Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes

Belladonna of Sadness

Play trailer 1:30 Poster for Belladonna of Sadness 1973 1h 33m Fantasy Drama Anime Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
90% Tomatometer 41 Reviews 74% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
A peasant woman is banished from her village and makes a deal with the devil to gain magical powers.
Belladonna of Sadness

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Belladonna of Sadness has more than enough brilliant visual artistry to keep audiences enraptured even as the film's narrative reach slightly exceeds its grasp.

Read Critics Reviews

Critics Reviews

View More
Wael Khairy RogerEbert.com 02/20/2024
What starts off as erotic hallucinatory psychedelia ends with a powerful message about female solidarity...beneath all the horror, the torture, and the violence, you’ll find a cry for revolt against various forms of inhumanity. Go to Full Review
Violet Lucca Film Comment Magazine 03/01/2018
Carefully constructed and a little sloppy, alluring and disturbing, this gem deserves a trigger warning, but also a chance. Go to Full Review
John DeFore The Hollywood Reporter 03/01/2018
The artwork is achingly delicate, but there's nothing subtle about Belladonna of Sadness. Go to Full Review
Guillem Martinez Oya Cinematismo 05/16/2021
4/5
A museum's picture in movement. A stimulant revisit to the legend Joan of Arc. About womanhood empowerment [Full review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
Emilie Black Cinema Crazed 04/19/2020
4/5
It's a story worth at least one watch even if these aspects are not for you as the trippy watercolor animation should keep anyone's attention. Go to Full Review
Tim Brayton Alternate Ending 04/10/2020
4/5
It hits hard, and it keeps hitting, and even the moments that are narratively light are still heavy with the foggy dream-like quality of the artwork. Go to Full Review
Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View More
Cees T 08/05/2024 Trippiest hentai drama i've ever half watched. See more 07/13/2022 A very artistic yet very off-putting film that fetishes rape. Definitely not a very pleasant film despite it's gorgeous art style. See more 06/06/2021 Perhaps a far more interesting film in idea than execution, this animated psychedelic wig-out charts the tragic life of Jeanne, the Beladonna of Sadness, and millions of other women raised and repressed under religious patriarchy. It's a product of its time, in terms of the advent of women's sexual liberation, but I'm curious how this ended up being made in Japan, of all places. In places its animation is fantastic, elsewhere a little slapdash, and sometimes its too keen to shock for it's own good. The fuzzed up soundtrack is fantastic. See more l.d. b 05/03/2021 This movie is very much a product of the Psychedelic 1970s. It is very X-rated and stepped in both medieval French and Japanese mythologies on female empowerment, to make comment on both Sexual liberation and Feminism movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The art is very wonderful, and if you are fan of water colors you will enjoy the art very much. Warning this movie deals with rape, and revenge in a very graphic manner. If you have the mind to handle the concepts that are being portrayed and commented on in this movie, I would say check it out. It is more then worth it. See more 08/27/2020 This movie was approximately 90 minutes of loosely connected rape scenes followed by an extremely brief slideshow of paintings of the French Revolution. Half a star is awarded for the fun schoolhouse rock animation in the middle. See more 06/07/2020 Yes yes of course it is very artistic to fetishize rape. This whole story is about a woman getting raped on her wedding night in a very "artistic" way some might say, then making a deal with the devil who rapes her everytime he comes to force her to make a deal. Spare yourself some trauma and skip this movie. Also this is a prime example of why you shouldn't trust IMDB reviews as a woman. See more Read all reviews
Belladonna of Sadness

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Movie Info

Synopsis A peasant woman is banished from her village and makes a deal with the devil to gain magical powers.
Director
Eiichi Yamamoto
Screenwriter
Yoshiyuki Fukuda, Eiichi Yamamoto
Production Co
Nippon Herald Films
Genre
Fantasy, Drama, Anime
Original Language
Japanese
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
May 6, 2016
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 12, 2016
Runtime
1h 33m