♪♪ -What's so awful about all this?

We can't even talk anymore without getting angry.

-Judi Dench is one of the most unpredictable and unquantifiable actors UK has ever produced.

-She seemed to inhabit every part as if she was built just for that part.

And that's an extraordinary achievement.

-When I was young, I had such a vision of myself.

I dreamt I'd be someone to be reckoned with.

-She's part of theater royalty, acting royalty.

-She's obviously a complete national treasure.

-You do not -- H-He -- Get him out!

Get him out!

-Judi Dench's legacy is one of our finest Shakespearean actresses, one of our great theatrical dames.

So little space in a film that she could win, you know, awards for.

-I don't know any other actor who can work across so many disciplines with such dedication and such joy.

-I'm not simply frivolous, you know, and I don't ever, ever want to be taken for granted.

-You see her on screen and you think, "Ah, that's fine.

Whatever happens in this scene, we're going to be okay.

Judi Dench will get us to the end."

She's like a trademark of absolute quality on the movie.

-Miss Bennett, I warn you, I am not to be trifled with.

-She never ceases to be the central part of any film she plays in, it seems to me.

She doesn't seem to be able to do anything wrong.

-None of the rest of us truly know how to act for the camera.

But you do.

It's a rare gift.

-All hail Judi Dench.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Judi Dench was born in 1934, in Haworth in North Yorkshire.

Her father was a GP, and he was the, if you like, the physician in residence at the Theatre Royal in York.

So he would be the person who would look after any actor's illnesses, check everyone was okay.

There were actors in and out of Judi Dench's house while she was growing up.

Her mum was the wardrobe mistress at the Theatre Royal, so she was born not quite onto the stage, but she was born very close to the stage.

-According to her, they had a wonderful free, fairly liberal outdoor life, communing with nature, just running about, having a sort of wild time.

I think this informs something of her character too, as an actress, because there is -- she always has that sense of wild mischief inside her.

-When she decided to go to London and train properly at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art.

-She sort of came out of school and fell straight into the Old Vic as Ophelia, and it was a very successful production, traveled around the country, and she would stay with the Old Vic company doing, as she put it, all the Shakespeares for four different seasons.

-Judi Dench's first screen appearance was in a film called "The Third Secret."

-"The Third Secret" is a psychological thriller.

It's about a doctor who has apparently committed suicide, and a detective trying to understand how or why he had and coming across a variety of people -- three -- who he thinks have some part to play.

Richard Attenborough is one of them, a gallery owner, and Judi Dench is his assistant.

-Already you can see elements of that sort of mischief in her, in the way she delivers something.

-You're going to go on resenting me.

-But I don't resent you.

It's just that you can -- you can get out of these four walls.

You can see your friends, you can go for a drink.

You can break away.

I'm not prepared to cook your meals and look after your baby and just be here when you feel like it.

-Oh, come on, darling.

That's your part of the bargain.

I keep mine.

-Bargain.

-Well...I'm sorry, but that's the way society happens to be.

-I'm not talking about society!

I'm talking about me!

-"Four in the Morning" was Judi Dench's breakthrough film.

She played a character known as Wife in a very intense five-hander.

-She is amazing in it.

She really does convey the sense of frustration about having a feckless husband and also not being able to cope as a mother.

I mean, it's quite alarming, actually, how she manages to get that across.

Wonderful performance.

-"He Who Rides a Tiger" was her next film in which she appeared with Tom Bell.

Tom Bell plays a criminal who comes out of prison and is dealt with by Judi Dench's social worker.

They form a relationship, she desperately trying to keep him straight.

-How did you get in here?

-What's the matter?

Did I frighten you?

-Is that what you're trying to do?

-I just wanted to see more of you.

It seems I've got to get in the queue.

-You're not used to that?

-No.

-You think you can just buy your way to the front?

-That's right.

-Yes, well, how much am I worth?

-Well, you're rather difficult to price.

-Well, what does it say in the catalog?

Brunette, 37-24-36, gray eyes, 5'2".

-Just a minute.

Don't you like me?

-What's kind of significant about it, beyond its strong performances, is it's a chance to see two British greats in Judi Dench and Tom Bell very early on in their career, looking quite sort of callow and young.

-Are you a gambling man?

-Sometimes.

-And are you a liar, too?

I mean, 2,000 a week.

-She had a very strong performance.

It was noticed by a lot of the reviewers as a standout performance, although they felt the part wasn't quite strong enough for her.

They felt the part was quite indecisive and she had a much stronger character.

-Judi Dench then focused on theater at the National and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She returned to the screen to play an author in the 1985 film "A Room With a View."

-One has always to be open, wide open.

I think Miss Lucy is.

-Open to what, Miss Lavish?

-To physical sensation.

-[ Gasps ] -I will let you into a secret, Miss Bartlett.

I have my eye on your cousin, Miss Lucy Honeychurch.

-Oh, for a character in your novel, Miss Lavish?

-The young English girl transfigured by Italy.

And why should she not be transfigured?

It happened to the Goths.

♪♪ -Signora.

-[ Speaking Italian ] -Signorina.

-The smell -- a true Florentine smell.

Inhale, my dear.

Deeper.

Every city, let me tell you, has its own smell.

-"A Room With a View" sees Judi Dench's first return to cinema after a long break in 1985.

It's a very lavish Merchant Ivory Production.

-That was a huge success, both critically and publicly.

And she plays the author in the film.

-It's a lovely, enchanting, romantic adaptation of E.M.

Forster that sort of completely draws upon the Tuscan countryside.

-And did you really marry this Italian?

-In the church at Monteriano.

A youth 10 years younger than herself.

-[ Gasps ] Eleanor.

-She writes cheap romances and is very prurient, in fact.

But she also, again, in a role that is not, of course, a major role in the film, manages to steal every scene she's in.

-For we cannot lodge or bored a dozen or 14 gentlewomen who live honestly by the prick of their needles.

But it shall be thought we keep a bawdy house.

-"Henry V" was, of course, Kenneth Branagh's great attempt to make the Shakespeare play once more as his idol Laurence Olivier had.

And it was populated with the great and good of the theatrical fraternity of Britain.

You know, from Emma Thompson to Robbie Coltrane.

It was all the great names that had lined up in this film -- Richard Briers.

And of course, there was a place for Judi Dench, a very small bit as Miss Nell Quickly, who was, of course, the rather bawdy barkeep at the inn where we meet Falstaff.

And it's a small little sort of glimmer of just how much fun Judi Dench can be within that kind of Shakespearean world.

-She's the woman who has really helped raise Branagh's Henry in a sort of a mischievous way.

She's an innkeeper.

She's with Falstaff.

She's in the part of the broad, comical troupe, but she has a very dark subplot to it, really, which is Falstaff dies and she's with Falstaff when he does die.

So she's there for the tragic part, really, of "Henry V," where the friends of his youth are rejected, and she's the woman who has to pick up the pieces.

-On my troth... The King has killed his heart.

[ Dramatic music plays ] -Seems your hunch was right, 007.

It's too bad the evil queen of numbers won't let you play it.

-[ Clears throat softly ] -You were saying?

-No, no, I was just, uh, just... -Good.

Because if I want sarcasm, Mr.

Tanner, I'll talk to my children, thank you very much.

Good evening, 007.

-Good evening, M.

-The Prime Minister's waiting for an update.

Proceed with your briefing, Mr.

Tanner.

-Thank you.

-"GoldenEye" was a reset for the Bond franchise.

It had been off air for a while, and it was generally seen as being a Cold War spy thriller genre piece.

So to reinvent it, they positioned it very much in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And they took a lead from real-life Dame Stella Rimington, who at that point was in charge of MI6.

Effectively, Judi Dench played her.

She plays a very powerful M. She's scolding and motherly to Bond, Pierce Brosnan.

And she modernizes -- Almost single-handedly she modernizes the franchise, really.

As soon as she appears on screen, you realize this is not what we've seen before.

This is -- All of the typical Bond-M interaction has changed.

-The great underlying joke of the whole era of Judi Dench as M was that she was the Bond girl.

You know, she was the most important woman in his life.

-I want you to find GoldenEye, find who took it, what they plan to do with it, and stop it.

And if you should come across Ourumov, guilty or not, I don't want you running off on some kind of vendetta.

Avenging Alec Trevelyan will not bring him back.

-You didn't get him killed.

-Neither did you.

Don't make it personal.

-She brought a sense of authority and weight, power and -- and also a sort of icy wit.

She had a real sort of -- She gingered things up, especially for when dealing with Bond, who was Pierce Brosnan, by, you know, calling him a sort of sexist, misogynist dinosaur.

-You don't like me, Bond.

You don't like my methods.

You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in my numbers than your instincts.

-The thought had occurred to me.

-Good.

Because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War whose boyish charms that are wasted on me obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you.

-Point taken.

-Not quite.

007.

If you think for one moment I don't have the ..... to send a man out to die, your instincts are dead wrong.

-I mean, immediately she says those words, you're already in a new era of Bond, and it brings the house down every time she sort of -- you hear it.

She was very spiky, very funny.

And yet, you know that she had the -- She had the authority to actually run that organization.

-My husband was always very complimentary in speaking of you.

He would have approved, I'm sure, of my calling on you in this way.

-Honest to God, I never thought to see you in such a state.

You must miss him dreadfully.

-You do not -- H-He -- [ Clock chiming ] Get him out!

Get him out!

Get him out!

-"Mrs Brown" is, which is astonishing to think, Judi Dench's first starring role, first above-the-title movie.

And she's over 60 at this point, so she's had to work her way to this.

-Queen Victoria, played marvelously by Judi Dench late in her life but still carrying the grief of Prince Albert dying, and she gets hired to put alongside her as a companion stroke bodyguard this burly Scottish gent, played by Billy Connolly, called Mr.

Brown.

-I have some letters in my saddlebag.

I'd like to read them.

I cannot read them like that.

You will hand them to me as I require.

-But at the heart of it, it's a lovely relationship film between two very different people who come to understand one another.

I think the quality that Billy Connolly brings to that part is that he, you know, he's this Scottish man of the country and he just doesn't deal with her kind of -- her royalty at all and cuts through to the human being.

-The combination of those two, Dench and Connolly, is sort of screen magic.

It's just one of those alchemical things that very, very rarely happens, and when it does, it makes the screen just light up.

-No one should think themselves wiser than me!

It is not for any of the Queen's subjects to presume to tell Her Majesty when and where she should come out of mourning!

It is the Queen's sorrow that keeps her secluded!

It is an overwhelming amount of work and responsibility, work that she feels will soon wear her out entirely.

-Your Majesty.

-Is it not enough that she is uncheered and unguided that she should also have to suffer these malicious rumors?

I am not a fool.

-She won Best Actress at BAFTA and a Golden Globe Award, quite rightly, for the performance, because nobody could have played the elderly Queen Victoria better than she did.

♪♪ -From English blood and Tuscan birth, what country should we give her?

Instead of any on the Earth, the civic heavens receive her while the blue Tuscan sky assumes -- -[ Clears throat ] -While the blue Tuscan sky entombs our English words of prayer.

[ Applause ] -"Tea with Mussolini" is a Franco Zeffirelli film with an amazing cast of women -- Joan Plowright, Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin.

It's a very strong group of women who play incredibly well together.

-Judi Dench plays the kind of most bohemian of the lot.

She's an artist, and she wears this sort of wonderfully sort of louche clothes, and she's the one who gives the boy his artistic and cultural development by taking him into the sort of back parts of museums and showing him all these sort of sculptures and the things that are not on display.

-We've just got time before school, but this is something you mustn't miss.

I'll show you something you'll never forget.

You see, Luca, Florence isn't just shiny cars and ice creams as little boys think.

It's the human form, divine.

The body, beautiful.

And you, yes, you could be part of that world to make, to create, to live as those old artists did, Luca.

It's to share a part in the divine plan.

-It was very successful at the box office.

It was a not a huge film, but it was of course fabulously decorated by Zeffirelli and shot in Italy.

♪♪ -No!

If I need help, I'll ask for it.

-What do you see in it?

-Not a damn thing.

-Come on, it's a game.

What do you see?

-I see a cranky old woman too tired to play games.

-"Chocolat" continued in a similar stripe of these kind of ensemble literary adaptations.

In this case, it's a very hip drama in which Juliette Binoche arrives in a small French town to open up a sort of a chocolate shop.

And she would basically, through the medium of her sweets and her wisdom, kind of gently nudge the town toward a better way of life.

-Initially, we think Judi Dench is going to side with the mayor.

We think she's crusty.

We think that she is going to have no respect whatsoever for the chocolatier's art.

But we find that she sneaks down, she starts enjoying the chocolate, and eventually Binoche's character allows Judi Dench to meet her grandson in the chocolate shop.

-Would you like some cake?

I'm not supposed to.

-Don't worry so much about not supposed to.

Mm?

Live a little.

-Oh!

Her hair appointment's almost done.

I have to go.

-What about my picture?

-Next time.

-Mm.

-Thank you for the cake.

-Don't look so damn pleased with yourself.

-People loved it, whatever the critics said, and they were quite acid about it, really, very often.

But the more they disliked it, the more it was successful.

-[ Sighs ] What can I do?

-Throw me a party.

-[ Laughs ] What?

-Wednesday's my 70th.

Let's show the bastards we are ready to go down dancing.

[ Both laughing ] -Human beings love each other -- in sex, in friendship.

And when they're in love.

And they cherish other beings -- humans, animals, plants, even stones.

The quest for happiness and the promotion of happiness is in all of this and the power of our imagination.

-"Iris," I think, is kind of a necessary film for Judi Dench at this point in time.

She was running in danger of becoming predictable and a little twee in her choices, the idea of a national treasure.

And "Iris" was the first film to really strike out against that.

-Iris Murdoch suffered from Alzheimer's and dementia, and Judi Dench delivers one of the performances of her career, I would say in film, in this.

She is pathetic, she is vulnerable, she is angry.

She is absolutely everything that Iris Murdoch would have been.

-Oh, you're there.

-What is it?

-I'm back.

-Much earlier than I thought.

-Yes, I came straight back.

I didn't know I was there.

-You were going to do an interview.

-What interview?

-I don't know.

-So, um... -And to see your publisher.

-So -- So I came back.

-I didn't expect you back for ages.

-Has he rung?

-I didn't answer.

-It's Nora.

-Nora is dead.

-Oh, so she is.

Oh, that is sad.

Oh, well.

Never mind.

Must have been Ed.

What for?

Oh, yes.

My book.

Oh.

So I came back.

-Very difficult, if you're playing that part, to be as vulnerable as Judi Dench managed and still suggest that underneath there was a great writer.

She managed to do it.

And that was a tremendous performance by her.

And she justifiably was nominated for a number of awards for it.

-No, Iris, no!

-No, no, no, no!

-[ Shouting indistinctly ] -No!

No!

Help!

Help!

-I'm trying to help you!

♪♪ ♪♪ -It's a convincing performance, so convincing that Martin Amis, who knew Iris Murdoch, said he could not tell the difference between Iris Murdoch and Judi Dench's version.

-Your younger sisters?

Are they out in society?

-Yes, ma'am.

All.

-All?

What, all five out at once?

That's very odd.

And you only the second?

The younger ones out before the elders are married.

Your youngest sisters must be very young.

-Yes.

My youngest is not 16, but I think it would be very hard on younger sisters not to have their share of amusement because the elder is still unmarried.

It would hardly encourage sisterly affection.

-Upon my word, you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person.

-When Joe Wright was casting "Pride & Prejudice," he wrote a personal letter to Judi Dench asking her to play Catherine de Bourgh, and he said, "You're so good when you play a bitch.

Please come and play a bitch for me."

And that's what she does.

She brings the most offended, outraged Catherine de Bourgh that you will find.

-You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand why I am here.

-Indeed, you are mistaken.

I cannot account for this honor at all.

-Miss Bennet, I warn you, I am not to be trifled with.

A report of a most alarming nature has reached me.

That you intend to be united with my nephew, Mr.

Darcy.

I know this to be a scandalous falsehood, though not wishing to injure him by supposing it possible, I instantly set off to make my sentiments known.

-If you believed it to be impossible, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far.

-To hear it contradicted, Miss Bennet.

-Your coming will be rather a confirmation, surely, if indeed such a report exists.

-If?

Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it?

-There's nothing false.

There's nothing inauthentic about it.

She just does it.

I think she's probably the best thing in the film, actually.

-Oh, yes.

Excuse me.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -I am bored with widowhood.

-My dear, you've just scratched the surface.

-I have to smile at everybody.

I've never had to smile at everybody.

In India, there were always people to look down on.

-People are simply being sympathetic.

After all, you have lost your husband.

-Well, I didn't mislay him.

It is most inconsiderate of Robert to die.

What on Earth am I supposed to do now?

-She senses that, with all the soldiers going off to war, what she could offer them in this Soho theater was a chance to see the female body before they went.

For many young men, the only chance to see a female body.

So it was this kind of social gift she was doing.

-Isn't it delicious?

I own it.

-Own it?

-Well, you told me now there was no one to stop me from buying things, so I bought a theater.

-But I meant bracelets and earrings.

What on Earth are you going to do with a theater?

-Well, I thought music hall or... Or what do they call it in America?

Vaudeville.

Actually, I haven't thought about it.

Oh, dear.

What am I going to do with it?

-Clearly you need someone to run it for you.

-Oh, you think?

Oh, I knew you'd give me sensible advice.

But who?

-Judi Dench manages to make this convincing.

Some of the reviews said it wouldn't matter what role.

At this point, she's in a stage where it doesn't matter what role she plays.

When she's on the screen, she owns the screen.

She's just got a huge presence.

She's mastered how she brings her theatricality to the small screen in a very muted and subtle way.

-Why were you fighting?

It's perfectly simple question.

-Don't know, Miss.

-You don't know.

One minute you're an inert lump, the next you're trying to castrate a fellow pupil.

Nothing occurred between these two states?

-No, Miss.

-Don't play the hero with me, Connolly.

Yes.

Brain.

Mouth.

Speak.

-He was saying stuff about Miss.

It was bang out of order.

-What did you say?

-I never said nothing, Miss.

-"Notes on a Scandal" is a Richard Eyre film based on a Zoe Heller novel.

It's about a comprehensive school, a new, young, attractive teacher who's played by Cate Blanchett and a frustrated older teacher, played by Judi Dench, who gradually starts to blackmail, in essence, the younger teacher who she has a very complicated relationship with, a very, very strong attraction to, but a sort of a moral repulsion from.

-It's an extremely complex sexually psychological game that she's playing, very, very intense movie.

-It would have put you in an impossible situation.

I so wish I had.

You would have made me see sense.

-And then I realized my fury had blinded me.

There was a magnificent opportunity here.

-The extraordinary thing about it is, although the character that Dench is playing is deeply, deeply unsympathetic, by the time you get to the end of this, frankly, really hard to stomach film, you have all the sympathy for her.

-I gave you exactly what you wanted.

You'd still be stuck in that marriage without me.

-What?

-You can't accept it yet.

-You think I wanted to be here with you?

-You need me.

I'm your friend.

-You put me in prison.

I could get two years.

-They'll fly by.

I'll visit you every week.

We've so much life to live together.

-You think this is a love affair?

-There is actually a splendid fight scene that goes on between the two women, which is like the emotional expression of this kind of -- this kind of ongoing relationship.

And Judi Dench talks about the fact they had to wear padding along their back and front to get this kind of fight scene done.

-It was one of the very best because it was absolutely on the edge throughout it.

-That is an extraordinary arc, character arc, for any actress to achieve.

Judi Dench just does it as if it was natural to her.

Absolutely perfect.

-How kind of you to meet us.

Dear me, you do look cold.

-They're ready for you in makeup, Dame Sybil.

-How exciting.

Don't you love the first day of a new production?

-I don't know, Dame Sybil.

I've never had one before.

-Oh, to be young again.

-The story is about a young boy who's the assistant for Laurence Olivier, who ends up having a brief affair with Marilyn.

Judi Dench's role, however, is very important because at the middle of the film, she plays a very experienced, very hardworking actor who has to watch Marilyn Monroe's histrionics and relationship with her acting coach, and we assume that she despises Marilyn, just as a lot of the thespians and certainly Laurence Olivier around the table do.

But there comes a point where she stands up for her and she says, "No, you're bullying her.

This is wrong."

[ Footsteps approach ] -I'm so sorry.

-My dear, you mustn't concern yourself.

A great actress like you has many other things on her mind.

-You think I'm a great actress?

-None of the rest of us truly know how to act for the camera.

But you do.

It's a rare gift.

This poor girl hasn't had your years of experience.

She's in a strange country, acting a strange part.

Now, are you helping or bullying?

-Thank you.

♪♪ -Judi Dench starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in "J. Edgar" as the mother of notorious FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover.

-You abandoning me tonight?

-It's with the typist.

She's very organized.

-Is it a date?

-I think so, I think so.

I'm going to show her my old card catalog system at the Library of Congress.

-Romance her.

Wear a blue tie.

You look so handsome in your blue tie.

-She is quite wonderful in it because it's so unexpected.

First of all, you know, we don't think of J. Edgar Hoover as having a mother.

You know, we think of him as this sort of warped head of the FBI.

-There's a beautiful scene where he comes back from a nightclub saying he doesn't want to dance, and she says, "I won't have my son not being able to dance."

So she forces him to learn how to dance.

It's a very powerful, you know, vision of a very strong matriarchal character who then has this enormous effect on her son.

-And now I'm going to teach you to dance.

-Yes, Mother.

-[ Humming ] -She has to kind of embody this kind of tyrannical mother figure, or, as you know, Leonardo DiCaprio's character sort of sees her.

It's all seen through his eyes.

♪♪ -Oh.

I didn't realize.

Um, sorry.

[ Pots clattering ] Oh!

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I'm dreadfully sorry.

-Yes?

-S-Sorry.

I'm just looking for this address.

-Yes.

-Do you understand?

Could you help me find this place?

-Yes.

-Is that yes, you do understand or yes, you could help me?

-Yes.

-Oh, well.

Let's just go with both, shall we?

-Yes.

-Of the late films she's made, obviously the most popular has been "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."

It's not hard to see why it has a -- you know, it was such a great hit amongst certain generation.

This is a film that is peopled with pensioners, actors, you know, above a certain age who, you know, might still be working because they're all good actors.

But to have them all in the same film is just wonderful.

-I suppose it's a lovely, kind of soft-hearted tale of sort of a set of characters who have ended up in this Indian hotel and, you know, the romantic shenanigans and the local comedy they kind of get up to.

It's very light.

It's quite enchanting.

-It's ringing.

-Hello.

-Good morning, madam.

And how are you today?

-Oh, no, that won't do for a start.

That's much too nursie.

[ Laughter ] I feel as if I'm on my deathbed.

[ Laughter ] -If I could just take a few moments of your time to tell you about -- -How long will you actually take?

-12 minutes.

-Then you've lied to me already.

Now, I can't talk to you.

I'm watching TV.

-I really think that if you heard some of our special -- -No, no, no, don't talk like a robot.

Now just talk to me.

You've heard.

I'm watching TV.

-What are you watching?

-Oh, a marvelous program where a chap talks to a panel of young women whose boyfriends have all slept with their mothers.

[ Laughter ] -There's a very sort of beautiful September-October romance between Bill Nighy and Judi Dench, which you watch flourish with a lot of delicacy.

They're two very restrained, very delicate, very subtle actors.

And watching them fall in love is beautiful.

-You're still here.

-I missed the plane.

-What about Jean?

-She didn't.

-I'm going to be late for work.

-Right.

Um... What time do you finish?

-I get back about 5:00.

-Tea time?

-Yes.

-How do you take it?

-With a little milk.

-Right.

-A very fond view of India.

And people loved it.

So Judi, once again, was a great success.

-Mother.

What is it?

Are you alright?

♪♪ -It's his birthday.

He'll be 50 today.

-"Philomena" sees Judi Dench playing Philomena, an Irish woman who had to give away her child when she was young because the Catholic Church disapproved of unmarried mothers and who, much later on in life, works with Steve Coogan's Martin Sixsmith to try and work out what happened to her son.

-I think what they did to you was evil.

-No, no, no, I don't like that word.

-No, no, evil is good.

Story-wise, I mean.

-Some of the nuns were very nice.

-It was a breech birth.

They wouldn't even give her any painkillers.

-Excellent.

Again, story-wise.

-Steve Coogan is pretty good in it.

But it is Judi Dench's film.

She allows everyone else to work around her.

-She seems to be able to make a non-actor act terribly well.

And that's because she's such a good presence.

She's such a person who supports those she's playing with.

That's one of her fortes.

-They've run out of blueberries.

So I got you raspberries instead.

Oh, I'm sorry, is it a quiet time?

♪♪ That's my Anthony.

He's dead, isn't he?

-Yes.

I'm sorry.

-[ Crying ] -"Philomena," I think, completes a trilogy of what I would call the true Judi Dench films, which begin with "Iris."

They go through "Notes of a Scandal" and end up with "Philomena," where the whole concept of the national treasure is stripped away to get something very powerful out of her, a real kind of example of what an actress she really could be.

-It's the Dench effect, reviewers said.

This film works because Judi Dench is so convincing and so strong as Philomena, and she centers, anchors, and runs the film.

-After starring in six Bond films, Judi Dench returned to play the character M one final time in "Skyfall."

-You're firing me.

-No, ma'am.

I'm here to oversee the transition period leading to your voluntary retirement in two months' time.

Your successor has yet to be appointed, so we'll be asking you -- -I'm not an idiot, Mallory.

I know I can't do this job forever, but I'll be damned if I'm going to leave the department in worse shape than I found it.

-M, you've had a great run.

You should leave with dignity.

-Oh, to hell with dignity.

I'll leave when the job's done.

-Having played M in several James Bond films that the final one, "Skyfall," was actually about her.

It wasn't really about James Bond.

It's a James Bond film, but it's all predicated around M and her, and I think that shows that was a sort of tribute to Judi Dench.

-M becomes the target for the bad guy, Javier Bardem, and only James Bond, of course, can protect her.

And this becomes almost a double act as they kind of head north to the Skyfall mansion.

-It's not very comfortable, is it?

-Are you going to complain the whole way?

-Oh, go on then.

Eject me.

See if I care.

Where are we going?

-Back in time.

Somewhere we'll have the advantage.

-It's a very different kind of Bond film that really is centered around an almost meta idea of Judi saying goodbye to the part that she'd owned for so many years, and it becomes almost a tragedy because M will die in the film, and it becomes a significant moment in his life.

-This is a tragic film.

For my money, it's the best Bond that's been made.

And the reason it is, is because of Judi Dench's arc.

Her fall is the center point of the film, and that's what makes it a great Bond film and not just a good thriller.

-I suppose it's... too late to make a run for it.

-"Victoria & Abdul" was Stephen Frears again, and it's about the last years of Queen Victoria who was obsessed with this Indian servant, Abdul.

[ Fanfare playing ] -A gift from the Indian Empire, a mohur, Your Majesty.

-A what?

-A Mughal coin, Your Majesty, in honor of your service to the subcontinent.

-Have we finished?

-We still have coffee, Your Majesty.

-"Victoria & Abdul" is sort of a spiritual sequel to "Mrs Brown" in a sense.

It's directed by Stephen Frears again.

It's a chance for Judi to play Queen Victoria once more.

And it's a story of another sort of odd relationship that happened late in Victoria's life.

She becomes very close to an Indian emissary and comes to really understand him and learn from him.

Amazingly, that well into her dotage, Victoria wanted to learn Urdu and wanted to learn about religion.

-I want you to teach me Indian.

-Indian?

-Hindu, whatever it is you speak.

-Are you sure?

-Of course I'm sure.

-But why would you like to learn Hindi, Your Majesty?

-Well, I am Empress of India.

Look, I've ordered a book.

I want you to give me private lessons.

-I can't teach you Hindi, Your Majesty.

-Why ever not?

-You are the Empress of India.

You should learn Urdu, the language of the Mughals.

-There's very strong chemistry on screen.

The film is a bit of a "Mrs Brown" remake.

But Dench's chemistry with everybody is incredibly strong, and it's worth watching for that.

-I am cantankerous... ...boring, greedy, fat, ill-tempered, at times selfish and myopic both metaphorically and literally.

I am perhaps disagreeably attached to power... ...and should not have smashed the Emperor of Russia's egg.

But I am anything but insane.

-Her portrait of Queen Victoria is exemplary throughout both films, and I think Stephen Frears was lucky to have her.

♪♪ -The worst is over.

He found out what you're made of.

-Judi Dench's legacy is, of course, as a great theatrical actress, but in film and also in television, she has an extraordinary range.

-Oh!

You people make me weary.

You've no courage.

What did I say?

Stick a thing out and it will come right.

-She was amazing.

And she will remain amazing, really, as one of the top stars of the century.

No doubt about it.

And one of the most affectionately remembered as a person as well as as an actress.

-That is a very beautiful image.

-Don't be ridiculous.

It's the show business I'm attracted to.

-She gets to play the spymaster M.

-You know the rules of the game.

You've been playing it long enough.

-She gets to play the heartbroken Iris Murdoch.

-I feel... as if I'm sailing into darkness.

-In "Chocolat," she gets to play the grandma who's got a secret desire to see her grandson.

-Oh, I'm a bad influence because I don't like her treating him like a trained poodle.

-Beneath the veneer of this kind of treasure, there are some dark and fascinating performances as well.

-Think very carefully, madam.

Be aware of the consequences.

-She's not just one thing.

She's a multitude of things.

-I am the Queen of England.

I will have whatever help I require.

-Her diversity, her commitment, and her sense of mischief is, I think, eternal.

-Now you know my secrets.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪