Valmont

Set in eighteenth-century France, this drama centres on two aristocratic schemers who treat seduction as a game of control. The Marquise de Merteuil learns that a former lover intends to marry a young woman just out of a convent, and she enlists the Vicomte de Valmont to spoil the match. He has his own target, a devout married woman whose reputation for virtue makes her a worthier prize. The two conspirators settle on a wager, each risking something personal, and Valmont's pursuit begins to unsettle his own intentions. An attachment between the intended bride and her music teacher complicates the arrangements.

Miloš Forman directed and co-wrote the film with Jean-Claude Carrière, placing it between Amadeus and The People vs. Larry Flynt as the seventh of his ten features to date. Colin Firth plays Valmont and Annette Bening plays Merteuil, with Meg Tilly, Fairuza Balk, Siân Phillips and Jeffrey Jones among a credited cast of thirty-one. The production, mounted by Pathé, Timothy Burrill Productions and Renn Productions, cost about thirty-three million dollars and returned roughly one million worldwide.

On IMDb the film holds 7 out of 10 from around fifteen thousand votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.7 from about three hundred. A critics' rating of 6.3 from thirty-four reviews places it slightly below both audience figures.