The wise and peace-loving Queen Christina (Greta Garbo) has ruled Sweden since the age of 6, when her heroic father died in battle. Pressured to marry her cousin Karl Gustav (Reginald Owen) and produce an heir, the queen slips away incognito and ends up at a country inn, where she meets and falls in love with Antonio (John Gilbert), a Spanish envoy on his way to the palace. However, Count Magnus, himself in love with the queen, does not approve of her foreign lover.

To escape the burdens of rule, Sweden’s Queen Christina rides into the countryside disguised as a boy. There she meets and secretly falls for a dashing Spanish envoy on his way to the royal court. Imagine the envoy’s delighted surprise when he and the young “nobleman” must share a bed at an overcrowded inn. Greta Garbo gives a luminous performance in this lavish costume drama, starring with her one-time off-screen fiance John Gilbert and directed by Rouben Mamoulian. “It had been so enchanting to be a woman, not a queen. Just a woman in a man’s arms,” Christina murmurs to her lover when her true identity is revealed. But she knows her people will not accept her marriage to a foreigner. Torn between her duty and her heart, she must make a fateful decision.