Jeremy Irons hosts a Beckett showcase featuring new film adaptations of seven short works performed and directed by leading names of stage and screen, including David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Anthony Minghella, Kristin Scott Thomas, Alan Rickman, and John Gielgud.


To mark the 50th anniversary of the world premiere of Beckett's best-known work, "Waiting for Godot," STAGE ON SCREEN presents a new film version directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

BECKETT ON FILM -- the first-ever cinematic screening of all 19 of Samuel Beckett's plays -- was created to bring this writer's remarkable canon of work to a wider audience through an easily accessible medium. Each of the 19 films' directors chose the play they wished to direct and hand selected the cast they wished to work with. They were not allowed to change any of the text and they had to adhere to Beckett's specific directions for each work. The result is a unique collaboration among some of the most distinguished directors and actors working today. Produced by Michael Colgan and Alan Moloney of Blue Angel Films, the "Beckett on Film" project is an RTE co-production in association with Channel 4 and Bord Scannán na hÉireann/The Irish Film Board.

STAGE ON SCREEN: BECKETT ON FILM and STAGE ON SCREEN: WAITING FOR GODOT were made possible by funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Dorothy and Lewis Cullman, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Cornelius V. Starr Fund for Arts Programming at Thirteen/WNET New York, and PBS.