We’re wrapping up the Oscars by introducing you to some of the best, most memorable, and sometimes overlooked performances of this year's Oscar winners. Today’s Episode: Long Live the Queen.

It’s hard to match the class, the talent and the beauty of Helen Mirren. And last night she was finally recognized. To some she is best known as longtime detective Jane Tennison – to others, geeks like me perhaps, she is best known as the beautiful, vivacious Morgana. But now, to everyone, she is simply The Queen.

Essential Filmography:

Prime Suspect. I’ve long admired British television and the model it is built upon. Their TV seasons tend to be shorter and their series designed to last only one or two seasons. If you have a hit, often you make a series much like the one before. Sometimes you make a sequel. This allows you to bring in top-tiered, A-list talent without tying them down to 3-7 seasons like American shows require. In this case, Helen Mirren has made six sequels to her hit crime drama Prime Suspect. I grew up with Prime Suspect, as many Americans did, serialized through the PBS show Mystery. Some seaons were better than others, but all were top-notch procedural drama following not a new case every week, but one long investigation. Procedural nuts NEED to seek these seven seasons out.

Excalibur. When you saw John C. Reilly, Jack Black and Will Ferrell serenading Helen Mirren on the Oscars, it wasn’t a joke because she was old. It was because, like me and the friends I spent Oscar night with, they grew up with her as the beautiful Morgana in this 1981 John Boorman classic. The dance that seduced Merlin is a thing of legend – and if somehow you’ve never seen it, first hang your head in shame, then go find it. Now.

Caligula. I promised you it would appear again. This is one of the single raunchiest, most tasteless spectacles ever created – an X-rated masterpiece of overindulgence. Truly one of the most insane films ever made, if only because they were dead serious when making it.

Calendar Girls. Okay, I mentioned a long-running detective series, a bloody epic and a bloody long, epic porno. So how about a warm and fuzzy British comedy about old ladies who take off their clothes for a nudie calendar. Kind of brings the whole thing home, don’t it? Adorable, heartwarming and a total joy – this is one of those Sunday afternoon comfort-under-a-blanket-on-the-couch films of which I am so enamored. Definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of the Full Monty/Kinky Boots sort of films.

On getting the Oscar: How about that speech, huh? Now there’s the class needed for an event like this. She portrayed a living legend – a queen still alive and well. So she made her speech entirely about how much she admired her and thanked her for the role. Not the usual mentions or thanks to the Academy. It was all about the queen. Top shelf. Just like her performance.

This is part of Film.com's coverage of the 2007 Academy Awards. For more Oscars articles, analysis, news, and red carpet photo galleries, visit our Oscars page.

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