Would 'The King's Speech' Be the First Movie About the British Royal Family to Win Best Picture?

After getting lots of love from the critics early on in awards season, it looked like "The Social Network" had the best chance of taking home Oscar gold. But with "The King's Speech" racking up late BAFTA, PGA, DGA, and SAG awards, it looks this tale of a king's triumph over a speech impediment might have a better chance of triumphing at the Oscars. Then again, movies about the British royal family have been royally disappointed in the past.

Starting in 1933 with Charles Laughton's portrayal of one of England's most notorious kings in "The Private Life of Henry VIII," there has been a long line of movies about the British royal family nominated for best picture. The 1960s especially saw a boom in movies about royalty being nominated; in 1964, Peter O'Toole starred as Henry II in "Becket," playing the king again in 1968 alongside Katherine Hepburn as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and Anthony Hopkins as Prince Richard in "The Lion in Winter." Neither portrayal of the king scored a best picture win. In 1969, Richard Burton starred in another movie about King Henry VIII in "Anne of the Thousand Days," which focused on the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn. Like the movie about King Henry VIII decades before it, this one also couldn't score Oscar gold.

In 1998, Henry VIII's daughter was portrayed by Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth." However, another movie featuring Queen Elizabeth in a smaller role won Best Picture that year (Judi Dench played the part in "Shakespeare in Love").

The last movie about British royalty nominated was "The Queen" in 2006, in which Helen Mirren won a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of England's current queen. However, even her amazing transformation couldn't help the film score a best picture win that year.

So it seems that "The King's Speech" has quite a curse to overcome if it's going to win best picture at the Oscars this year with so many movies about the British family being nominated and failing to win. However, the movie itself is about overcoming something that could be seen to be a curse (with a little help from excessive cursing, strangely enough), and it does have one very big thing going for it; the current queen (who appears as a little girl in "The King's Speech") reportedly enjoyed the movie and was impressed by Colin Firth's portrayal of her father. Such a seal of approval could just help crown "The King's Speech" this year's best picture winner.

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