Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
91
(37 sources)
91
(37 sources)
-
100
New York Magazine
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. Read Full Review » -
100
The New York Times
A sublimely nimble evisceration of that cult of celebrity known as the British royal family. Read Full Review » -
100
Christian Science Monitor
Helen Mirren gives the mostly subtly expressive performance based on a living historical figure that I've ever seen. Read Full Review » -
100
New York Post
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. Read Full Review » -
100
LA Weekly
Politically shrewd, unexpectedly funny yet immaculately tasteful docudrama. Read Full Review » -
100
USA Today
The Queen is the kind of thought-provoking, well-written and savvy film that discerning filmgoers long for but rarely get. Read Full Review » -
100
Boston Globe
A subtle, often very funny, ultimately touching tragedy of royal manners and meaning. Read Full Review » -
100
Philadelphia Inquirer
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. Read Full Review » -
100
Chicago Sun-Times
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. Read Full Review » -
100
San Francisco Chronicle
An absolute delight, combining the cheap thrills of a biopic with the gentler, but more lasting, pleasures of a brilliant character study. Read Full Review » -
100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
So magnificent in so many ways that, for the first time, it seems to raise the docudrama to high art. Read Full Review » -
100
Baltimore Sun
Mirren brings intellect, humor and romance to the role of Elizabeth II. Read Full Review » -
91
Portland Oregonian
The Queen is all-together remarkable not only for what it is but for what it isn't. Read Full Review » -
91
The Onion (A.V. Club)
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. Read Full Review » -
91
Entertainment Weekly
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. Read Full Review » -
90
Slate
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. Read Full Review » -
90
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90
The Hollywood Reporter
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. Read Full Review » -
90
Variety
Tradition and informality collide -- and mutually benefit -- in the deliciously written and expertly played The Queen. Read Full Review » -
90
Los Angeles Times
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. Read Full Review » -
90
Salon.com
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. Read Full Review » -
90
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90
Chicago Reader
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. Read Full Review » -
89
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88
Chicago Tribune
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. Read Full Review » -
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
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. Read Full Review » -
88
Premiere
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. Read Full Review » -
88
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88
Rolling Stone
One of the best and liveliest movies of the year - funny and touching in ways you can't predict. Read Full Review » -
88
New York Daily News
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. Read Full Review » -
80
Village Voice
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. Read Full Review » -
80
Washington Post
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. Read Full Review » -
80
Empire
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. Read Full Review » -
80
Time
Mirren, who won an Emmy playing Elizabeth I for HBO, may deserve an Oscar for this ripe appraisal of Elizabeth II. Read Full Review » -
80
The New Republic
Whatever the virtues of The Queen--and it certainly has them--it simply would not exist without Mirren. Read Full Review » -
75
Miami Herald
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. Read Full Review » -
70
The New Yorker
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. Read Full Review »
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