During her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, Diana decides to leave her marriage to Prince Charles.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.3/10
IMDb: 6.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.64/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Metacritic: 76
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Pablo Larraín
Production
FilmNation Entertainment, Komplizen Film, Shoebox Films, Fabula, Fabula
Cast
Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry, Jack Farthing, Sean Harris, Stella Gonet, Richard Sammel, Elizabeth Berrington, Lore Stefanek, Amy Manson, Sally Hawkins, James Harkness, Laura Benson, Wendy Patterson, Libby Rodliffe, John Keogh, Marianne Graffam, Ben Plunkett-Reynolds, Ryan Wichert
Curator Review
Verdict
A stylized, psychologically charged portrait of Diana at a breaking point, carried by Kristen Stewart’s precise performance and Pablo Larraín’s eerie, subjective approach. It’s less a conventional biopic than a mood piece about confinement, performance, and self-erasure, with striking visuals and a memorable score.
Best for
viewers who like prestige dramas with a surreal or expressionistic edge
fans of character studies about isolation, identity, and pressure
people interested in royal drama that feels tense rather than stately
audiences who value performance, cinematography, and score over strict biography
Skip if
you want a straightforward, fact-driven biopic
you dislike heightened symbolism or dreamlike storytelling
you prefer warm, emotionally reassuring period dramas
you’re put off by films that are intentionally claustrophobic and anxious
Overview
Spencer turns a familiar historical figure into something stranger and more intimate: a chamber piece about panic, performance, and the suffocating rituals of power. Rather than tracing Diana’s life in a broad biographical sweep, the film stays locked inside a few winter days and uses that pressure cooker to suggest a woman coming apart under impossible expectations.
Worth noting
Kristen Stewart gives the film its pulse, balancing fragility, defiance, and a kind of haunted wit. The supporting cast and production design help build a world that feels both lavish and predatory, while the score and camera work push the story toward psychological horror without ever abandoning its emotional core.
Bottom line
It won’t satisfy viewers looking for historical completeness or a neutral portrait of the monarchy. But as an atmosphere-driven drama about identity, surveillance, and escape, it’s unusually vivid and often mesmerizing. The result is elegant, unsettling, and more emotionally direct than its formal tricks might first suggest.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Jay (4.5★) · 20674 likes
kristen stewart is again accepted into a family of blood sucking demons, this time with horrific consequences!
♱ (5★) · 9231 likes
the way men acted when the joker came out, this is my joker except i will be so much worse
hollie amanda (3★) · 6919 likes
princess diana is so cool i wish british people were real
davidehrlich (3.5★) · 6740 likes
listening to Jonny Greenwood slowly earn his eventual status as one of the greatest composers in film history is one of those things that makes life just a little more bearable.
mia lee vicino (4.5★) · 5733 likes
a surreal portrait of an isolated woman haunted by the burden of the past, the present, and the future. a psychological semi-horror, an antediluvian horror, a delicate horror; a decadent, hollow-eyed specter draped in the finest of pearls. how do you know what's real when you're living so high above everyone else, drowning in the yawn of the milky clouds?
but what's most terrifying about Spencer is its swirling depiction of the distinct pressure that comes with trying to rush your nervous breakdown in the bathroom because a roomful of uptight dorks are impatiently awaiting your return. aah!