Movies starring Helen Mirren

If the score of Immortal Beloved is remarkable, that of The Madness of King George is no less so. With the clear strains of Handel's "Water Music" and "Zadok the Priest" in the background, The Madness of King George ascends to a level that it migh...

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...

For many centuries, those producing mass entertainment have recognized the inherent drama and majesty in the story of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt. The tale has inspired countless plays, a renowned oratorio (Handel's "Israel in Egypt"), and one of...

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...

Eye in the Sky provides a comprehensive cross-section of the logistics, procedures, and tolls associated with something that’s now taken for granted in modern warfare: a drone attack. For the average citizen, this seems to be a relatively straightf...

The 16-year wait between the 1968 opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the 1984 release of 2010 doesn't represent the longest interval between a movie and its direct sequel (that distinction probably belongs to Gone With the Wind/Scarlett, although...

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...

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...

Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), or - more properly - Lev Tolstoy, is one of the two best-known 19th century Russian authors. His masterpieces, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are required reading in many high school and college literature clas...

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...