Valmont

Acclaimed theater director Des McAnuff made his feature-film directorial debut with this period comedy-drama adapted from Honore de Balzac's novel La Cousine Bette (1846) about a jealous and bitter spinster who attempts to destroy the romance between her niece and a Polish sculptor. In Paris of the 1840s, spinster Bette Fisher (Jessica Lange) steps in to "take care" of her relatives after a decline in the Hulot family fortunes, mainly due to wastrel…Read More

With an insane asylum standing in for everyday society, Milos Forman's 1975 film adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel is a comically sharp indictment of the Establishment urge to conform.…Read More

Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by E.M. Forster, A Room with a View is a shining example of Merchant-Ivory's ability to achieve maximum quality and opulence at minimum cost.…Read More

In an adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) are step-brother and step-sister living in Manhattan.…Read More

Marshall Herskovitz directed this look at life in 16th-century Venice, based on Margaret Rosenthal's 1994 book The Honest Courtesan. Positioned outside of the Venetian court, Veronica Franco (Catherine McCormack) hopes to rise above her station, but her interest in nobleman's son Marco Venier (Rufus Sewell) is blocked since his parents forbid their marriage. Following the path taken by her mother, Paola (Jacqueline Bisset), Veronica becomes a courtesan,…Read More