Directed by Paul Verhoeven • 1985 • United States, Netherlands
Starring Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson

Italy, 1501: after they’re swindled by a nobleman, a band of mercenaries headed by the savage Martin (Rutger Hauer) get their revenge by kidnapping his son’s young bride-to-be (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Worlds removed from the chivalrous romance of Hollywood legends, Paul Verhoeven’s first English-language film is a muddy, bloody, brutal vision of early modern Europe, with a rapist-kidnapper antihero at its center. Little wonder it was met with indifference by American audiences unprepared for the Dutch provocateur’s uncompromisingly thorny sensibility.