Sophocles

A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.

A fearless Antigone, refusing to allow the dishonored body of her murdered brother Polynices to be devoured by vultures and dogs, defies the Thebian tyrant Creon by burying him.

This classic Greek tale tells how a noble youth accidentally marries his own mother, kills his own father and ends up paying a terrible price for invoking the wrath of the Gods.

In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Oedipus, and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…

Living in exile after the death of their father, the grown children of a murdered and usurped king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.

On the streets of a damp metropolis lie the corpses of hundreds and hundreds of boys and girls. No one can give them a resting place because of a law enacted by a repressive State. But the young Antigone, with the help of a foreigner, Tiresias, violates this rule in the name of pietas, undermining the established order.

En route to Thebes for an important diplomatic mission, Hercules drinks from a magic spring and loses his memory. He spends most of the movie in the pleasure gardens of Queen Omphale of Lydia. While young Ulysses tries to help him regain his memory, political tensions escalate in Thebes, and Hercules' new wife Iole finds herself in mortal danger.

The Oedipus Project is an innovative new digital initiative by Theater of War Productions that will present acclaimed actors performing scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a catalyst for powerful, healing online conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon diverse communities throughout the world. Sophocles’ ancient play, written and performed in 429 BC during the time of a plague that killed one-third of the Athenian population, is a timeless story of arrogant leadership, ignored prophecy, and a pestilence that ravages the city of Thebes. At the time the play was first performed, the audience would have been reeling in the wake of a pestilence and its economic, political, and social aftermath. Seen through this lens Oedipus the King appears to have been a powerful public health tool for helping Athenians communalize the trauma of the plague, through a story that is as relevant now as it was in its own time.

Edipo, is appointed mayor of a town plunged in misery and violence. His first mission is to discover and punish the murderers of Layo, a well-known potentate of the region. His investigation is directed towards all the armed factions that exist in Colombia.

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.

Sophie Deraspe’s adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy of the same name reimagines the story of a woman’s quest for justice as a commentary on the immigrant experience in contemporary Montreal.

It is election night. Oedipus is on the verge of a massive victory. The country has not known a leader for many years since Laius' death. The ambitions are great. Oedipus wants to create a future, create a new way of life. He also insists, if elected, that the investigation into the death of his predecessor is reopened. In the meanwhile, in the half-empty campaign headquarters, Oedipus is surprised by his family - mother, wife and children - with a dinner. An old incident is thereby brought up. Gradually, Oedipus discovers that his past is very different from what he has always thought. During his research, the pieces of the puzzle fall together. Oedipus tries to control his fate, but discovers that he has been seeing blind all along.

In a final battle for the control of Thebes, Oedipus's two sons kill each other. Creon issues an order that no one is to bury Polynices upon pain of death. But Antigone is determined that her brother's body will have the proper rites of burial.

The story of Oedipus' gradual discovery of his primal crime, killing his father and marrying his mother, filmed by the famed British theatrical director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. This elegant version of Sophocles' play adds a brilliant stroke: the actors wear masks just as the Greeks did in the playwright's day.

Plagues are ravaging Thebes, and the blind fortune-teller Tieresias tells Oedipus, the King, that the gods are unhappy. The murder of the former king has gone unavenged, and Oedipus sets out to find the killer.

Oedipus's wanderings come to an end when he finds his final resting place, as foretold by the gods. But his brother-in-law and his son each try to take him away.

A young policeman of Moroccan origin investigates the murder of an informer. His investigations soon lead him to question his own past.

There was war, as always. A war of brothers. Now it's over. The time has come to praise the fallen and denounce the traitors. Two of Antigone's brothers fell in the war, one was declared a hero and received a state funeral, the other a traitor. His body was abandoned without a grave, food for the birds of the sky. According to King Creon's order, anyone who tries to bury him - will be killed. Antigone, armed with a shovel and a conscience, sets out alone to fight against the law and for the heart and ignites a battle between morality and politics, between family and people, between a young girl and an old ruler.

In Thebes in ancient Greece, King Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother Jocasta, having two sons - Eteocles and Polyneices - and two daughters - Ismene and Antigone. King Oedipus dies a beggar in the exile after gouging out his own eye, and Eteocle agrees to reign in Thebes in alternating years with Polynices. However, he refuses to resign after the first year and Polynieces raises an army and attacks Thebes, and they kill each other. The ruler of Thebes Creon decrees that Eleocles should have an honorable burial while the body of the traitor Polyneices should be left on the battlefield to be eaten by the jackals and vultures. However, Antigone, who was betrothed to Creon's surviving son Haemon, defies Creon's orders and buries her brother. When Creon is reported of the attitude of Antigone, he sentences her to be placed in a tomb alive. Antigone hangs herself in the tomb and Haemon tries to kill his father first and then he kills himself with his sword...

With fierce originality, this powerful adaptation of the Sophocles tragedy presents a world of honor, treachery and fateful consequences. Acclaimed actress Genevieve Bujold skillfully combines elements of zealotry and idealism in her affecting portrait of Antigone. Jean Anouilh's retelling of "Antigone" stages the inescapably wrenching central confrontation between Antigone and Creon by presenting Bujold and Fritz Weaver seated at a long, executive-suite table--a hallmark of Anouilh's play.