Queen Elizabeth II spent seven decades on the throne, so naturally, cinema and television have spent equally as much time trying to figure out what was happening behind that famously composed face. Some films have gone for the history books, others for royal romance, and a few have simply asked what happens when the world’s most recognizable monarch has a very strange day.

From Helen Mirren’s commanding performance in The Queen to Emma Thompson chatting with a palace intruder in Walking The Dogs, these five films offer very different ways of looking at Queen Elizabeth II.

Stephen Frears’ 2006 drama The Queen puts Helen Mirren at the center of the royal crisis following Princess Diana’s death, when the Queen’s private response collided spectacularly with a grieving British public. Written by Peter Morgan, with Michael Sheen as Tony Blair and James Cromwell as Prince Philip, the film was built from interviews with insiders and observers to create an intimate portrait of a monarchy struggling to understand a rapidly changing public mood.

Mirren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her part, making this the obvious starting point for anyone interested in Queen Elizabeth on screen.

Julian Jarrold’s 2015 romantic comedy-drama imagines the teenage Princess Elizabeth, played by Sarah Gadon, and Princess Margaret, played by Bel Powley, slipping into the VE Day celebrations of 1945. The premise for A Royal Night Out may be fictionalized, but the extraordinary night really happened: the sisters joined a group of 16 people, mingled with London crowds and returned to Buckingham Palace at 1 am.

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Gadon later admitted that playing the future Queen was intimidating enough that director Jarrold was initially horrified by her Canadian accent.

Released on Hallmark in 2011, Linda Yellen’s William & Catherine: A Royal Romance follows Prince William and Kate Middleton from their St Andrews years through their breakup, reconciliation and engagement. Here, Jane Alexander plays Queen Elizabeth II. Rather than making Queen Elizabeth II the central figure, the film uses her as part of the family machinery surrounding the future king.

Her placement, in fact, offers a lighter glimpse of the monarchy during the intensely scrutinized period before William and Kate’s 2011 wedding.

Tom Hooper’s Oscar-winning 2010 drama takes viewers back to the 1930s, when Helena Bonham Carter plays Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, then Duchess of York, supporting her husband Bertie as he becomes King George VI and battles his debilitating stammer. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush lead the film, and Freya Wilson plays a much younger Princess Elizabeth. 

If the idea of Queen Elizabeth calmly having a conversation with a man who has broken into her bedroom sounds surreal, Walking the Dogs makes it surprisingly believable. This 2012, 30-minute Playhouse Presents comedy-drama stars Emma Thompson as Queen Elizabeth II and Eddie Marsan as Michael Fagan, based on the infamous 1982 Buckingham Palace intrusion. 

Directed by Jeremy Brock and written by Helen Greaves, the film focuses less on palace security than on the extraordinary encounter itself; a rare fictionalized glimpse of the Queen removed from the ceremony and forced into an utterly ordinary human conversation. Together, these films show why Queen Elizabeth II remained such an irresistible screen subject.

Whether she is grieving, partying, advising her grandson, supporting her husband or confronting an intruder, the crown stayed the same while the woman beneath it kept changing.

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Which of these films will you pick to reminisce about Queen Elizabeth II with? Let us know in the comments.