Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Set in Venice

The Comfort of Strangers

1h 44m

Directed by Paul Schrader • 1990 • United States
Starring Christopher Walken, Rupert Everett, Natasha Richardson

Two couples are drawn into a dark psychosexual vortex in Paul Schrader’s stylish take on the erotic thriller. Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson are a British couple hoping to repair their rocky relationship while on vacation in Venice, where they fall in with a wealthy, mysterious couple (Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren) whose fascination with them turns increasingly treacherous. Adapted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Ian McEwan, THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS is a moody, spellbinding study in carefully controlled dread.

Up Next in Set in Venice

  • Nosferatu in Venice
    1:33:18
    Nosferatu in Venice

    Nosferatu in Venice

    Directed by Augusto Caminito • 1988 • Italy
    Starring Klaus Kinski, Christopher Plummer, Donald Pleasence

    What was intended to be an unofficial sequel to Werner Herzog’s NOSFERATU instead became one of the most notoriously fascinating productions in EuroCult history. Klaus Kinski—fully unleashed—...

  • Senso
    2:03:28
    Senso

    Senso

    Directed by Luchino Visconti • 1954 • Italy
    Starring Alida Valli, Farley Granger

    This lush, Technicolor tragic romance from Luchino Visconti stars Alida Valli as a nineteenth-century Italian countess who, during the Austrian occupation of her country, puts her marriage and political principle...

  • Summertime
    1:40:41
    Summertime

    Summertime

    Directed by David Lean • 1955 • United States, United Kingdom
    Starring Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Darren McGavin

    With this sublimely bittersweet tale of romantic longing, director David Lean left behind the British soundstage to capture in radiant Technicolor the sun-splashed glory of Ve...

×