William Shakespeare
Hamlet
The full script in Final Draft, Word & PDF
Prince Hamlet, ordered by his father's ghost to avenge a murder, delays and unravels the court of Denmark.
PDFs Only
$4.99
- ✓ Stageplay PDF (151 pp.)
- ✓ Screenplay PDF (133 pp.)
- ✓ Instant download
Full Package
$12.99
- ✓ Final Draft (.fdx)
- ✓ Microsoft Word + RTF
- ✓ Screenplay + Stageplay PDFs
Need more than a few plays?
All 37 plays in every format cost $99, less than 8 single Full Packages. PDFs only: $55 for all 37.
- Genre
- Tragedy
- Written
- c. 1599–1601
- Setting
- Elsinore, Denmark
- Scenes
- 20
- Speaking roles
- 38
- Uncut running time
- ~3h 40m
What happens in Hamlet
Hamlet, prince of Denmark, is mourning his father when the ghost of the king tells him he was murdered by his brother Claudius, who has taken the crown and married Hamlet's mother Gertrude. Hamlet swears revenge but hesitates, adopting an antic disposition while he tests the truth. He stages a play that mirrors the murder and watches Claudius's reaction.
Hamlet then fails to kill Claudius at prayer and, mistaking Polonius for the king, kills him instead. Ophelia, Polonius's daughter, loses her reason and dies. Claudius sends Hamlet to England with orders for his death, but Hamlet escapes and returns. Laertes, Ophelia's brother, joins Claudius in a rigged fencing match. In the last scene, nearly everyone dies, and Fortinbras of Norway takes Denmark.
See the formatting
The first page of Act I, exactly as it appears in the files you download.
The biggest roles
Share of the play's spoken words, counted from the script. 38 characters speak; 23 of them have under 1% of the text — natural candidates for doubling.
| Role | Share of the text | Speeches |
|---|---|---|
| Hamlet | | 382 |
| King Claudius | | 117 |
| Lord Polonius | | 93 |
| Horatio | | 113 |
| Laertes | | 65 |
| Ophelia | | 63 |
| Queen Gertrude | | 72 |
| First Clown | | 35 |
For directors
Hamlet has about 39 percent of the words, one of the largest shares of any Shakespearean role, so the production stands or falls on that casting. Claudius takes 14, Polonius 9 and Horatio 7. Only four roles exceed 5 percent, while 38 speaking roles, 23 under 1 percent, support heavy doubling among courtiers, players and gravediggers. The uncut estimate of 220 minutes is long, so almost every production cuts to fit an evening.
Cutting notes
- Cut the Fortinbras political frame, including his marches across Denmark and arrival in the final scene.
- The Reynaldo episode at the start of Act II scene i is one of the most frequently omitted passages.
- Trim Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's scenes and the discussion of the boy actors in Act II scene ii.
For teachers
Students study revenge and delay, madness real and feigned, appearance and reality, and mortality. Frequently taught passages include the opening encounter with the Ghost, Hamlet's soliloquies, including the speech beginning "To be, or not to be", the play-within-the-play, the closet scene with Gertrude, and the graveyard scene. The play is the standard text for work on the soliloquy and on how textual variants shape interpretation.
Questions
Is this the complete, uncut text of Hamlet?
Yes. Every file contains the full play — 20 scenes and about 29,700 spoken words. Cut it yourself in Word or Final Draft to fit your running time.
What is the difference between the stageplay and screenplay layouts?
The stageplay layout indents stage directions and sets dialogue full-width, like a theatre script. The screenplay layout follows film conventions: scene headings and action flush left, character names centred, dialogue in a narrower column. Both tiers include both layouts as PDFs; the Full Package adds editable Final Draft and Word files of each.
Can I use this Hamlet script for a production or a class?
Yes. Shakespeare's plays are in the public domain, so there are no royalties to pay for staging them. Edit, stage, film or teach with these files.
How do I receive the files?
Right after checkout you land on a private download page, and the link is also emailed to you. It keeps working, so you can re-download any time.
