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"Marie Antoinette" (2006)
"Natural's Not in It," the '70s punk-rock ditty that opens "Marie Antoinette," pretty much nails Sofia Coppola's lavish marzipan movie. A plain little Austrian teen (Kirsten Dunst, superb throughout) comes to France to cement an important alliance and breed sons. Charming and spontaneous, the import survives the 18th-century court's ironclad protocols and manages -- with a little help from her brother (Danny Huston) -- to sexually initiate her clueless spouse (Jason Schwartzman). The new girl at Versailles High evolves into super-popular prom queen, a creature of pure artifice and consumer extraordinaire. Marie and her entourage live for pleasure, and nothing outside their extravagant dollhouses ever intrudes on the good times of these beautiful, blessed children. When ugly reality finally does intrude, the artful queen stages a grand, prophetic gesture on a balcony above the angry mob. Bending gracefully over the balustrade, her arms outstretched, Marie Antoinette rests her head in guillotine position and silences the rabble -- but only for a moment. Time to graduate.

"The Scarlet Empress" (1934)
Before Sofia Coppola dreamed up the notion of royalty as all style and scant substance, director Josef von Sternberg concocted the wholly artificial, visually delirious "Empress," starring his muse Marlene Dietrich. Deflating all pomp and circumstance while mocking the world's abuse of beauty, von Sternberg wove exotic texture and decor, sensuous light and shadow, into a rich tapestry that barely disguised the skull beneath the skin, the nothingness behind all of his exquisitely composed scenes. Sophia Frederica, the little German princess destined to bring new blood to the degenerate Russian line, is important only as a brood mare: first seen with a doctor probing her nether parts, she's hardly arrived at court before another medic has his head up her dress. Her exquisite face luminous in wavering candlelight -- centerpiece of an extravagantly mounted wedding ceremony -- newly named Catherine is yoked to a drooling idiot. Swiftly becoming mistress of power poses and erotic gamesmanship, Catherine trades all genuineness for elaborate masks and manipulation. Riding her sexual charisma to the throne, Dietrich triumphs less as actual czarina than as archetypal object of desire.

"Queen Margot" (1994)
Sixteenth-century France, where Margot (Isabelle Adjani, alabaster-skinned, raven-haired and often lusciously naked) enjoys incestuous liaisons with her three brothers, and takes the sting out of being married off to a ratty-looking "peasant," the King of Navarre (Daniel Auteuil), by prowling the steaming streets of Paris to pick up a handsome stranger for some anonymous sex in an alley. Not surprising Margot's gone a bit louche, since her mom is Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi, resembling the androgynous Satan of "The Passion of the Christ"), a queen who famously poisoned anyone who crossed her. But even jaded Margot's shocked by the gory St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, when her Catholic relations off some 50,000 Protestants. Assassinations and assignations, a berserk boar and a poisonous book, bloody sweats and beheadings, full-frontal male nudity -- such are the prime ingredients in this overheated French soap opera/period piece.

"The King and I" (1956)
Powered by wonderful Rodgers and Hammerstein lyrics and sumptuous settings and costumes, this glorious musical secretes a jingoistic message that today's audiences would get in a New York minute. An indomitable British gentlewoman (the sublime Deborah Kerr) signs on as schoolteacher to the King of Siam's numerous progeny -- and along the way "civilizes" a ruler (Yul Brynner, in the role that defined him) struggling between hidebound tradition and modern ways. Not only does Britannia's envoy render this Asian martinet impotent, but she's eventually the death of him -- paving the way for his English-educated son to ascend the throne. But, overriding political propaganda, it's the sexual chemistry between Brynner, whose every move's macho provocation, and the demure Kerr that lights up "The King and I." "Shall We Dance?" Anna sings lightheartedly, but her voice catches with fear and anticipation when her bare-chested barbarian very deliberately takes her waist in hand and leads her into a waltz that's vertical lovemaking. Brynner's king may lose his crown, but never his manhood.

"Queen Christina" (1933)
Greta Garbo's androgynous queen strides around her palace like a sexy swashbuckler, decked out in thigh-high boots and tight-fitting doublets, mouth-kissing her favorite lady-in-waiting and complaining about her onerous duties. Christina's all lithe, adventurous boy when she escapes the court to ride out into the snowy countryside. There are double-entendres galore when the Swedish queen finds herself sharing a room with a rakish Spanish envoy (John Gilbert), but, unmasked and sensually awakened, all of Christina's boyish grace and style softens into surprised, tender womanliness. Gliding about their bedroom, caressing its furnishings, Garbo commits every detail to memory, that deep, velvety voice transforming an affair of the flesh into erotic poetry. Her abdication comes as no surprise, but Garbo's queen -- along with all of this divine actress' incarnations -- gives up everything less for a lover than for the pleasure of a fuller exploration of her own body and soul.

"Mrs. Brown" (1997)
Scotsman John Brown (Billy Connolly), kilted, bearded and fond of copious draughts of whiskey, gives his life for the "little pudding of a woman" (Judi Dench) he adores. Trouble is, that woman is Victoria, Queen of England. Finding her paralyzed by grief after the death of her beloved husband, Albert, in 1861, Brown lovingly bullies Victoria into daily rides and energetic Highland reels. Happiest as "wife" to her Highland laddie, who guides and protects her, the queen flouts the disapproval of family and nation. Dowdy in widow's weeds, a flat little hat perched on her severely parted brown hair, the "wee" woman drops her royal mask to expose naked love and terrible need: "I cannot allow [your resignation] because I cannot live without you, cannot find the strength to be who I must be without you." But, being queen, she soon will -- and her heartbreaking declaration comes to express the cause of Brown's own demise.

"The Madness of King George" (1994)
"Smile, wave at the people, let them see we are happy, that's what we're here for," George III (Nigel Hawthorne) admonishes his "model" clan. In this tragicomic portrait of royalty that's all show and little go, England's king, "Mrs. King" (Helen Mirren) and the effete Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett) resemble a nutty, not especially smart, sitcom family. When the charmingly eccentric king (he fancies himself a farmer) turns truly dotty -- madness caused by porphyria, a metabolic imbalance -- even the pretense of nobility eludes him. Foul-mouthed, self-soiling, goatish in his lust, George is taken in hand by a forward-thinking doc (Ian Holm) who practices an 18th-century brand of tough love. One sunny day, farmer George, in straw hat and colorful suspenders, plays at being Shakespeare's tragic Lear -- and is moved to sanity: "I have remembered how to seem myself." Just in time, too, since his "plump little cuckoo" of a son is about to steal the throne. All about the power of performance, "King George" celebrates a cast -- and court -- of aristocratic actors.

Who is your favorite movie king or queen? Write to us at heymsn@microsoft.com.

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Kathleen Murphy reviews films for Seattle's Queen Anne News and writes essays on film for Steadycam magazine. A frequent speaker on film, Murphy has contributed numerous essays to magazines (Film Comment, the Village Voice, Film West, Newsweek-Japan), books ("Best American Movie Writing of 1998," "Women and Cinema," "The Myth of the West") and Web sites (Amazon.com, Cinemania.com, Reel.com). Once upon a time, in another life, she wrote speeches for Bill Clinton, Jack Lemmon, Harrison Ford, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Art Garfunkel and Diana Ross.