The King's Speech won the Best Picture Oscar

Photo: Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter filming The King's Speech at Queen Street Mill Textile Museum - by www.lancashire.gov.uk (Flickr: Filming Colin and Helena) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The King's Speech (2010), a British period drama film directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler, won four Oscars including the Best Picture at the 83rd Academy Awards, out of 12 Oscar nominations it received. The other three awards the film won are the Best Director (Tom Hooper), the Best Actor (Colin Firth), and the Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler).

The King's Speech was nominated for fourteen BAFTAs (64th British Academy Film Awards), of which it won seven awards including the Best Film and the Best Actor (Colin Firth), the Best Supporting Actor (Geoffrey Rush), the Best Supporting Actress (Helena Bonham Carter), and the Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler). It had also won seven Golden Globe nominations out of which only it bagged only the Best Actor award for Colin Firth. The film also won several other awards.

The British film was produced at a Budget of only $15 million, but it was a huge box office success, compared to its very limited production cost, as it grossed revenue of over US$245 million worldwide.

The main actors of the film include Colin Firth (King George VI), Geoffrey Rush (Lionel Logue), Helena Bonham Carter (Queen Elizabeth), Michael Gambon (King George V), Guy Pearce (King Edward VIII), Timothy Spall (Winston Churchill), and Derek Jacobi (Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Gordon Lang).

The plot of the film is about how King George VI (Colin Firth) fights to overcome his embarrassing stutter, and how a speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), helps him in his efforts. In the process the two men become friends. The film also tries to portray the psychological roots of the king’s stammer, including his childhood pressures possibly caused by his strict father, his left-handedness, his knock-knees, etc.

The King's Speech received widespread critical acclaim, and most critics widely appreciated Colin Firth’s masterly portrayal of the central character. The film was also highly rated for its visual style of the depiction of the historical scenes and its art direction.