Yentl is a 1983 musical directed by and starring Barbra Streisand.

Poland, 1904. Yentl is a young Jewish girl who lives in a shtetl, a rural village. Left alone with her father, a bookseller and rabbi, she has a strong interest in Jewish sacred texts, knowing every passage. She feels no predisposition for the preconceived role of wife, mother and submissive housewife, nor attraction to any man in the neighborhood, probably because no one is up to her standards.
Left alone after her parent's death, unable to escape the psychological pressure of the villagers, she disguises herself as a boy and runs away, uncertain about her future but determined to study the sacred texts, forbidden to women at the time. Chance takes her to a yeshiva, a Jewish religious school, where she introduces herself as Anshel, using the name of her deceased little brother. Inside the school, she strikes up a strong friendship with her classmate Avigdor, but soon realizes she loves him.
When he despairs at being rejected by his future in-laws, who force him to break off his engagement to the beautiful Hadass, Yentl, forced by events and her love for him, agrees to cover up the scandal by marrying his fiancée. Thus begins a strange situation in which everyone loves the other and everyone is unhappy: Yentl has more and more difficulty justifying the unconsummated marriage and pines for Avigdor, his young wife Hadass turns out to be much less naive than expected, Avigdor cannot bear to see his ex-fiancée slowly fall in love with her husband. Pressured by Hadass, sad for her beloved Avigdor, Yentl gives in and reveals to her friend that she is a woman and that she loves him deeply. At first the young man has a reaction of rejection, even violent. Then he softens and seems to reciprocate her love by declaring his willingness to run away and marry her. Yentl, however, turns out to be wiser and more far-sighted. The irreplaceable friend, the enlightened mind that attracted her so much, has a narrow, conventional mentality towards women. The esteem he feels for the non-existent boy Anshel, for the woman Yentl would vanish in a short time, drowned in the need for a "real" woman: wife, mother, cook, an ignorant companion incapable of independent thoughts. So Yentl leaves Poland and embarks for the United States of America, where women are freer, leaving Avigdor free to marry Hadass and return happily to his destiny.