Anonymous is a political thriller and costume drama directed by Roland Emmerich. It stars Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 11 September 2011. Originally slated for world-wide release in a Shakespeare in Love-style opening, it was rescheduled for restricted release on 28 October 2011 in 265 theatres in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, a tenth of the average, after testing poorly in tracking surveys. It is produced by Centropolis Entertainment and Studio Babelsberg and distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Anonymous advocates and dramatizes the Prince Tudor theory variant of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, a literary and historical fringe theory proposed in 1920 that denies Shakespeare's authorship of the works ascribed to him and contends instead that the works of William Shakespeare were in fact written by an Elizabethan aristocrat, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. De Vere is depicted as a literary prodigy and the lover of the Queen, with whom he sires a son, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, to whom many believe the Sonnets of Shakespeare are dedicated. He eventually manages to get his suppressed plays performed through a frontman (Shakespeare) in order to support a rebellion led by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. The insurrection fails, and to save his son by the queen, he must renounce his right to be known as the author of Shakespeare's works. Emmerich depicts the historic Shakespeare as a murderous, illiterate simpleton.