One of Leonardo DiCaprio's most romantic movies is airing on TV tonight
Director Baz Luhrmann turned a famous English play on its head with a modern version
A film that is considered one of Leonardo DiCaprio's most romantic movies is airing on TV tonight (Friday, March 14) for free across the UK.
The 2000s saw DiCaprio begin his quest to be taken seriously as a leading man, beginning his partnership with Martin Scorsese in Gangs of New York, joining forces with Steven Spielberg in Catch Me If You Can and changing how we view dreams in Inception.
After showing he can be a villain in Django Unchained and The Wolf of Wall Street, DiCaprio finally won his Best Actor Oscar for his work in 2015's The Revenant.
Since his big accomplishment, DiCaprio has only appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Don't Look Up and the crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon
Prior to becoming one of the most acclaimed dramatic actors of our time, DiCaprio was viewed as Hollywood's sweetheart, in a way that's echoed today by Timothee Chalamet.
Making his screen-debut in direct-to-dvd horror flick Critters 3, every director wanted to cash in on DiCaprio's heartthrob status when he got his first Best Actor nomination just before he turned 20 with What's Eating Gilbert Grape.
Come 1996, DiCaprio became a bonafide superstar by appearing in Baz Luhrmann's modernized adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.
The ambitious version of the star-crossed lovers' tale, saw DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the roles of two teenagers who fall in love, despite them being members of feuding families.
Filling out the cast of the film that every teenager in the mid-90s had posters of up on their walls, was Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo, Miriam Margolyes, Harold Perrineau, Pete Postlethwaite, Paul Sorvino and Diane Venora.
Moving at an electric pace and flipping Shakespeare's story on its head, Luhrmann injects a level of insanity into the film in a way he would do later in his career with Moulin Rouge and Elvis.
Reflecting on the film's popularity in 2021, Luhrmann told Forbes: "How would Shakespeare address, make a film if he were here today, if that was his medium.
"Having grown up in the world of Shakespeare and then really doing a huge academic study of that idea and coming up with the language and collaborating, all ending up in Mexico to shoot in iambic pentameter with a bunch of young people in a totally creative world. The fact that it even got made is kind of bonkers.
"When we did it, I didn’t think that. I just thought like Well, why not? and then it went on of course to have the life it did and to think all this time later, 25 years later. I mean, the amount of R+J references. It has gone on. It’s ridiculous, really."
While Titanic may have become what DiCaprio was most known for the following year, this 1996 classic deserves its flowers too!
Romeo + Juliet airs on Friday, March 14, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 10.40pm.