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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
143
Mixed:
34
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews
Nov 7, 2022May 24, 2021
Nov 16, 2023Nov 8, 2022
Season 5 Review:
As it charts the royal family’s continued expulsion from their pedestal in season five, “The Crown” remains as superbly written and as addictive as ever. ... All of the new actors, like most of those before them, are extraordinary as they capture something genuine of the public figures they play. But it’s hard to see any continuity between Josh O’Connor, who evoked Charles so powerfully in season four, and Dominic West, who takes over the role.
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Nov 12, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Television acting doesn’t get much more nuanced and delectable than in those cool confrontations between the two powers [Gillian Anderson's Margaret Thatcher & Olivia Colman's Queen Elizabeth]. ... The opulent, epic, and yet intimate series returns to Netflix on Sunday with a particularly eventful and poignant fourth season. ... Watching the Charles and Diana saga play out in “The Crown,” I kept marveling at how successfully the material rises above previous scripted efforts to tell the story. Morgan elevates it all without screaming out the big themes — sexism, depression, the uselessness of love in the shadow of the crown.
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Nov 13, 2019
Season 3 Review:
I have seen the third season of “The Crown,” which will be available on Netflix on Sunday, and it is dazzling and excellent. It’s extraordinary historical TV. ... Often, streaming series feel more like season-long blurs than a series of distinct episodes. That is not the case with “The Crown,” as it tells its story as precisely and lavishly as anything on TV these days.
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Nov 16, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The Crown ushers in a new cast, but the Netflix historical drama's compelling and regal formula -- exploring the obligations and indignities associated with the seemingly sun-drenched life of the British Royal Family -- remains the same, and indeed has only deepened as the principals advance into middle age.
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Nov 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown is gorgeously produced, impeccably cast and deals with a tantalizing period in British history. It is also grindingly slow, and occasionally feels like it's recycling material previously covered in other movies and miniseries...The good outweighs the disclaimers, in a project that oozes class from every pore.
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ColliderNov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Season 5 boasts yet another cast change-up, with varying levels of success — some actors are clearly trying to immerse themselves into the real-life people they've been tasked with playing, while others toss out the occasional word in the royals' received pronunciation accent and strive for little beyond that.
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ColliderNov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The Crown distinguishes itself from other prestige television of the age through its willingness to still be episodic when the narrative calls for it, and in these standalone episodes showrunner Peter Morgan finds some of his strongest material. ... The Crown may put the “prestige” in “prestige television”, but it earns every dazzling moment.
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ColliderNov 21, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Like its first season, each new episode makes its mark and tells its own complete story, all while staying linked to Elizabeth’s journey as a monarch, mother, and wife. It’s another exceptionally strong season of television, full of compelling drama and sweeping grandeur.
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Nov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
Few series have had the opportunity to truly capture the passing of half a century like The Crown has, and for that alone it’ll be remembered as one of 21st-century television’s most impressive achievements. And the all-star cast is as solid as the one which preceded it — it really remains impressive, how the show has consistently brought in such a high caliber of talent with each change-up.
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The Charles and Diana soap opera shines in part because of its built-in cache, but mostly because Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin are the season’s standouts. ... Less impressive is Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher. ... But it’s a credit to showrunner Peter Morgan and Emma Corrin herself that Princess Di doesn’t takeover the entire show. There are still standalone episodes devoted to peculiar moments for the monarchy.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
Chronicling Diana and Dodi’s brief romance and shocking death in a Paris car chase, Peter Morgan’s historical drama takes a wistful, careful, and restrained approach to one of the modern-day royal family’s most momentous tragedies. .... Chronicling Diana and Dodi’s brief romance and shocking death in a Paris car chase, Peter Morgan’s historical drama takes a wistful, careful, and restrained approach to one of the modern-day royal family’s most momentous tragedies.
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Corrin handles the burden of portraying Diana — one of the most beloved public figures of the 20th century — admirably. ... O’Connor is uncannily skilled at portraying the prince’s chimeric moods — the arrogance and entitlement, the hangdog malaise, the insecurity and yearning. ... It’s a season of next-level performances, really. Anderson’s turn as Thatcher is so viscerally physical. ... She is transformed.
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Nov 5, 2019
Season 3 Review:
At its heart, The Crown is a catalogue of the myriad ways Elizabeth must deny her true self out of duty to her country. It’s a theme that’s at once tragic and predictable, which makes the emergence of Prince Charles and Princess Anne as more prominent players all the more welcome.
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Oct 31, 2016
Season 1 Review:
What may at first seem too-familiar story is in fact a surprising and compelling portrait of someone we all think we know. [4 Nov 2016, p.55]
IndieWireNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Colman is now allowed to own the monarch’s authority in her performance. And with foils like Anderson and Corrin, all three turn in very brittle and beautiful performances. ... Beyond reveling in the tawdry candy-colored tale of Charles and Di, Morgan’s writing on the show routinely explores notions of classicism, privilege, sexism, and racism. But this time around, the undercurrents surface in a way that is timely, incisive, and, ultimately, more pointed and hopeful.
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IndieWireNov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
What is on the screen in “The Crown” is a gorgeous display of some of the age’s best actors performing at the peak of their craft. ... And yet, Colman is relegated to reacting more than acting because of how her role is written. ... [Queen Elizabeth is] a complex sovereign in a complex time, the defender of the faith. Morgan should show some more faith in her himself.
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IndieWireNov 21, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Some viewers may look for exactly this in their television: a beautiful recreation of historical events, connected by safe assumptions about the people who lived through them. But television is capable of so much more, and whether you like The Crown or not, its medium evokes stronger, richer feelings elsewhere.
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Dec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Foy has no problem filling the void left by Lithgow’s Churchill with another stellar performance that builds upon the experience and confidence Elizabeth gained last season. ... Elizabeth’s personal life, Philip’s identity crisis and the geopolitics of the era are seamlessly triangulated here.
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Nov 10, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Together, Thatcher and Diana give The Crown an energy and a sense of direction it lacked in the third season, and a feeling of verve the show has arguably never approached before. In the writing and in the performances, there is this sense that everyone involved has finally gotten to the good stuff, and they’re all pleased as punch about it.
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Nov 12, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Stiff of spine and thin of voice, this Elizabeth (played by Oscar winner Olivia Colman) may make you long for the incandescent Claire Foy ... The history lessons check some necessary boxes — Churchill (John Lithgow) goes to his eternal reward in Episode 1 — but also resurrect delicious bits that may have been forgotten. ... With an ever-present cigarette holder and air of hangover chic, Margaret is a free spirit trapped by the rules of the palace, and her contrast with Elizabeth is something Morgan returns to again and again with striking results.
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Nov 11, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Yes, there are two big stories this season, but the one about Thatcher — Anderson, like Corrin, is brilliant, by the way — doesn't stand a chance opposite the other. Charles and Diana: Tragic characters straight out of Shakespeare, one whose blood runs cold, the other whose "passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love," to steal a line from another play. ... Best season yet.
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Dec 6, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The first season was initially hagiography masking as a high-end TV series, but the second season is Vanity Fair, full of characters, life, humor, passion and buttered scones. Morgan not only has a series to match his 2006 Oscar-winning movie, “The Queen,” but finally one to exceed it. The Crown--the second season, anyway--is magnificent.
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Nov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
While the first half of the season may make an excellent Diana miniseries, it’s not entirely clear that it works as a concluding installment of The Crown, a show that once had a much more sweeping scope and grander ambitions than what often comes across as simple stenography. (Or propaganda, depending on how you feel about the wildly friendly edit this season gives Charles, who is, after all, now King of England.)
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Nov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Marketing and storytelling both seem to focus on the three women in power at the heart of the season, but it’s very uncertain what Morgan is really looking to say about them or their connection to one another. ... Despite this, and some unforgivably heavy-handed visual juxtapositions throughout, The Crown is still an engrossing chronicle of House Windsor—most especially when its scope is small. That is thanks largely to the exceptionalism of its cast.
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RogerEbert.comNov 15, 2019
Season 3 Review:
More uneven than its two predecessors, but also more daring and surprising. When it works, it’s incredibly compelling, once again solidifying itself as one of the best shows of the year; when it doesn’t, it’s merely one of the best acting ensembles anywhere, moving about in a series that’s as richly designed, expertly directed, and satisfyingly paced as anything else in television.
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RogerEbert.comDec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Clearly, The Crown doesn’t come close to experiencing a second-season slump. In some ways, it tops the highs achieved in its initial run, building on the already-complex relationships between Elizabeth, Philip, Margaret, the Queen Mother, and other members of the Royal Family and their retinue to create something even more layered and rich.
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Nov 12, 2019
Season 3 Review:
At this phase of the story, Elizabeth is more uptight and controlling than ever, especially now that some of her children are old enough to cause her problems in the way only her sister once did. But the job and the many ugly things she has to do in it weigh on her more than ever, which Colman portrays beautifully. It’s not a thrilling time for Elizabeth, or The Crown, but it’s a complicated transition handled quite deftly.
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Nov 16, 2020
Season 4 Review:
[Gillian Anderson's] introductory moments are entirely over the top and verging on cringeworthy, to the point that it nearly looks and sounds like her jaw might break off. But she soon relaxes her grip on Thatcher's mannerisms, and what emerges afterward is nothing short of masterful. Corrin immediately achieves a balance between the coquette and energetic idealist we picture Diana to be. ... Both Corrin's and Anderson's representations define this section of the Queen's life in ways that transform "The Crown" and our view of Elizabeth and our estimation of who these people are.
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Nov 18, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Probably the only series in television to have fully mastered the balancing act between slow meditative storytelling and emotional drag. This only becomes more the case as the story enters the middle years of Queen Elizabeth, played with steely, boundless soul by Oscar winner Olivia Colman. ... And “The Crown” does so with true dignity, inviting us to sit for a while, attentively and with appreciation, within its assured spell of calm.
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Dec 11, 2017
Nov 8, 2022
Season 5 Review:
The twin specters of grief and dread loom over the entire season. I felt my breath catch with emotion when I caught the first glimpse of Elizabeth Debicki as a still-hopeful, still-married Diana in the season five premiere. ... At times, I caught myself feeling empathy for the show’s progressively frustrated Prince Charles — or rather, the dramatized character that a brilliant Dominic West brought to life with surprising effect, even if he is far too handsome for the role.
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Dec 5, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The new season is even more engaging that the first. The other reasons include Morgan’s writing, spot-on direction from Stephen Daldry, Philip Martin, Benjamin Caron and others, and superb performances at almost every level. ... The fact that it’s one of the best shows in town is just the jewel in The Crown.
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Nov 16, 2020
Nov 6, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Season three of The Crown lacks the urgency that previously made the Netflix series so engaging. This is partly due to the more subdued relationships between the older members of the House of Windsor, now settled into their various roles as sovereign, husband, sister, and wife.
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SlashfilmNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
As it nears its endgame, the show has become more serialized, particularly with these four episodes that make up the first half of the final season, all of which run into each other. I'm not quite sure that's a good thing, as it robs the series of much of its previous strength. Still, there's enough high drama packed into these four episodes to satisfy those of us who have stuck with the show over all these years.
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Nov 15, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Colman intuits that Elizabeth, at the height of her powers and in the middle of a calm stretch, is content. The performance is both believable and emotionally astute: Elizabeth would be settled and comfortable. But this, along with the equilibrium in her marriage, snuffs out some of the little tension there used to be. ... That the show remains appealing through this relatively slow going is largely thanks to the more high-strung characters surrounding Elizabeth.
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Dec 6, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Cautiousness, propriety, and dowdiness have never seemed more soothing. Elizabeth remains the commonsense counterpoint to the flibbertigibbets around her, but she is now comfortable in her authority. Each episode is not a lesson in personal abnegation; instead, the new season mixes episodes about contained political events--an encounter with the Kennedys, a crisis caused by a vocal critic, the Duke of Windsor’s Nazi affiliations--with the really good gossip
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Nov 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown is as beautifully filmed as could be, with scenes in Malta and Kenya as well as Balmoral in Scotland. The costuming is meticulous, as is the choreography of everything from dressing to mealtime to a train trip. Deliberate pacing (naysayers might say slow) allows time to appreciate all this.
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Nov 18, 2019
Season 3 Review:
A character who, in Season 3, is becoming more and more unknowable. ... Colman, an indubitably brilliant actor, brings more of herself to the part than Foy did, but she’s able to capture the markedly divergent aspects of a woman who’s a wife, a mother, and a monarch in a long line of failures.
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Dec 11, 2017
Season 2 Review:
This personal, complex portrayal of a monarch who by her own admission in the show would rather be living any other life is riveting enough. But The Crown is also a history lesson, as my colleague David Sims has put it, albeit a selective one. It’s gorgeously shot, with flawless re-creations of everything from the Throne Room in Buckingham Palace to a 1950s hospital ward. And it’s surprisingly funny.
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Nov 4, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The Crown is sometimes too somber, and slow-moving to a fault (it intends to cover Elizabeth’s entire reign over six seasons). But if you’re looking for an immersive history lesson with all the royal trimmings (ermine and purple velvet among them), it’s an extremely engrossing watch.
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The Daily BeastNov 11, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Elizabeth and Diana's stories are parallel, though distinct, narrative threads that are duly and richly explored in the 10 episodes. In practice, they exacerbate what’s always been a nagging problem with the series’ hopscotching through history, a distracting incoherence. ... It’s not a catastrophic misstep. ... When it comes to the Diana plot, one of the sharpest moves the show makes is to drive home just how young she was when she entered the melee. ... Anderson’s disappearance into the role is so all-encompassing it’s nearly a distraction—which is mostly praise.
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The Daily BeastNov 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The parallels struck in each episode between what’s going on in the world and the royals’ own personal struggles can tend toward too clever, too forced, or too coincidental at times. [But] Concealing where Queen Elizabeth—the history and the person—ends, and Queen Elizabeth—the TV character—begins is where The Crown showcases its most delicate sleight of hand. And it’s in that, too, that the series continues to be the most compelling, teetering between tabloid snuff and reverent curiosity with a confident handle of the creative danger that entails.
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The Daily BeastDec 8, 2017
The GuardianDec 3, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It is all beautifully done and tastefully told. Every penny spent is up on screen. It is immaculate. It will leave you either longing for the monarchy to be decapitated for its endless, parasitical privilege (great scenes arise from Philip complaining about being asked to cut back on his yacht consumption, for example) or abolished for the Windsors’ own good.
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Nov 5, 2022
Season 5 Review:
At a time when seemingly every tabloid saga of the past half-century is getting adapted into an Emmy-bait miniseries, The Crown distinguishes itself by doing what it’s always done best: combining clear-eyed empathy, shrewd commentary and a refreshing intellectual curiosity into ten elegant hour-long episodes.
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Nov 11, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The fourth season is the first in which the domestic tensions among the royals is anywhere near as interesting as the British history that unfolds outside the palace gates. Creator Peter Morgan and his writers remain impressive in their ability to condense national events into dramatically compelling crises-of-the-week and flesh out real-life personages through just a few scenes.
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Nov 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The first chapter of Peter Morgan's chronicle of the rule of Queen Elizabeth II remains gripping across the entirety of the 10 episodes made available to critics, finding both emotional heft in Elizabeth's youthful ascension and unexpected suspense in matters of courtly protocol and etiquette.
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The IndependentNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
So dazzling are these performances that the real historical events that serve as raw materials for The Crown often feel like an afterthought. ... The stillness at the centre of this storm is Colman. She is quietly riveting as the plot wends its way to a predictable conclusion.
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Dec 7, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Not everything Mr. Morgan tries works--an episode involving Elizabeth’s complicated feelings toward Jacqueline Kennedy, and a plot contrivance in which Philip is more closely linked to the Profumo scandal than history would suggest, don’t pan out. But the pleasures of high-class melodrama are always present, as is the comforting notion--increasingly hard to believe--that our leaders can be compassionate, intelligent and exceedingly well behaved.
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Nov 10, 2020
Season 4 Review:
[Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin)'s] transformation from the “Shy Di” young wife of Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) to the desperately unhappy, but increasingly popular, Princess of Wales gives Season 4 a propulsive energy. Equally riveting are storylines involving Margaret Thatcher (played with clenched-jaw virtuosity by Gillian Anderson). ... If anything, Season 4 of “The Crown” suffers from an overabundance of plotlines that beg for more attention.
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Nov 14, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Colman is exceptional in everything she does, so she’s not afraid to make the Elizabeth of Season 3 look, at times, distressingly irrelevant and frustratingly complacent. ... Like Colman, the new cast members assume their roles with elegance and ease. ... The return of “The Crown,” with its irresistible blend of heightened history and peek-behind-the-brocade-curtain drama, is a gloriously welcome gift, arriving just in time for the holidays.
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The PlaylistNov 16, 2023
Season 6 Review:
The four episodes don’t drag, and knowing what will happen builds dread before giving way to sorrow. In its final stretch, it tips further into overly symbolic dialogue, but thanks to Debicki’s stirring performance, “The Crown” still reigns when depicting this sprawling family soap opera.
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The PlaylistNov 6, 2022
The PlaylistNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The surprise this season, however, isn’t Corrin’s at times heartbreaking performance, but that Gillian Anderson’s portrayal of another prominent figure of the era, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, somehow overcomes the supernova of Diana’s still-cherished moment in history. ... Yes, Morgan has peppered the sit-downs between Anderson’s Thatcher and Colman’s Queen with more condescension and sly digs than any of Elizabeth’s previous elected cohorts (and it’s absolutely glorious to watch), but its a creative liberty that works in the context of their unique places in history.
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The TelegraphNov 9, 2020
Season 4 Review:
The encounters between the two women [The Queen and Margaret Thatcher] are a running theme, and make for delicious viewing. But the real star of this fourth season is, inevitably, Diana. ... It all makes for a riveting soap opera. And, against all this, Mrs Thatcher is almost light relief.
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