Romeo and Juliet is certainly one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, and may be more a part of our everyday culture than any of his other plays. Nearly all of Shakespeare's plays are based on other sources. For Romeo and Juliet, he used an English poetic retelling of an old Italian tale: Arthur Brooke's The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet. But it was the way he told the story, the language that was used, that has forever linked his name with those of the star-crossed lovers. The play was written in the early 1590's, before Shakespeare had been established as a preeminent playwright. Its themes of love, hate and destiny are as popular now as they were 400 years ago, which can be seen in the numerous modern adaptations of the story. These adaptations range from several film versions (including most famously the Franco Zeffirelli version of 1968, and well as the Baz Luhrmann adaptation of 1996), Tchaikovsky's ballet, and Gunod's opera. The story has also been used as a basis for new pieces, such as West Side Story. The Academy-award winning movie Shakespeare in Love is a fictional look at how the play came to be written.