As Queen Elizabeth II’s death at the age of 96 is mourned around the world, global broadcasters are marking the monarch’s passing with a range of programming. With 2022 also serving as the year of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, commemorating the 70th anniversary of Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne, a host of projects featuring rare archive and access to the Queen and the British Royal Family were also featured on broadcasters’ schedules, with many of them available to be streamed now.
Below, Realscreen revisits four recent programs spotlighting the late Queen.
Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen
(BBC Studios for BBC One, BBC iPlayer)
Members of the British Royal Family have been filming each other since the 1920s, but for decades these hundreds of reels of homemade recordings have been held privately by the Royal Collection in the vaults of the British Film Institute (BFI). For this documentary (pictured), Queen Elizabeth granted the BBC unprecedented access to the footage, including home movies shot by her, her parents, her late husband Prince Philip and others, which shed light on her journey from childhood to her coronation in 1953 at the age of 27, following the death of her father, King George VI.
BBC Studios viewed more than 400 reels of film during production, discovering lost newsreel footage given to the queen as well as behind-the-scenes recordings of state events that are believed to have been privately commissioned by the royals. The filmmakers also listened to over 300 of the queen’s speeches across eight decades. The resulting documentary relies primarily on her own voice and words, accompanied by newsreel audio.
—Justin Anderson
The Real Windsors
(Spun Gold for Channel 4)
Featuring interviews with many of those who have worked with the Royal Family over the years (some of whom have never spoken on camera before), as well as rarely seen archival material, this 3 x 60-minute docuseries examines the extent to which the public images of the monarch and monarchs-in-waiting align with their private selves.
The Queen herself is the focus of the first installment, which investigates how her dedication to the Windsor “brand” entailed a good deal of difficult, behind-the-scenes decision-making in the face of the many controversies involving members of “the Firm” over the decades. —Andrew Tracy
Queen of the World
(Oxford Films for ITV)
This 2018 film offers a look at Queen Elizabeth II’s role on the global stage and as head of the Commonwealth, as well as her legacy and the future of the throne.
Directed by Matt Hill, Queen of the World was filmed over more than a year, with privileged access to the Queen, her family and her staff, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of her life and work at the time of the 65th anniversary of her coronation. The film also makes use of footage from the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s private film archives, as well as treasures of the Royal Collection.
—Frederick Blichert
The Coronation
(Atlantic Films for BBC, ABC Australia and Smithsonian Channel)
The Coronation, another project from 2018, reveals the story of the Crown Jewels — which form part of the Royal Collection, consisting of 140 items and 23,000 precious stones — and the ancient ceremony for which they are used through cutting-edge, high-resolution footage. The Crown Jewels serve as symbols of the relationship between the sovereign and the people, and the duties and responsibilities of leadership.
The hour-long film also shares Elizabeth II’s memories of the 1953 ceremony, as well as the coronation of her father King George VI in 1937, while also exploring the story of St. Edward’s Crown, which was destroyed after the English Civil War and remade for the coronation of Charles II in 1661. —Daniele Alcinii
