Despite The Favourite’s seeming interest in representing bawdy, rebellious, and insubordinate women, the real ruler of the film is not Queen Anne but [director Yorgos] Lanthimos. […] It’s not that Lanthimos’s films are ‘too deep’ for spectators to ‘get’. Rather, so much is withheld that the kind of story he is trying to tell becomes troublingly ambiguous. […] The audience is presented with two options: to feel sorry for or to be grossed out by Queen Anne. Both defang her.
— Katherine Connell (Another Gaze)
England, early 18th century. The close relationship between Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill is threatened by the arrival of Sarah's cousin, Abigail Hill, resulting in a bitter rivalry between the two cousins to be the Queen's favourite.