is to be believed, but he was studying at Wittenberg University when his father died (see Anachronism Stew above). In Shakespeare's time, most university students were teenagers. People seem to forget this when insisting that Hamlet must be thirty years old.
- There is a theory that Shakespeare originally wrote for Hamlet to been in his teens but somewhere towards the end decided to age him up so a specific actor could play the part.
You Killed My Father