Queen, The

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The Queen is the most reverent irreverent comedy imaginable. Or maybe it's the most irreverent reverent comedy. Either way, it's a small masterpiece.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A sublimely nimble evisceration of that cult of celebrity known as the British royal family.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Helen Mirren gives the mostly subtly expressive performance based on a living historical figure that I've ever seen.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

All hail the great Helen Mirren, who after her triumph in HBO's "Elizabeth," delivers the performance of a lifetime as that monarch's frumpy, 20th century namesake in Stephen Frear's witty, touching and engrossing The Queen.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Politically shrewd, unexpectedly funny yet immaculately tasteful docudrama.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The Queen is the kind of thought-provoking, well-written and savvy film that discerning filmgoers long for but rarely get.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A subtle, often very funny, ultimately touching tragedy of royal manners and meaning.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Piercingly funny and unexpectedly moving account of that odd couple, Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) and HRH Elizabeth II (majestic Helen Mirren) and their back-channels affair.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Queen is a spellbinding story of opposed passions -- of Elizabeth's icy resolve to keep the royal family separate and aloof from the death of the divorced Diana, who was legally no longer a royal, and of Blair's correct reading of the public mood.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

An absolute delight, combining the cheap thrills of a biopic with the gentler, but more lasting, pleasures of a brilliant character study.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

So magnificent in so many ways that, for the first time, it seems to raise the docudrama to high art.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Mirren brings intellect, humor and romance to the role of Elizabeth II.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The Queen is all-together remarkable not only for what it is but for what it isn't.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Mirren begins the film having her portrait painted, looking every inch the monarch and proud to play the part. By the end, she's let the pressure of one week, and maybe a lifetime, show in her eyes.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Helen Mirren's allure lies not in finding what's regal in every woman she plays, but in finding what's womanly in every royal.

Slate Dana Stevens

Helen Mirren is a goddess of an actress, and her Queen Elizabeth is maddening, hilarious, and deeply human, galumphing around the Balmoral estate in a tartan raincoat and waders as the Britain she thought she knew crumbles around her.

Newsweek Barbara Kantrowitz

Marvelous, and surprisingly intimate.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A fascinating mix of high-minded gossip and historical perspective, examines the clash of values -- of ritual and traditions versus media savvy and political ambition -- that leads to a crisis for the British monarchy.

Variety Derek Elley

Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

In a commanding performance that is as compelling as it is unexpected, Mirren has turned The Queen into something you never imagined it could be: a crackling dramatic story that's intelligent, thoughtful and moving.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Mirren's performance is glorious: Rather than impersonate the queen -- which would have been all too easy to do -- she reaches deeper to locate the buried, calcified thoughts and feelings that might guide this deeply inscrutable woman.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Marvelously smart, funny and entertaining film.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Helen Mirren's flinty performance as Elizabeth II is getting all the attention, but equally impressive is Peter Morgan's insightful script for this UK drama, which quietly teases out the social, political, and historical implications of the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The Queen is palace intrigue at its finest.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The film goes pretty easy on the royals in the end, and it's a flattering portrait of Blair. But it's not credulous. Frears may swim in the political mainstream with The Queen but he does so like a champion channel crosser.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Succeeding where most docudramas fail, it turns a slice of recent history into a revealingly intelligent entertainment, without being didactic at one extreme or sentimental at the other.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

The Queen is a surprisingly compassionate portrait (excepting Blair's reactionary wife with the "shallow curtsy") of a rigid pragmatist in denial over the monarchy's out-of-touch dysfunction.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Mirren, who's played her share of queens in the past, is hypnotic.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

One of the best and liveliest movies of the year - funny and touching in ways you can't predict.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

In some ways, The Queen is a comedy of manners - bad, good and archaic. The formal bowing and scraping surrounding Her Majesty is as hilarious as it is (apparently) accurate.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

More fun than any movie about the violent death of a 36-year-old woman has a right to be. It's also as exotic an English-language picture as the season is likely to bring.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Mirren's finely calibrated performance reveals a complex woman coping with a bewildering world, and Blair's growing sympathy for his beleaguered monarch gradually becomes ours. This nuanced compassion may not impress the real Queen Elizabeth II, but, for us commoners, it makes for a richer experience.

Empire Kim Newman

Fascinating, funny, wicked and to the point, this is an excellent film about a week every Briton over the age of 15 will remember vividly.

Time Richard Corliss

Mirren, who won an Emmy playing Elizabeth I for HBO, may deserve an Oscar for this ripe appraisal of Elizabeth II.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Whatever the virtues of The Queen--and it certainly has them--it simply would not exist without Mirren.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The Queen taps into the universal curiosity the world shares toward royal families -- an element of the movie that Frears wisely mines for gentle humor.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

How could Frears and his cast rise above the sins of the miniseries? One answer is the force of that cast...The other thing that rescues and refines The Queen is one of the basic bonuses of moviegoing, more familiar of late from documentaries like "Touching the Void" and "Capturing the Friedmans": you come out arguing.