The Favourite

A triple threat of acting talent drives this acid period drama of courtly scheming. Olivia Colman is Queen Anne, a capricious and sickly ruler led by the nose by Rachel Weisz’s courtier Lady Sarah. Abigail (Emma Stone) is a disenfranchised noblewoman who quickly sets about regaining her position by wheedling her way into the Queen’s favours.

Cue an equal parts hilarious and horrific love triangle-cum-battle royale, played out against the backdrop of the English Restoration.

The fullest realisation of Yorgos Lanthimos’s (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster) talents to date, The Favourite has the beauty of Barry Lyndon and the avant garde edge of Peter Greenaway.