Dangerous Liaisons · reception & legacy

1988 · Stephen Frears

How Dangerous Liaisons has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A prestige hit on release — three Oscars and a Best Picture nomination — it has only grown in stature, now widely seen as the definitive screen Laclos and home to one of Glenn Close's towering performances, with her Best Actress loss regularly filed under 'Oscar injustices'.

What's debated

The perennial fan debate is John Malkovich's Valmont — miscast reptile or genius casting precisely because he isn't conventionally seductive?

Its footprint

Malkovich's coldly repeated 'It's beyond my control' remains the film's calling card, and its DNA runs straight through Cruel Intentions (1999), which retold the same story with 90s teens.

Where it stands

A canonical 'costume drama with fangs' — a Letterboxd favourite among lovers of wicked, scheming women and a fixture on best-adaptation lists.

★ Did you know? Frears's film was raced into production to beat Miloš Forman's rival adaptation of the same novel to theatres — it opened a full year before Forman's Valmont (1989), which then flopped in its shadow.