An aristocratic wife commissions a draughtsman to sketch her husband’s property while he is away—in exchange for a fee, room and board, and one sexual favor for each of the drawings. As the draughtsman becomes entrenched in the devious schemings, details emerge in his art that may reveal a murder.

One of Peter Greenaway’s most purely pleasurable films, The Draughtsman’s Contract is a strange, diabolical, and mischievous twist on the British tradition of period pieces. It’s part sex melodrama, part mystery, fashioned in cheeky wit, scored by Michael Nyman, and shot like a gorgeous painting.