The Favorite (also titled Intimate Power) is a 1989 Swiss-American historical drama film based on the unsubstantiated story of Aimée du Buc de Rivéry that takes place at the dawn of the 19th century. It was the final film of director Jack Smight.

Plot

A young French woman named Aimée is kidnapped and taken to the Ottoman Empire, where she is forced into a sultan's harem. Fiercely independent, she resists at first, but ultimately realises that she must make choices in order to survive. She begins to influence the Sultan to adopt fairer methods of resolving conflicts, but finds herself at odds with another of his wives who wants her son, Mustafa, to become the new Sultan. Over the years, she must deal with the advances of the new Sultan while protecting her adopted son, Mahmud, and helping the Ottoman Empire against Russian Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792.