The Duke of Burgundy (2015)

Strickland’s sumptuous all-female S&M fable is his greatest film to date, an unconventional love story that explores the shifting nature of long-term relationships through a couple’s fetish for butterflies and role-play.

The critic calls it one of the most incisive and empathetic films about what it means to love another person, disguised as salacious midnight-movie fare with no nudity. The dynamic between the two leads, where the ostensibly submissive character exerts control, and the theme of compromise in relationships are singled out.

The film is a deadpan comedy of manners and an affecting study of a struggling relationship, as well as a stylish essay in the wilfully perverse. It delivers an immensely rewarding, amusing, wise, melancholy and involving experience, with standout performances from the leads.

The critic describes the film as sumptuous, surreal, and audaciously superb, an exotic and self-indulgent work that hypnotizes with its style, soundtrack, cinematography, and emotional vigor. The master-class performance by Sidse Babett Knudsen as Cynthia is highlighted for its controlled, deeply emotional quality.

Peter Strickland’s beautifully shot, highly atmospheric pastiche of 1970s European sleaze is a delight. The film is an S&M love story that is smarter and jollier than most, with meticulously refined style and a joyous awareness of its own preposterousness.

This is an elegant, witty, mysterious piece of bedroom philosophy and a thinking person’s Fifty Shades of Grey. Strickland’s latest lunacy is a wonderfully strange cinematic mouthful set in a gothic villa where only women exist and most are bluestocking lepidopterists with exotic sexual tastes.

Strickland delivers a striking, singular tribute to 1960s-70s Euro erotica that transcends pastiche with a sensuous, slyly funny portrayal of a sadomasochistic affair between two lesbian entomologists.

The critic calls the film visually ravishing, emotionally wise, and kinky, praising it as a delight and perfect companion to Strickland’s previous work. The richly layered performances, especially from Sidse Babett Knudsen, reveal an intricate architecture of emotional co-dependence, with humor and nuanced sound design singled out.

This is a charming, romantic and touching S&M yarn that serves as the perfect antidote to Fifty Shades of Grey, showing how difficult it can be to make fantasy work in a relationship. It is both funny and a loving homage to an antique genre of soft-core porn, with no men or nudity.

Strickland’s absorbing S&M passion play between two women starts as kinky Eurotrash pastiche but reveals the end of their affair through repeated seduction games in a lushly naughty 1970s style.

The film is an extended game with expectations around domination-and-submission role-play and the moviegoer’s assumptions in general. It is a claustrophobic two-hander about love, obsession, performance, and lepidoptery that pays homage to Sixties/Seventies Euro-erotica.

Strickland crafts a mesmerizing mood piece and a fascinating portrait of a relationship through ritual, role-play and compromise. The lead performances, especially Knudsen's as the reluctant sadist, are compelling.

Strickland deconstructs 1970s continental soft porn to explore a sado-masochistic lesbian relationship challenged by the gap between fantasy and reality, creating an odd, original and beguiling work that is impeccably crafted.

The film is a phantasmagoric pastiche of 1970s Euro sex-horror that studies the stresses and power shifts in a perfect relationship through repeated sadomasochistic role-play scenes between two women in an all-female world of moth studies.

The film is a unique Sapphic S&M lepidoptery-themed psychological romance that pays slavish homage to old exploitation movies. It explores the sexual practices and domestic routines of two women in a lush, ritual-driven relationship.

What appears to be abuse is an elaborate erotic ritual between a lesbian couple; the director creates a sumptuous retro setting but the erotic psychology is flimsy and the film is as sexy as a chess game.

Strickland's film is hailed as a sumptuous, surreal, and emotionally intense work blending style, atmosphere, and deep relational dynamics between two women. The critic praises the performances, cinematography, score, and overall hypnotic immersion as a standout achievement.

The film is a mesmerising portrayal of human relationships that affords equal space to lustful and emotional elements of desire in a soft-focus rural setting devoid of men. It is a darkly comic erotic drama inspired by cult ’70s horror films.

The critic highlights how the film thoughtfully depicts a dominant-submissive relationship with passion and honesty, contrasting it favorably with Fifty Shades of Grey, and praises its analogue, organic visuals and attention to intimate details.

The film is a quietly hilarious and unusually restrained study of an unusual love affair that is beautifully shot and aurally mesmerising. Strickland observes the characters without judgment in this filmmaker’s film full of geometric butterfly images.

The film is described as delicate, constructed, and poised, with meticulous craft in sound, costume, and visuals evoking a stylized European world of lepidopterists and ritualized intimacy. The critic singles out its technical precision and emotional authenticity in depicting shifting control in a relationship.

The critic praises the film's exploration of a complex lesbian relationship involving dominance and submission, highlighting how one partner loses herself in trying to fulfill the other's desires. The emotional depth and nuanced portrayal of love versus lust are singled out as moving and beautifully rendered.

The critic praises the film's hypnotic, erotic exploration of a couple's relationship through role-play and repetition, noting its subversion of expectations around S&M and its beautiful, puzzle-like structure. It singles out the clever opening and the way it externalizes psychological elements through the setting for praise.

Strickland follows up Berberian Sound Studio with something warmer and sweeter though no less strange, reframing an S&M premise as a tender love story that grapples with the logistics of a submissive love affair. It has magisterial cinematography and an atmosphere all of its own despite stagey dialogue and languid pacing.