Year			2000
Genre			Drama
Rating			R
Parents			Sexual content
Length			2:03
Director			Philip Kaufman
Writer			Doug Wright
Company			20th Century Fox
Starring			Geoffrey Rush Kate Winslet Joaquin Phoenix Michael Caine Billie Whitelaw Patrick Malahide Show more... Geoffrey Rush Kate Winslet Joaquin Phoenix Michael Caine Billie Whitelaw Patrick Malahide Amelia Warner Jane Menelaus Stephen Moyer Pauline McLynn Edward Tudor-Pole

The notorious 18th-century sex writer Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is imprisoned in Charenton Asylum. He befriends the director of the asylum, Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), and determinedly persists in penning his kinky prose while a friendly washerwoman (Kate Winslet) helps to sneak his writings to the publisher. But things change fast when Napoleon sends in a doctor (Michael Caine) to cure the Marquis of his supposed madness.