Movies starring Helen Mirren

With The Queen, Stephen Frears has at least two items on his agenda: to humanize the head of the British monarchy while at the same time indicating how far removed she has become from the concerns of her subjects. He also poses questions about the...

Not to be confused with the early-'90s Kieslowski film of the same name. Definitely not. Sometimes, casting makes a difference. Under the stewardship of the same director with the same screenplay, Red might be an enjoyable-but-forgettable late...

I'm not sure whose idea it was to turn Red into a movie franchise. The first film, based on the DC Comics graphic novel, was an enjoyable throw-away, but there was nothing about the movie or its modest box office success that cried out for a second...

The second Shazam! movie, sequel to the 2019 modest success, is an undercooked casserole of cliched narrative elements, underdeveloped characters, juvenile humor, and a deus ex machina cameo. It embodies all that’s bad about modern superhero mov...

In 1979, when Margaret Thatcher assumed the role of England's Prime Minister, one of her stated aims was to crush the IRA and its associated "terrorism." Her "Northern Ireland Solution", as it became known, included three principles: Isolation, C...

The three screenwriters (Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, Billy Ray) credited with adapting Paul Abbott's mini-series into a motion picture have done something remarkable: reduce five hours of material into less than two hours and still produ...

If there's anything disgusting or grotesque that The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover doesn't dabble in, I'm at a loss to figure out what it is. This film, a wildly exuberant, bitingly satirical examination of excess, bad taste, and grea...

Hollywood loves stories about crusading lawyers. For as long as there have been movies, there have been courtroom dramas and, although attorneys may be regarded with skepticism in the real world, they are more often than not heroic on-screen. Althoug...