Film

Valmont

Name: Valmont
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 1989
Cast: Colin Firth, Annette Bening, Meg Tilly, Fairuza Balk, Siân Phillips

A lavish, seductive romp through 18th-century French aristocracy where two lovers engineer elaborate schemes of seduction and betrayal. Colin Firth is all measured charm as Valmont, while Annette Bening simmers with intelligence and malice as Merteuil. It's baroque excess applied to erotic games—beautiful to watch, wickedly entertaining, and unexpectedly tender when hearts actually break.

TMDb rating

3.4

If you liked this

Dangerous Liaisons1988

The more famous adaptation of the same novel, featuring Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Darker, more ruthless, with sharper teeth. If you loved Valmont's elegance but want something with real moral weight and genuine menace.

But Considerably bleaker in tone. There's less romance and more cruelty, which some find exhausting rather than exhilarating.

Cruel Intentions1999

Teen aristocrats in Manhattan playing the same seduction games with the same novel as their blueprint. It updates the duplicity to a high school setting and somehow makes it funnier and more vicious at once. Sarah Michelle Gellar is magnificent.

But The modernization feels dated now, and the tone is uneven—it can't decide if it's satire or sincere teen drama.

The Affair2014

A Showtime drama about infidelity, desire, and the lies we tell ourselves and others. It uses fractured narrative to show how the same events look completely different depending on who's remembering. Morally complex and deeply unsettling.

But Brutally explicit about sex and violence. The lead character is deliberately hard to like, and the misery accumulates relentlessly.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Valmont

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Letter from an Unknown Woman1948

Both examine seduction as a performance and a language; both ask whether seduction can coexist with genuine love; both feature characters playing roles so perfectly they lose themselves in them.

Max Ophüls' masterpiece: a woman writes to a man she loved, recounting how he seduced her without knowing who she was. It inverts Valmont's dynamics—here, seduction becomes something sadder and more spiritual. The camera moves like desire itself.

But Black and white, deliberately melodramatic, and almost entirely interior and emotional. There is virtually no plot; it's pure feeling and visual composition.

Scandal2012

Olivia Pope navigates Washington power games with schemes that would make Valmont nod in recognition. Fast, propulsive, addictive—it's Liaisons Dangereuses in a political thriller costume, and the plotting is genuinely clever.

But The show loses its footing in later seasons. Also, the soap opera elements can overwhelm the strategic intrigue you came for.

The Duchess2008

Keira Knightley as a real historical figure trapped in a marriage of circumstance, navigating desire and duty in 18th-century aristocratic society. Gorgeous, melancholy, and surprisingly political about how women's agency works under constraint.

But Deliberately restrained and sad rather than thrilling. It's a portrait of powerlessness dressed in silk, which some find more depressing than entertaining.

A Gentleman in Moscow2024

An aristocrat con artist confined to a Moscow hotel orchestrates elaborate schemes and small deceptions. Ewan McGregor is charm incarnate; the show is fundamentally about the pleasure of watching someone scheme beautifully even when stakes are low.

But Episodes vary wildly in quality. The story sometimes forgets what it was doing, and the resolution feels hastily assembled.

MINDHUNTER2017

A methodical deep-dive into FBI criminal profiling in the 1970s. Like Valmont, it's about reading people, understanding desire and pathology, and the way seduction and manipulation are just different degrees on the same spectrum.

But Obsessively procedural and slow. It's about thinking, not action. Also left unresolved after two seasons, which may feel like a waste of time.

The Favourite2018

Two women scheme for the affection and power of Queen Anne in 18th-century England. Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are a combustible pair; the film is funny, nasty, sexually charged, and visually outrageous. A masterclass in performative rivalry.

But The humour is sometimes arch to the point of cruelty. Also wildly uneven in tone—it can't decide what kind of film it wants to be.

In the Mood for Love2000

Both films understand that seduction begins in the eye and the mind before it touches the body; both are about the performance of attraction and the masks we wear; both suggest that the deepest connection might be with someone we can never have.

Wong Kar-wai's Hong Kong romance, where two neighbors discover their spouses are having an affair. Gorgeously composed, achingly slow, about desire expressed entirely through mise-en-scène and glances. The opposite of Valmont in every way except in what it's about.

But Plotless and meditative to the point of stasis. If you need narrative momentum, this will feel like watching paint dry in slow motion. Also difficult to access outside film festivals or specialty streaming.

I, Daniel Blake2016

Valmont shows seduction as entertainment; Blake shows it as trauma. Both examine how power operates through charm and rhetoric; both ask what happens when you realize the game has real consequences.

Ken Loach's devastatingly simple story of a carpenter denied disability benefits navigating bureaucratic cruelty. Seems to have nothing in common with Valmont until you realize it's also about schemes, manipulation, and the way systems seduce us into compliance and despair.

But Kitchen-sink realism about poverty and suffering. There is no beauty here, no wit, no pleasure. It's deliberately hard to watch and emotionally exhausting.