In the new movie “Spencer,” Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diana muses about her legacy: “I’ve been imagining how they’ll write about me in a thousand years,” she says. “If I do ever become Queen, what will I be? Insane?”

Released on Friday, the film, which calls itself more of a fable than biopic, takes place over Christmas 1991 at the Sandringham Estate, one of Queen Elizabeth II’s country homes. Director Pablo Larraín depicts the Princess of Wales slowly unraveling: throwing up after meals; pinching the skin on her arm with...

In the new movie “Spencer,” Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diana muses about her legacy: “I’ve been imagining how they’ll write about me in a thousand years,” she says. “If I do ever become Queen, what will I be? Insane?”

Released on Friday, the film, which calls itself more of a fable than biopic, takes place over Christmas 1991 at the Sandringham Estate, one of Queen Elizabeth II’s country homes. Director Pablo Larraín depicts the Princess of Wales slowly unraveling: throwing up after meals; pinching the skin on her arm with a pair of wire cutters until she bleeds; standing at the top of a flight of stairs ready to jump before the ghost of Anne Boleyn appears to stop her.

The movie, which Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern describes as “gothic horror,” arrives during a turbulent year for Britain’s royal family. In March, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle accused the royal family of racism in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which the family subsequently denied. Prince Philip died the following month at age 99; Prince Andrew is being sued for sexual abuse by an accuser of Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew has denied the allegations.

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Even though it has been nearly 25 years since Princess Diana was killed in a crash after a paparazzi chased her car down in a Paris tunnel, her presence looms large over them. In the interview with Ms. Winfrey, Prince Harry compared the media’s treatment of Meghan to the intrusion endured by his mother, stating that he worried about “history repeating itself.”

“Since the interview with Oprah in March, there’s been this sense of pulling back the curtain,” says Elizabeth Holmes, the author of “HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style” and former Wall Street Journal staffer. “The timing of ‘Spencer’ hits at a time when everyone is looking at this family in a new light.”

The movie is just one of several new projects over the past year aiming to offer fresh interpretations on the princess’s life and struggles. “Diana: The Musical,” which opens on Broadway this month, charts the princess’ life from the age of 19 until her death in 1997. The fourth season of ‘The Crown,’ released last November, showed a recently-married Diana, played by Emma Corrin, nominated for an Emmy for her role, lonely and suffering from bulimia as her husband continued an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.

Princess Diana at her home Highgrove House in 1986.

Photo: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images

Meanwhile, a six-part documentary series currently airing on CNN aims to reframe the story of Diana’s life for a contemporary audience.

“As women now, we are allowed, in inverted commas, to show our vulnerabilities without being told we’re stupid or crazy,” says Emma Cooper, an executive producer on the show. “Diana wasn’t allowed to do that.”

These projects also come at a time when film and TV programs are reassessing the cultural treatment of other high-profile women in the 1990s and 2000s.

“We’re in a moment in time with Meghan, with Britney, with others, where we need to reflect on what we do to women in the spotlight and the profound toll that takes on them,” says Ms. Holmes. “Diana in so many ways was the first. The media covered and directed her life. You see that in ‘Spencer.’”

Mr. Larraín has said that he wanted to focus on Diana’s internal crisis during a specific period in her life in the early 90s when she was contemplating leaving her marriage.

As well as scenes of her in distress, Ms. Stewart portrays Diana as a loving, energetic mother who sneaks her young sons extra presents and stays up playing games with them late at night. In the film, the lack of independence allowed to members of the royal family makes her miserable.

‘“There is no longer any expectation that royal life is a fairy tale. This is the chapter in her life that people want to focus on today” says Arianne Chernock, an associate professor of history at Boston University who specializes in modern British and European history, with an emphasis on gender, culture, politics and monarchy. Ms. Chernock notes that the tone of the film will likely reflect contemporary beliefs about what it means to be royal, and a woman in the spotlight.

For Ms. Cooper, the CNN documentary series aims to interrogate the media narrative that often surrounded Diana while she was alive.

“During her life, Diana seemed under a very male gaze, and a lot of the testimony we heard about her was from prominent men,” she says. “ I wanted to look at her through a female lens from 2021.”

Prof. Chernock expects the interpretations of Diana to continue.

“As we see more fictional portrayals of her life, like ‘Spencer,’ people will continue to find new ways of telling her story to capture contemporary concerns.”

Write to Ellie Austin at eleanor.austin@wsj.com