Firth strikes a perfect balance between his abrasive traits and the vulnerability that coaxes our empathy.

| Nov 29, 2022

Travel without prejudice and you will enjoy a moving, impeccably acted and surprisingly funny slice of comfort food. There are worse ways of starting an unpromising looking year.

| Feb 20, 2019

It's an uplifting audience pleaser that also showcases film-making arts and crafts at an exalted level.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2015

The King's Speech is a joy, and I adore it.

| Feb 20, 2015

The film is richly rooted, with splendid trappings, including pea-soup fogs. For all the pomp and protocol, it's an intimate story about a scared man who must find his voice if he is to rise, in regal stature, above his epaulets.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2015

Hooper...has become something of a specialist in exhuming British history from the mothballs of Masterpiece Theatre.

| Nov 7, 2013

A polite, occasionally rousing, and more often than not, boring affair.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 16, 2013

A charming, personal period drama.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 16, 2013

A powerful back story does not necessarily improve a movie, but The King's Speech has a pretty irresistible one. It might even end with a dramatic night at the Oscars in February.

| Feb 16, 2013

Classic, rousing entertainment loaded with both humor and poignancy.

Full Review | Feb 16, 2013

The King's Speech is the rare work of art that's also an immense crowdpleaser.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 16, 2013

Too ingratiating to resonate deeply.

| Feb 16, 2013

The King's Speech is admirably free of easy answers and simple, happy endings; it's a skewed, awards-ready version of history, but one polished to a fine, satisfying shine.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 16, 2013

The King's Speech is simultaneously cozy and majestic.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 7, 2011

The King's Speech is the epitome of prestige cinema, an impeccably crafted and emotionally compelling drama that deserves the many laurels it surely will receive.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 31, 2011

It's the sort of thing we do awf'ly well.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 21, 2011

Although he plays up the odd-couple comedy, Hooper knows how to bring out the anguish behind the humour.

| Jan 11, 2011

The true-life story of a king's efforts to overcome his stammer in order to face his public, constructed like a contemporary makeover narrative.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 6, 2011

Not just one of the most entertaining British films in years, but one of the most intriguing, too.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 6, 2011

By the film's end I was in tears: a pathetic critic-thing whimpering in the half-dark, knocked into resistlessness by the power of storytelling.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 6, 2011