ELIZABETH, directed by Shekhar Kapur. Written by Michael Hirst. Running time: 124 minutes. Rated R (for graphic, bloody violence and sexuality).

No need to take a reign check from theaters this week. “Elizabeth” and “Shakespeare in Love” are two excellent period movies precisely as we like them: beautifully written, finely performed and well worth the wait.

In spite of being underscored by vastly different tones, “Elizabeth” is dark, brooding melodrama to “Shakespeare in Love,” a light, romantic comedy. The films complement each other perfectly and should be seen in tandem, particularly since each takes place in 16th century England, each marks terrific performances by Joseph Fiennes and Geoffrey Rush in starring and supporting roles, and each features Queen Elizabeth as a staunch, formidable virgin.

Well, staunch, formidable, pseudovirgin, as Cate Blanchett explores to bewitching success in the captivating “Elizabeth.” As King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Blanchett plays Elizabeth as a passionate free spirit hardened by her cold blue bloodline, the ruthless machinations of a court in utter upheaval, and the tremendous rush for power that undermines it all.

The film, which compresses and rewrites history at will, takes great liberties in an effort to put on a good show, which it does royally. Beginning with the burning of three Protestant “heretics,” the film comes alive in its frequent beheadings, bloody division of two churches (Roman Catholic and Protestant), and the ascension of one tough, indomitable, 25-year-old woman who surfaces in director Kapur’s hands as a formidable feminist. Indeed, with the odds stacked against her, Elizabeth successfully fights off the Spanish, the French, her rivals and the Pope, while at the same time carrying on a torrid love affair with the buff Robert Dudley (Fiennes).

This is not the rigid, unflinching Queen Elizabeth Bette Davis played in 1955’s “The Virgin Queen,” or even the cool, knowing queen Judi Dench plays to great affect in “Shakespeare in Love.” Blanchett’s queen is sexy and smart, surprisingly limber and saucy, unafraid to live it up, even while it’s clear those around her want her dead.

Too bad for them. By film’s end, their heads are mounted on stakes whereas Elizabeth’s is merely shaved partly bald. Swearing off men altogether, she completes her metamorphosis from naive young woman to full, regal queen by reclaiming her virginity with five measured words: “I am married to England,” she declares, and goes on to fulfill a spectacular 44-year reign, which, incidentally, produced a little-known playwright by the name of William Shakespeare.

Grade: A-

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, directed by John Madden. Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. Running time: 120 minutes. Rated R (for nudity, sexuality and adult content).

Yes, Shakespeare, as in segue, as in “Shakespeare in Love,” is a wonderfully witty, nuanced film that imagines the Shakespeare of 1593 as a man whose new comedy, “Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter,” is suffering terribly in the absence of a muse.

As played deftly by Joseph Fiennes, the man who deflowered Elizabeth in “Elizabeth,” this Shakespeare is a man on the make, hustling women into bed with the simple hope of finding someone — anyone — who will inspire him to literary greatness, someone who will breathe new life and passion into his sould and, by extension, his work.

He finds his muse in Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow, in her best, most affecting performances to date), who is so perfect for Will, so alive, beautiful and enthusiastic about the playwright’s work, she really does seem worthy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, those words that eventually would come to be the heart of a retitled work, “Romeo and Juliet.”

All of this, of course, is historical hogwash. Shakespeare was actually inspired to write “Romeo and Juliet” after coming upon Arthur Brooke’s 1562 poem, “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.” But as wildly imaginative entertainment (the film’s genius is how it plays off Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and “Romeo and Juliet” in form and in content), it works beautifully.

It also rings true. Very little historical record exists on Shakespeare, whose work has been attacked over the years by bands of threatened academic elitists, all stating that the soaring poetry of “Othello,” “King Lear” and “Romeo and Juliet,” for instance, couldn’t possibly have come from a man of Shakespeare’s social class and educational background.

But to see the young playwright brought to life by Fiennes, to see him so passionately in love with his Viola, and her so obviously in love with him, is to know the full extent and power of romantic inspiration and to know how that inspiration, coupled with great talent, will always supersede class and education, and translate, quite smashingly, into art.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday in the NEWS. Each Thursday on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today,” he reviews what’s new and worth renting in video stores.