Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary, Queen of Scots centres on the rivalry between two cousins who each wore a crown. Mary Stuart was made Queen of Scotland as an infant and grew up as the last Catholic monarch of her country; her English cousin Elizabeth Tudor sat on a throne that Protestants and Catholics alike believed Mary had a claim to. Their opposing faiths and temperaments place them on a collision course, and the political struggles around them lead to Mary being held prisoner for years while Elizabeth rules. The film follows Mary through her marriages, her dealings with the Scottish nobility and her long confinement in England.

Charles Jarrott directed the film, his second feature after Anne of the Thousand Days. Vanessa Redgrave plays Mary and Glenda Jackson plays Elizabeth, with Patrick McGoohan as James Stuart, Timothy Dalton as Lord Darnley, Nigel Davenport as Lord Bothwell and Trevor Howard as William Cecil. The screenplay is by John Hale and Hal B. Wallis produced. Twenty-two performers are credited.

The film runs 128 minutes and was released in December 1971. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.1 from around 5,300 votes, while on TMDB it rates 6.7 from a much smaller pool of voters. The wider sampling on IMDb points to a fairly favourable reception among viewers, and the difference between the two figures reflects how much smaller the TMDB sample is.