Directed by recently exiled Polish-American director Roman Polanski, this lushly photographed Franco-British production of the Thomas Hardy novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, is a stunning portrayal of an innocent adrift in a hostile, chaotic world that earned an Academy Award for the young Nastassja Kinski.

 

Tess (Kinski) is sent by her desperate father (John Collin), a simple farmer, to pay a visit to the d'Urbervilles, a local noble family believed to be distant relatives. However, having set out to the aristocratic house less than a day's carriage ride away, Tess is soon embroiled in a world of seduction, violence and tragedy. And in true Thomas Hardy fashion, it's a world from which she gains little respite. One of Polanski's film masterpieces, Tess tells the story of a poor man's daughter, an aristocrat's mistress and a gentleman's wife who was ultimately a victim of her own provocative beauty.