King Lear is a 1916 silent film classical drama directed by Ernest C. Warde and starring his father, the noted stage actor Frederick Warde. This film was made in 1916 in time to coincide with the 300th anniversary celebrations of William Shakespeare's death. A spate of Shakespearean films were produced at this time one for example is the famous lost film Macbeth. Four years earlier Frederick Warde starred in Richard III a once lost film rediscovered in the 1990s and now considered the oldest surviving feature film made in the United States.