History Film / Elizabeth

* HeroesWantRedheads: Well being queen obviously has a lot to do with it as well.

** A subtle one is with Elizabeth and Walsingham kneeling under a gigantic portrait of UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and wondering what he, her father, would have done, and if she'd ever live up to his reputation. That is, the reputation of the man who had her mother beheaded so he could marry somebody else, routinely executed his closest advisers and allies, and possibly had as many as 10,000 people put to death during his reign (actually more people than UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition in all of its history).

Followed by a 2007 sequel, ''Elizabeth: The Golden Age'' with the same director and Cate Blanchett once again as the Virgin Queen.

* AdaptationDyeJob: Philip II of Spain was blond in real life. In the film he's dark and swarthy.
* AgeLift: Sir William Cecil, as noted under ArtisticLicenseHistory, was only 13 years older than Elizabeth. In the film he's in his fifties at least. On the flip side, Kat Ashley was much older than Elizabeth (31 years older, having acted as her governess and a surrogate mother since Elizabeth was 4 years old). Here she's portrayed to be similar in age to her.

* BadassPreacher: Catholic priests are apparently all trained assassins in the 16th century.

* EvilJesuit: The Jesuits in the film are portrayed as brutal assassins sent to murder Elizabeth.

** A subtle one is with Elizabeth and Walsingham kneeling under a gigantic portrait of UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and wondering what he, her father, would have done, and if she'd ever live up to his reputation. That is, the reputation of the man who had her mother beheaded so he could marry somebody else, routinely executed his closest advisers and allies, and possibly had as many as 10,000 people put to death during his reign.

** The sequel basically portrays 16th Century Spain ''as a whole'' in the same way. In addition to making Jesuits assassins. Not much mention is made of English privateers like Sir Francis Drake raiding Spanish ships and colonies, and no mention is made of Robert Dudley's military campaign in the Netherlands, two of the main motives for the Spanish campaign. The portrayal of Philip II is pretty much in keeping with traditionalist and biased Anglo-American histories, rather than more balanced modern ones.

* SinisterMinister: John Ballard.
** And any other Catholic priest come to that.

* TakeALevelInBadass: Elizabeth. From condemned, helpless princess to iron-fisted queen of England in the space of under two screen hours.
** The actual time span was 20 years.

* {{Troll}}: Walsingham is quite clearly doing this, when he unlocks the prominent Catholic men he's shut away so they wouldn't strengthen opposition:

* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask: Pretty much TheMovie.

%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]

* CostumePorn: Holy hell, yes.
* DaddysGirl: Elizabeth appears to be one.
** Queen Mary also appears to have been one.

* DeathBySex: [[spoiler: Isabelle Knollys]] dies while doing it with Lord Robert. Played with in that [[spoiler: her dress was poisoned]] and she would have died anyway.

** Averted with the French Ambassador, played by Eric Cantona.

* Fanservice: Quite a lot of nudity and sex scenes. One notable example is when Norfolk has sex with his mistress before getting arrested.

A 1998 {{Biopic}} of the early life of Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethI of England starring Creator/CateBlanchett in the title role. It broke the usual "period piece" mould of English biographical pictures in that it was directed by an Indian, Creator/ShekharKapur, took a much more dramatic style of storytelling, and didn't shy away from ''some'' historical truths of the era, such as dirt, poverty, and torture.

* RapunzelHair: One of Cate Blanchett's more remembered roles with hair like this.

** Inverted with Sir William Cecil who is aged up considerably (in reality he was almost exactly 13 years her senior; Creator/RichardAttenborough was nearly ''46'' years Cate Blanchett's). Ditto for Philip II of Spain who was blond and handsome in real life.

* LadyOfWar: Elizabeth wears armor and gives a RousingSpeech to her troops in the sequel (but she did not dress up like a [[UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc French saint]], especially as that one was long demonized by the English) .

* PimpedOutCape: Elizabeth's [[GoldMakesEverythingShiny gold]] and [[PrettyInMink ermine]] coronation cape. She actually breaths a sign of relief when it's taken off and the weight is off her.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Elizabeth-1998-movie-poster-elizabeth-3345038-500-656_5167.jpg]]

** In the film, England is forced to send young and untrained soldiers, including children, to fight in Scotland against the French Queen Regent Mary of Guise - whom we are told is plotting to invade England - because the Catholic Bishops spoke in the pulpits against raising a professional army. In truth, Mary of Guise was not planning on invading England, but was crushing a Protestant revolt amongst the Scots. Elizabeth had also had ''all'' the English Catholic Bishops thrown in prison before the conflict even began, and the English actually ''did'' send professional soldiers to fight in Scotland. They were defeated in battle not because they were untrained children but because they were simply out-played by the French. It is basically just nationalistic propaganda to suggest that the English armies only lost because they were sabotaged by traitorous Catholic clergy.

** [[spoiler: Robert Dudley]] is actually villainised by this, with his conversion to Catholicism being treated as his StartOfDarkness and eventual betrayal of Elizabeth. In point of fact, he would have been outraged by this portrayal as not only did he ''never'' betray Elizabeth, he was a staunch Protestant and Puritan all his life.

** A subtle one is with Elizabeth and Walsingham kneeling under a gigantic portrait of UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and wondering what he, her father, would have done, and if she'd ever live up to his reputation. That is the reputation of the man who had her mother beheaded so he could marry somebody else, routinely executed his closest advisers and allies, and possibly had as many as 10,000 people put to death during his reign.

** A subtle and arguable one with Elizabeth and Walsingham kneeling under a gigantic portrait of UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and wondering what he, her father, would have done, and if she'd ever live up to his reputation. That is the reputation of the man who had her mother beheaded so he could marry somebody else, routinely executed his closest advisers and allies, and possibly had as many as 10,000 people put to death during his reign.

** The Duke of Norfolk was actually just a naive and gullible co-conspirator in a couple of plots, the first of which was only to marry UsefulNotes/MaryOfScotland, which alone was enough to get him jailed for a time (the second was to replace Elizabeth, which of course got his head the chop). He was not the cold and calculating power-hungry mastermind portrayed in the movie.
** In the film, England is forced to send young and untrained soldiers, including children, to fight in Scotland against the French Queen Regent Mary of Guise - whom we are told is plotting to invade England - because the Catholic Bishops spoke in the pulpits against raising a professional army. In truth, Mary of Guise was not planning on invading England, but was crushing a Protestant revolt amongst the Scots. Almost ''all'' the English Catholic Bishops had already been thrown in prison before the conflict even began, and the English actually ''did'' send professional soldiers to fight in Scotland. They were defeated in battle not because they were untrained children but because they were simply out-played by the French. It is basically just nationalistic propaganda to suggest that the English armies only lost because they were sabotaged by traitorous Catholic clergy.

** The sequel basically portrays 16th Century Spain ''as a whole'' in the same way. In addition to making Jesuits assassins. Not much mention of English privateers raiding Spanish ships and colonies, one of the main motives for the Spanish campaign. The portrayal of Philip II is pretty much in keeping with traditionalist and biased Anglo-American histories, rather than more balanced modern ones.

* ReverseMole: Walsingham's assistant Thomas Elyot. Sadly, Father Creator/DanielCraig beat him to death with a rock.

** In the film, England is forced to send young and untrained soldiers, including children, to fight in Scotland against the French Queen Regent Mary of Guise- whom we are told is plotting to invade England- because the Catholic Bishops spoke in the pulpits against raising a professional army. In truth, Mary of Guise was not planning on invading England, but was crushing a Protestant revolt amongst the Scots; almost ''all'' the English Catholic Bishops had already been thrown in prison before the conflict even began, and the English actually ''did'' send professional soldiers to fight in Scotland- these soldiers were defeated in battle not because they were untrained children but because they were simply out-played by the French. It is basically just nationalistic propaganda to suggest that the English armies only lost because they were sabotaged by traitorous Catholic clergy.

* AdaptationDyeJob: Philip II of Spain was blond in real life. In the film he's dark and swarthy. A European variant of LatinoIsBrown.