Spies, crowns and Helen Mirren: 10 films and documentaries about the Queen

The role of the monarchy in film and at TIFF From The King's Speech to The King's Horseman, the monarchy has been a subject of discussion and reflection in the films shown at TIFF.

In 1953, thousands of British subjects crowded around newly purchased TVs to watch the Queen’s coronation.

Before this televised royal event, most British people didn’t even have television — they rushed out in droves to buy them so they would not miss this moment in history. But this would be far from the last time that audiences were enraptured at the image of the Queen on screen.

In the years since the Queen was crowned, she or a fictionalized version of her racked up a number of cameos or starring roles in theatrical films, TV specials and documentaries.

Here, we take a closer look at some of the notable films and documentaries about the Queen:

1. The Queen (2006)

This is the quintessential film for anyone wanting a more in-depth look into the Queen as a person.

The film, directed by Stephen Frears, took a very well-known event — the media circus around Diana’s car accident and the subsequent mourning of a nation — and focused on the impact on the Royal Family, with the Queen taking heat for not putting out an immediate public statement about the death of the Princess of Wales.

Lead actor Helen Mirren received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as the Queen.

Reviews at the time called the film "the best PR (the Queen) ever received up to that date,” according to Mandy Merck, a University of London professor and contributor and editor to the book “The British Monarchy on Screen.”

“And that's because she's portrayed in a very sympathetic way,” Merck told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview, “as a very conflicted working woman who is, like all melodramatic Helens, torn between duty and desire.”

Instead of placing the Queen at a distance, the film brought viewers into her attempts to balance the two sides of her life. One was her personal responsibilities and emotions — such as her concerns for her grandchildren, Princes William and Harry, who just lost their mother. The other was her responsibilities to her people, thousands of whom had gathered outside of Buckingham Palace, hoping to hear their Queen echo their grief.

Merck mused that this film encapsulated well the multi-faceted role the Queen played for the nation. Although she was a figurehead, people engaged with her on an emotional level as well, Merck said.

“Probably she does represent some sort of super grandparent to people now and I think probably her death will be a sad, very sad reckoning, for many people in the country,” she said.

2. The Coronation (2018)

Almost every documentary featuring the Queen is done in the “fly on the wall” style, where cameras follow a subject around and observe. Although other royals have opened up to the press, the Queen is known for not doing on-camera interviews, which is what makes this BBC One documentary stand out.

“What's really interesting is the way she kind of relaxes with the man interviewing her, who is just a royal reporter,” Merck said. “Maybe he's more on the posh end of royal reporters, but he's not somebody from her background.”

The focus is what the Queen remembers of her coronation. At one point, the conversation shifts to the jewel-encrusted crown the Queen wore that day, Merck said.

“And she says, kind of grimly, ‘You can't bend your head, or your neck would break,’” Merck said.

Other details of the lavish ceremony were described, Merck said, including things such as the heavily gilded gold coach the Queen rode in which lacked proper supports, and the immense cloak she wore in the procession which limited her movement. This let the viewers hear the complex contradictions of luxury and discomfort from the Queen herself.

3. Happy and Glorious (2012)

All right, it’s not a feature-length film. It’s barely more than five minutes long. But it is the only time that two British icons, the Queen and James Bond, have shared the screen—and jumped out of a helicopter together.

This short film, directed by Danny Boyle, was played at the beginning of the 2012 London Olympics. In it, a suited, stern James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) marches into Buckingham Palace and escorts the Queen — played not by an actress, but by the Queen herself — to a helicopter to travel to the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. The footage of the spy and the Queen is laced together with video of an actual helicopter hovering over the stadium, creating the illusion that the Queen herself has jumped out to parachute down for the event.

Anyone who watched the Queen channel Judi Dench’s M as she gives Craig a cool, “Good evening, Mr. Bond,” over her shoulder, understands why this moment cannot be left off this list.

4. The Royal Family (1969)

It could be called the lost documentary.

This was the first documentary to really peer into the daily lives of the royal family, but it was shelved only a few years after it was first put out: the last time the documentary has been shown in its entirety was in 1972.

Short clips of it have been shown at times since, such as when scenes were part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2011, but for the most part, it has been kept under wraps.

“It’s a key moment because it does kind of show a domestic Royal Family,” Merck said.

Some of the scenes include the Royals barbecuing — which was borrowed for Frears’ “The Queen” decades later, in a tongue-in-cheek reference.

Although the decision to lock the documentary in the proverbial vault might have been due in part to the fear that “the Royal Family’s mystique would be destroyed by too careful of scrutiny of their ordinariness,” Merck said, the film was certainly not considered a failure. According to Merck, the man who directed it, Richard Cawston, went on to direct the Queen’s Christmas speeches for many years.

5. A Royal Night Out (2015)

A rare light-hearted look at the Queen’s youth starred Canadian actress Sarah Gadon, of “Alias Grace” fame. This film follows the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret (played by Bel Powley) on VE Day in 1945, when they ask to go celebrate hidden among the people. Although they both initially have chaperones, they quickly slip away from them and go on an adventure through London.

6. A Queen is Crowned (1953)

The one that started them all: this documentary came out after the coronation, and condensed the events that the British people had watched unfold in real time on their television screens during the live broadcast.

It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, and won a Golden Globe for the same thing, in a category that no longer exists.

7. Walking the Dogs (2015)

This half-hour piece, part of a series of one-off TV dramas called “Playhouse Presents,” stars Emma Thompson as the Queen. It is based on a real-life event from 1982, when an intruder broke into Buckingham Palace and entered the Queen’s bedroom.

The actual intruder, a man named Michael Fagan, has said that no conversation of length occurred between the two when he broke in, but it’s far more interesting to imagine that the Queen might’ve stood her ground and had a chat with the unexpected visitor in her room — and that’s just what “Walking the Dogs” gives us.

8. A Question of Attribution (1991)

This BBC TV movie was based on a 1988 play of the same name, which likely was the first serious portrayal of the Queen in a fictional piece of art, according to Merck.

Cameos of the Queen as a character before then had largely been in comedy films, she explained, or in American made-for-TV biopics about Charles and Diana’s romance.

The plot of the play and the film, both written by Alan Bennett, follows Anthony Blunt, art adviser to the Queen and a former Soviet spy. In this, the characterization of the Queen was as an intelligent, enigmatic figure; in the main scene between Blunt and the Queen, the tension revolves around whether or not she is aware of his position as a former spy.

The film won a BAFTA for Best Single Drama in 1992, and Prunella Scales was nominated for a best actress BAFTA for her performance as the Queen.

9. The Queen in Australia (1954)

The last two documentaries on this list are “royal tour” style documentaries. This one, directed by Stanley Hawes, was the first colour film ever made in Australia, and covered the recently crowned Queen’s trip to Australia.

The film is interesting in retrospect for its depiction of racism in the Commonwealth, as discussed in “The British Monarchy On Screen.” For example, shots of the crowds gathering at road sides and climbing trees in hopes of a glimpse of the Queen are common in the film — but are distinctly white. The book describes how Indigenous Australians are thus erased from the general population within the scope of the camera, but are highlighted by filmmakers and tour organizers for the Queen as long as they are “performing their difference,” by dancing or throwing boomerangs to entertain the royal procession.

10. “Royal Journey” (1951)

And we can’t talk about royal tour documentaries without including one where the Queen visits Canada. This documentary follows then-Princess Elizabeth, who had not yet taken the throne, on a five-week trip across Canada with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.

It won a Canadian Film Award for best theatrical feature-length documentary, and also won a BAFTA in 1952 for best documentary film.