Scandal (1989)

The first big-screen telling of the Profumo affair still has the most sympathetic Stephen Ward: John Hurt plays the society osteopath as charming, needy and finally abandoned by the powerful friends who enjoyed his parties. Joanne Whalley is Christine Keeler and Ian McKellen a stiff John Profumo. It covers the ground more succinctly than the 2019 series, which makes it the better choice for one evening, though its nightclub gloss and nudity now feel very late-eighties, and it leans firmly toward Ward's side of the story.