The Favourite
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: November 23, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
91
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 46 Critics
Positive:
45
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Original-CinLiam LaceyDec 6, 2018
The movie bridges the traditional Restoration comedy to the political satires of Armando Iannnucci (Veep, The Death of Stalin). Comedy also entwines with tragedy here, and bold touches of absurdism and iconoclastic revisionism. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerNov 29, 2018
Scintillating black comedy of manners from Yorgos Lanthimos, it latches its fangs in deep. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 28, 2018
The result is a splendid black comedy that marks a stylistic leap for its director. Second only this year to the upcoming “Roma,” it’s a reminder of how the movies can imagine a highly specific yet deeply idiosyncratic vision of the past. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 28, 2018
It’s a bit crazy, wild yet precise, a mix of comedy and drama that feints in the direction of anachronism, even as it provides a grand showcase for Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman, who are extraordinary. Read full review
100
Consequence of SoundAllison ShoemakerNov 26, 2018
Like the women who populate its halls, it might be easy to see The Favourite as only one thing, to reduce it to one quality, but it contains multitudes. And like its three central characters, you underestimate it at your peril. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 21, 2018
The Favourite, with a profane, erudite script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, is a farce with teeth, a costume drama with sharp political instincts and an aggressive sense of the absurd. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 20, 2018
Most of all you remember Colman, in a performance that achieves its power, in no small part, by utterly destroying our understanding of what power looks like. She beams and scowls, brays and bleeds, shatters and disintegrates. She rules. Read full review
100
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiNov 20, 2018
The performance everybody will be soon talking about is Olivia Colman’s royal turn in the entrancing new drama, The Favourite. Read full review
100
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 20, 2018
You know how some costume epics can be such a bloody bore? Not The Favourite. It’s a bawdy, brilliant triumph, directed by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos with all the artistic reach and renegade deviltry he brought to Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). Read full review
100
Film ThreatTheo SchearOct 17, 2018
This is a work of art that embraces and embellishes all the joys of cinema while offering a more enjoyable and progressive revisionist history. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatySep 4, 2018
This couldn’t be further from the corsets and curtsies of your typical Hollywood prestige period piece. It’s more like "All About Eve" directed by a Satyricon-era Fellini all hopped up with enough sex, deviance, hypocrisy, decadence, and spicy profanity to make your average Masterpiece Theatre patron reach into their PBS tote bag for some smelling salts. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJessica KiangAug 30, 2018
This time the irony is of the tragic kind, and the stinging, wicked wit is tinctured with wholly new notes of tenderness. Read full review
100
Screen InternationalLee MarshallAug 30, 2018
The Favourite is one of those rare films where the energy generated by three talents at the top of their game and the energy generated by their characters swirl and merge in a perfect storm. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 30, 2018
[Yorgos Lanthimos'] fabulously entertaining tragicomedy, The Favourite, is a juicy power tangle connecting three women in the royal court of early 18th-century England, played by a divine trio who bounce off one another with obvious relish. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleAug 30, 2018
The Favourite has ribaldry and intelligence to burn, a deliciously entertaining period piece that feels liberated by its period, rather than restrained and invigorates like a glass of wine thrown violently in your face. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeNov 20, 2018
So it’s bit disconcerting, the unfamiliar sensation provoked by his new movie, The Favourite: Is this the first Yorgos Lanthimos film that can be called genuinely fun? Read full review
91
IndieWireMichael NordineAug 30, 2018
Lanthimos wants us to examine the different reasons we grasp at power — avarice, self-preservation, even fear — and better understand its corrosive effects. Read full review
91
The Film StageLeonardo GoiAug 30, 2018
Endlessly quotable and serendipitously timely — all the more so considering the whole project was conceived nine years ago — The Favourite is a zany, piercing close-up on three women so replete with swagger as to reduce their male counterparts to disposable extras. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicGarrett MitchellDec 5, 2018
Each of the spectacular ascensions and drops in power throughout the 18th century-set The Favourite is filled with spectacle, betrayal and plenty of humor. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 23, 2018
The comedy is elegant, frequently dark and genuinely witty. The spectacle is gorgeous. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 21, 2018
Though mostly twaddle as history, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite is wonderful, nasty fun, a period drama (wigs, breeches, beauty spots) that holds the screen with gnashing teeth and slashing nails. Read full review
90
Film Journal InternationalErica AbeelNov 20, 2018
Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and particularly an astonishing Olivia Colman find a perfectly pitched acid tone in harmony with the director's edgy vision. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 4, 2018
The Favourite is a pleasure to watch. It’s weird without being alienating, dirty without being cheap. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a better acting trio this fall. What fun The Favourite is, while still striking a few resonantly melancholy chords here and there. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 30, 2018
The Favourite is a wicked delight, a fantastic little cupcake of a movie laced with thistle frosting. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanAug 30, 2018
It’s a perfectly cut diamond of a movie — a finely executed, coldly entertaining entry in the genre of savage misanthropic baroque costume drama. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperDec 9, 2018
It’s a period piece with a wink. It’s also funny as hell and a true big-screen treat. Read full review
88
The Associated PressJake CoyleDec 5, 2018
Much of The Favourite is caustically clever but it’s Colman who elevates it to something magnificent. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldDec 5, 2018
The real fun here is in the three central performances, each of which threatens to steal the film (giving “The Favourite,” appropriately, its own balance-of-power issues). Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 30, 2018
A deliciously diabolical comedy of ill manners and outré palace intrigue. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 28, 2018
The movie itself is great fun before it curdles intentionally into nastiness and drift. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 20, 2018
As hilarious as it is, The Favourite doesn’t skimp on impressive costuming and production design, and the film gamely tackles class and gender themes, as well as partisan politics, in its tale of women behaving badly and men being nitwits. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyNov 20, 2018
Even if this unique absurdist has not exactly been your cup of tea previously, he might finally win you over with this deliciously “Dangerous Liaisons”-esque and thoroughly female-driven period film, co-written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Read full review
88
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 30, 2018
Watching these three fiercely intelligent women, played by a trio of powerhouse actresses, is endlessly fascinating, as the goalposts constantly shift and their true selves become more apparent. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 19, 2018
The good news about the new film from Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite, is that you are likely to emerge from it in good humor — bemused, or amused, or a mixture of the two. Read full review
80
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneyOct 1, 2018
This is less Lanthimos’ film than it is Colman, Stone, and Weisz’s. The Favourite is mostly an excuse to watch these three attempt to one-up each other. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 30, 2018
What makes The Favourite work are its women—who rule, both literally within the movie and outwardly, dominating our enjoyment. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinAug 30, 2018
This is a skewer-sharp and scabrously funny film, stuffed with quotable deadpan exchanges, often punctuated by that now-trademark Lanthimos camera manoeuvre, the wide-angle whip pan that seems to ask “now what?” Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 30, 2018
The Favourite may have corrected Lanthimos’s tendency towards arthouse torpor. It is a scabrous and often hilarious film, made loopier by the nightmarish visions and wide-angle distortions contrived by the cinematographer Robbie Ryan. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 6, 2018
It’s not history, stunning palace locations and lush costumes aside. The Favourite is just fun, “something completely different,” though it does tend to drag as it takes us where we are sure it must go. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 5, 2018
Yet for a number of reasons, The Favourite is the first Yorgos Lanthimos film that puts the director’s bitter instincts to good use. It’s not only his most tolerable film, it’s his most insightful, too. It even approaches, well, fun. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 5, 2018
The result may peter out on the way to an anticlimactic conclusion but it’s fun while it lasts and at least one of the three peerless female leads should get some kind of Oscar recognition. (My bet is on Colman.) Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 5, 2018
As for the actors, Weisz gets to showcase her skill for subterfuge, while Stone reveals new levels of manipulation and deceit. But it’s the lesser-known Colman, as Queen Anne, who ultimately wrests control of the film. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedNov 20, 2018
Regardless of your tolerance for Restoration jabberwocky, you will be forced to admit the performance by Olivia Colman as England’s dim-witted Queen Anne is a masterpiece of madness. Read full review
75
Slant MagazinePaul O'CallaghanSep 6, 2018
The Favourite, notably the first of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films to be written by others, is more narratively coherent and conventional than The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, but Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara’s florid screenplay still affords the Greek Weird Wave auteur ample opportunity to assert his idiosyncratic worldview. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensNov 20, 2018
Though I found plenty in this film to admire, most notably a towering lead performance from Olivia Colman as the appetite-driven queen, I also confess to finding The Favourite, which runs only one minute over two hours, something of a long sit. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 1, 2018
The actresses are so expert, especially Colman, with her grievous, hardbitten woe, that you may not care, but if one is to mock this sort of historical extravaganza, I much prefer the nutbrain Monty Python approach to all this deep-dish folderol. Read full review
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