The Essential Scheming Royals On Streaming

While Wolf Hall depicts a kinder, gentler version of Sir Thomas Cromwell, this Oscar-winning film, based on Robert Bolt’s play, follows the same historical even — the English reformation — with a focus on the high moral standing of Sir Thomas More, who strived to keep the Vatican’s influence on the English court. Cromwell, on the other hand, is a conniving, manipulative man hell-belt on gaining King Henry VIII’s favor — and destroying the lives and legacies of More and Anne Boleyn. [Where to stream A Man for All Seasons]

Like Wolf Hall, Anne of the Thousand Days depicts the relationship between King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, played here by Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold, and the behind-the-scenes scheming by Thomas Cromwell to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and, later, his divorce from Anne. A fun bonus: Burton’s real-life flame Elizabeth Taylor turns up in an uncredited role. [Where to stream Anne of the Thousand Days]

Still can’t get enough of those Tudors? Showtime’s sexy and melodramatic series follows all of the intrigue and seductions that happened in the court of King Henry VIII, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. [Where to stream The Tudors]

Twenty-five years after Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery and treason, her daughter with King Henry VIII ascended the throne. Shekhar Kapur’s Oscar-nominated film depicts the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign, which also features Cate Blanchett in her breakout role (which she reprised in Kapur’s sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age). [Where to stream Elizabeth]

If you’re tired of the Tudors already, go backward in time a few centuries to the 1400s, when the War of the Roses was waged between the House of York and the House of Lancaster for the control of the English throne. This BBC miniseries, based on Philippa Gregory’s novels, follows three women at the center of the struggle: Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort, and Anne Neville. [Where to stream The White Queen]

Go back further back in time to the reign of King Henry II, played by Peter O’Toole, who in Peter Glenville’s lush, Oscar-winning drama must come to terms with Thomas Becket (Richard Burton), the Archbishop of Canterbury, who realizes his devotion belongs to God over this mortal, regal friend. [Where to stream Becket]

Peter O’Toole plays Henry II once again, this time against Katherine Hepburn’s Oscar-winning performance as Eleanor of Aquitaine, in this classic tale of conniving monarchs. An aging Henry II assembles his three sons and his imprisoned wife for a Christmas celebration. When the king can’t decide on which of his songs will ascend the throne, they, along with their mother, all conspire against him for control. [Where to stream The Lion in Winter]

Tired of those Brits? Head down to pre-revolutionary France, where one twisted woman, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy de Valois (Hilary  Swank), desperately attempts to regain the royal title stripped from her family when she was a young child. Jeanne joins forces with her husband and an accomplice to convince a cardinal that the French queen Marie Antoinette has fallen in love with him through forged letters, and swindle him out of his savings after he purchases an extravagant necklace — commissioned by King Louis XV for his mistress — as a gift for Marie. Eventually the trio were caught, and Jeanne escaped to England where she published a scathing (and inaccurate) memoir that helped turn the French against their queen. [Where to stream The Affair of the Necklace]

The Scandinavian royals rarely get the cinematic treatment (beyond Shakespearean tragedies, that is), but this Oscar-nominated film from Denmark is a seductive look at the shocking affair between Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, the Queen of Denmark and Norway in the late 18th Century, and Johann Friedrich Struensee, the royal physician who inoculated King Christian VII from smallpox and eventually rose to be a leading figure int he Danish court. [Where to stream A Royal Affair]

Tired of all of those Europeans? Go way, way back in time to ancient Egypt in this romantic epic in which the royals are played by…uh…Europeans. The four-hour epic, which chronicles the Egyptian queen’s ties with Rome and her affairs with both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Stuffed to the gills with garish costumes and epic battle scenes, the film also marks the infamous meeting between its stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, whose on-set love affair was condemned by the Vatican and led to an equally melodramatic, turbulent relationship that lasted twelve years. A royal scandal indeed! [Where to stream Cleopatra]