A nobleman with a literary flair, the Marquis de Sade lives in a madhouse where a beautiful laundry maid smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, defying orders from the asylum's resident priest. The titillating passages whip all of France into a sexual frenzy, until a fiercely conservative doctor tries to put an end to the fun.

• Charenton Productions
• Fox Searchlight Pictures
• Geoffrey Rush
• Kate Winslet
• Joaquin Phoenix
• Michael Caine
• Billie Whitelaw
• Patrick Malahide
• Amelia Warner
• Jane Menelaus