Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £6.99 a month

Successive Slidings of Pleasure
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s serpentine erotic mystery presented as a surreal investigation into a woman with feared sexual powers.
Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Overview
A young woman is questioned by a detective (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Trans-Europ-Express, The Conformist), a repressed judge (Michael Lonsdale, Moonraker), a curious nun, a sexually-obsessed priest and her lawyer, all of whom suspect her of being a modern witch. The girl who shared her apartment has been found dead, bound to the posts of her bed, a pair of scissors impaled in her heart. Does the woman have the powers to make all around her fall prey to her spell, forcing them to slide progressively into desire, lust and, ultimately, the unknown?
With sadomasochistic imagery, disorienting editing and surreal interludes, Successive Slidings of Pleasure continues the ground-breaking quest to forge a new mode of erotic cinema undertaken by celebrated writer-director Alain Robbe-Grillet (writer of the classic Last Year in Marienbad).
Related

Memoir of a Snail Memoir of a Snail
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2024 95 mins Director: Adam Elliot
Nick Cave and Sarah Snook voice an Oscar-nominated stop-motion classic of divided twins, told with adult candour and uncanny warmth.

Santosh Santosh
Drama 2023 128 mins Director: Sandhya Suri
A housewife-turned-cop is sucked into a high-profile case that has polarised the local community in this taut, north India-set thriller.

Night Games Night Games
Drama 1966 105 mins Director: Mai Zetterling
In Mai Zetterling’s scathing rebuke of European entitlement, a man returns to his childhood home and confronts his repressed memories and desire.

Loving Couples Loving Couples
Drama 1964 118 mins Director: Mai Zetterling
Three expectant mothers on a maternity ward recall their personal and sexual experiences in Mai Zetterling’s bold, subversive debut.

The Girls The Girls
Drama 1968 100 mins Director: Mai Zetterling
Three stage actresses starring in Aristophanes’ classic play Lysistrata start to draw parallels with their own lives in Mai Zetterling’s feminist comedy.

Pacifiction Pacifiction
Drama 2022 165 mins Director: Albert Serra
Albert Serra’s hypnotic Palme d'Or-nominated drama about the greed and hypocrisy of colonial power in Tahiti.

The Nude Vampire The Nude Vampire
Horror 1969 85 mins Director: Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin’s second vampire film is a mesmerisingly surreal art-horror, short on logic but steeped in gorgeously sensual imagery.

Lips of Blood Lips of Blood
Horror 1975 87 mins Director: Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin’s hauntingly poetic horror about a man trying to solve the riddle of a tormenting childhood memory.

Fascination Fascination
Horror 1979 82 mins Director: Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin’s best-known film is the most full-blooded of his vampire tales, teeming with sex and lavishly filmed gore scenes

Shiver of the Vampires Shiver of the Vampires
Horror 1970 95 mins Director: Jean Rollin
Newlyweds visit their cousins at a remote rural chateau, finding them under the spell of two vampire girls.

Celine and Julie Go Boating Celine and Julie Go Boating
Drama 1974 194 mins Director: Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette’s biggest commercial hit is an exhilarating combination of theatricality, paranoia and ‘la vie parisienne’, around an entrancing examination of making and watching films.

Eyes without a Face Eyes without a Face
Horror 1959 90 mins Director: Georges Franju
Georges Franju’s gorgeous, poetic horror film about a surgeon’s dark obsession with restoring his daughter’s disfigured face.

Trans-Europ-Express Trans-Europ-Express
Thriller 1966 95 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
This stylish, cult 1966 erotic thriller stars French New Wave icons Jean-Louis Trintigant and Marie-France Pisier.

Eden and After Eden and After
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1969 98 mins Director: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s sensual fantasy follows a group of students who enter a bizarre sado-masochistic realm after taking a mysterious drug.

The Outcasts The Outcasts
Fantasy 1982 106 mins Director: Robert Wynne-Simmons
Haunting Irish folk-horror, from the writer of The Blood on Satan’s Claw, about an introverted farm girl suspected of witchcraft.

Memoir of a Snail Memoir of a Snail
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2024 95 mins Director: Adam Elliot
Nick Cave and Sarah Snook voice an Oscar-nominated stop-motion classic of divided twins, told with adult candour and uncanny warmth.

Santosh Santosh
Drama 2023 128 mins Director: Sandhya Suri
A housewife-turned-cop is sucked into a high-profile case that has polarised the local community in this taut, north India-set thriller.

Night Games Night Games
Drama 1966 105 mins Director: Mai Zetterling
In Mai Zetterling’s scathing rebuke of European entitlement, a man returns to his childhood home and confronts his repressed memories and desire.

Loving Couples Loving Couples
Drama 1964 118 mins Director: Mai Zetterling
Three expectant mothers on a maternity ward recall their personal and sexual experiences in Mai Zetterling’s bold, subversive debut.

The Girls The Girls
Drama 1968 100 mins Director: Mai Zetterling
Three stage actresses starring in Aristophanes’ classic play Lysistrata start to draw parallels with their own lives in Mai Zetterling’s feminist comedy.