Movies To Watch If You Love The Crown
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It's almost time for another round of royal intrigue. The Crown's fourth season premieres on Sunday, Nov. 15, and this season, it will be Emma Corrin's Princess Diana and Gillian Anderson's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who shake things up in Buckingham Palace. Season 4 of The Crown takes place in the 1970s and will feature a royal wedding, a burgeoning war, and some major friction over all of the changes afoot for both the Queen and the Commonwealth. Before the new season arrives to bring us all back to Britain, though, you might want to check out some other great movies on Netflix that you'll like if you love The Crown.
The King
For fans of The Crown, The King is the perfect companion piece. It also features a reluctant royal who is thrust into power unexpectedly and at a very young age. Timothée Chalamet stars in The King as Hal, a young prince who inherits the throne despite having turned his back on the palace and choosing a life among the commoners of England, following the sudden death of his father, King Henry IV.
Directed by David Michôd and also starring Robert Pattinson, Ben Mendelsohn, Sean Harris, and Lily-Rose Depp, The King presents the complicated relationship Hal has with the crown, including the challenges of governing over a turbulent kingdom while maintaining his relationship with his former mentor, Joel Edgerton's John Falstaff. Like The Crown, this period drama is full of stunning cinematography, a jaw-dropping battle sequence, and plenty of questions about what it really means to claim power over the people.
The Iron Lady
Before you get the chance to see Gillian Anderson hit the small screen as Britain's first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Crown Season 4, you can check out another stellar portrayal of her in the celebrated 2011 biopic The Iron Lady. Starring Meryl Streep as the titular political icon in an Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning performance, the pic is directed by Phyllida Lloyd and based on John Campbell's biographical book The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, from Grocer's Daughter to Prime Minister. It features Thatcher in the later years of her accomplished life, as she looks back on the inauspicious journey that brought her into the pages of history.
Alongside Streep, Alexandra Roach stars as the younger version of Thatcher, and The Crown's own Olivia Colman stars as Thatcher's daughter Carol. Other A-listers rounding out the celebrated film's cast include Jim Broadbent, Harry Lloyd, Iain Glen, and Richard E. Grant. For fans of The Crown, The Iron Lady is simply a must-watch companion piece.
The Two Popes
The Two Popes is a must-see, especially for fans of The Crown. The series lifts the veil on how those in positions of international power have behaved behind the scenes while managing major public crises, and that's just what you get with The Two Popes. The 2019 drama stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce as Pope Benedict XVI and then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (now, Pope Francis) and takes place amid the infamous Vatican leaks scandal of 2012.
In the Academy Award-nominated film, which was directed by Fernando Meirelles from Anthony McCarten's play The Pope, the leaders of the Catholic church must face the fallout over its involvement in allegations of corruption and blackmail. Like The Crown, the title characters in The Two Popes must navigate some very heavy and consequential matters of global importance, but at the same time, the major focus of the story remains firmly on the deep humanity of two people who know that the world sees as something more.
Spotlight
Another film that encapsulates a monumental moment in modern history with the same verve and care as The Crown is Spotlight, which centers on the consequences of a very different real-life scandal involving the Catholic church. Director Tom McCarthy's Academy Award-winning 2015 biographical drama dives into the true story of a power team of investigative journalists at The Boston Globe. Taking place in 2001, the team is assigned to uncover allegations of widespread sexual abuses and a systematic coverup effort shepherded by none other than the Boston Archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law, himself.
Not only is the investigation logistically difficult, but the team knows they're facing a centuries-old system that has influence over every corner of local society. The movie stars a bevy of top-tier actors, including Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, and Stanley Tucci and is celebrated for its powerful presentation of the fourth estate at its finest. The Crown fans will especially appreciate this movie's attention to the intrinsic, and sometimes damaging, relationship between church and state.
A Little Chaos
Gardening has never been quite as dramatic an endeavor as it is in A Little Chaos, a 2015 period film directed by legendary actor Alan Rickman. The pic stars Kate Winslet as Sabine, a French gardener who is hired to design a garden for Rickman's King Louis XIV. As the film's title suggests, Sabine has a bit of an eccentric flair when it comes to her botanical designs, and it takes some convincing for those close to the throne to embrace her wild style.
It's her effort to acclimate to the nuances of bourgeois society life that proves to be even messier, though. As the film unfolds, Sabine is exposed to some serious viciousness of the elite, and her experiences in the court are certainly reminiscent of some of the more intense personality clashes in The Crown. She also eventually has to come to terms with her own harrowing past, and it's this emotional reckoning that really drives this drama home.
Lady J
Another period drama with a high-society bent is the sultry 2018 French-language drama film Lady J, which is directed by Emmanuel Mouret and based on the novel Jacques the Fatalist. The film centers on a wealthy widow named Madame de la Pommeraye who seeks revenge on her opportunistic former lover, the Marquis des Arcis, after he abruptly breaks her heart.
By hiring a down-on-her-luck former socialite to pose as the titular Lady J to woo the undying affections of the Marquis, she hopes to watch as her manipulative machinations play out as something of a balm for her own wounds. For those fans of The Crown who relished the many moments of romantic intrigue and complicated affairs of the heart — particularly when it comes to Princess Margaret in her younger years – Lady J is sure to be a satisfying next stop.
My Week with Marilyn
My Week with Marilyn is another romantic drama filled with emotional wallops in a vintage setting. Starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, Simon Curtis' 2011 biopic centers on the legendary actress' difficulties and dalliances on the set of the film The Prince and the Showgirl, which led to many clashes between herself and director Laurence Olivier, played here by Kenneth Branagh.
Not only will fans of The Crown recognize some of the major landmarks scattered throughout the film's London setting, but My Week with Marilyn also offers a similarly engaging story of a woman who is larger than life to most people and yet more fragile than meets the eye — and still trying to figure out who she is on the inside. The all-star cast of the movie, which won Williams a Golden Globe for Best Actress, also includes Eddie Redmayne, Emma Watson, Dame Judi Dench, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Dougray Scott, and Phillip Jackson.
The Exception
There are a lot of old sayings about the relationship between love and war, and David Leveaux's 2016 film The Exception explores a lot of those maxims. It's set in the time period shortly before that of The Crown's first season, as World War II ravages on. The movie centers on the former German Emperor Wilhelm II, portrayed by Christopher Plummer, as he takes refuge in his Netherlands estate. Wilhelm must navigate his way through multiple layers of subterfuge within his own home as his servant, Lily James' Mieke de Jong, is on a mission for the Allied Forces. Meanwhile his protection detail — Captain Stefan Brandt, played by Jai Courtney — is working for the Nazi occupiers.
Things get especially complicated for all of these characters when Mieke and Brandt develop a romantic relationship and eventually begin to work together to undermine the forces that are working against both Wilhelm and the Axis Forces, even as Brandt retains a sense of loyalty to the forces of evil. Viewers who love The Crown will definitely enjoy The Exception's thoughtful exploration of the former Kaiser's relationship with power and image, and whether he wants either back. Not only that, the film features fantastic attention to historical details in costuming and settings and, yes, a very juicy romantic pairing at the center of it all.