11 Kinky BDSM Films To Get You Tied Up For ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’

“Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” (1990)
Pedro Almodovar never met a sexual taboo he didn’t want to bust, and “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” sees the director get his kink on in satisfying fashion, even if the film doesn’t rank among his best. A comic precursor to the much-later “The Skin I Live In,” the film marked the end of a chapter for Almodóvar; he fell out with muse Carmen Maura in pre-production, after telling her she was too old for the female lead (they wouldn’t work together until they reconciled for “Volver”), and it marked his last collaboration for two decades with Antonio Banderas, who went to Hollywood after the film’s success. As for ‘Tie Me Up!,’ it’s difficult; essentially a sweet romantic comedy, but one where the obsessive behavior often seen in the genre is taken to new extremes, with Banderas’ mental patient kidnapping a porn-actress-turned-horror-starlet (Victoria Abril), with whom he once slept with, and who he keeps tied to her bed, eventually with her consent. There are troubling aspects —the film was derided by feminists on release— but the film’s sweetness, provided by vulnerable, big-hearted turns by Banderas, Abril and Loles Léon, makes it work. The film’s also earned its place in cinema history for reasons beyond its quality: Miramax sued the MPAA after the film was given an X rating, kicking off a debate that would eventually lead to the creation of the NC-17 rating.

“The Piano Teacher” (2001)
Continuing his thematic exorcism of demons lurking in civilized societies, Michael Haneke adapted Elfriede Jelinek’s novel into one of his most critically acclaimed films in the early 2000s. In fairness, the success of “The Piano Teacher” is as indebted to the remarkable central performance from Isabelle Huppert (her first for Haneke), who plays the tormented Erika with such uncanny aplomb and rattling verve that it’s likely the greatest performance ever given in a Haneke film (a thousand apologies to Emmanuelle Riva, but she’d probably agree). In public, Erika has the reputation of being an exceptionally gifted pianist and ruthlessly strict instructor. But her private life is riddled with emotional and psychological pain, which she expresses through perverse outings, self-mutilation and a patently eerie relationship with her domineering mother (Annie Girardot). When she meets young Walter (Benoît Magimel, more than holding his own next to the towering Huppert), her private life gets a lot more sadomasochistic and sexual, climaxing in a frightfully distressing rape scene, the implications of which would give even the most poker-faced psychoanalyst a permanent twitch. Haneke’s signature surgical style distances “The Piano Teacher” from aggrandizement and delves into painfully realistic psychological realms you’ll rarely want to visit again but that will undoubtedly shake you to your core. Similar to Cavani’s ‘Night Porter,’ “The Piano Teacher” uses Viennese high culture as a mask to hide a much darker place, where pain and gratification go hand in hand in attempt to reach out for some just-out-of-reach happiness.

“Secretary” (2002)
Perhaps the best-known mainstream take on S&M, bondage and kink to modern audiences before “Fifty Shades Of Grey” (enough so that the earlier film’s released a special trailer to surf the E.L. James wave, which is fair enough given the debt that James owes it), Steven Shainberg’s film “Secretary” is unlikely: essentially, it’s a BDSM rom-com, one that works remarkably well. Adapted by Erin Cressida Wilson from a short story by Mary Gaitskill, it’s led by Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lee, a troubled, self-harming young woman who lands a job with James Spader’s quirky lawyer E. Edward Grey (hmm, Grey…), who eventually initiates her in his non-vanilla practices. The film’s structured like a more traditional romantic comedy, complete with a runaway bride scene (Gaitskill dismissed the adaptation as “the ‘Pretty Woman’ version”), but it’s surprisingly very effective at melding darker material with something that’s genuinely light, funny and romantic in places, while also giving both Spader and Gyllenhaal a fair shake when it comes to their psychology, even if it’s a little too neat in places. It’s particularly notable as one of the first films to suggest that, while BDSM can be a result of damage, it can also be a way to heal, and the conclusion is unexpectedly sweet.

“The Duke of Burgundy” (2015)
It’s barely three weeks into its theatrical release, but we’re feeling pretty damn confident about Peter Strickland’s BDSM masterpiece “The Duke of Burgundy.” Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna lead an all-female cast as two lovers who love to role-play, love to dominate and be dominated (respectively), but above all else, love each other. The film studies the ebbs and flows of their relationship, as it seems to drift away from its once-passionate sensations, in a similar manner to how Knudsen’s Cynthia studies the evolutionary cycles of butterflies. Thanks to the film’s creative liberty, Strickland’s way of tapping into inspirations and paying homage to influences (which we’ve recently unpacked here), and the two central performances from Knudsen and D’Anna that give new meaning to the phrase “opposites attract,” ‘Duke’ is sensational cinema reaching the highest heights without ever resorting to kitschy sensationalism, including one sequence that directly points to Stan Brakhage and will leave you with fluttering butterflies in your stomach. With every cinematic element working in perfect unity, the film’s greatest achievement is that for an hour and 40 minutes, it makes you feel like you’re watching the only BDSM movie that has ever existed, with even its clearest ancestor (“The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant”) a distant memory. As far as 2015 S&M romance is concerned, it’s your move ‘Fifty Shades.’ Good luck with that.

Honorable Mentions: Did films above not quite scratch your itch? There’s plenty more. As we mentioned, Bava’s “The Whip & The Body” and Bunuel’s “Belle De Jour” were early pioneers, while “Venus In Furs” (not the Polanski version, though the Polish director did tackle the subject in 1992’s “Bitter Moon”) hit in the same year as the latter. David Cronenberg’s gone to the well a few times, with “Videodrome,” “Crash” and “A Dangerous Method.”

There’s also 1980s bonkbuster “9 1/2 Weeks,” odd Terry Jones-directed Julie Walters comedy “Personal Services,” Mike Leigh’s “Life Is Sweet,” in which Jane Horrocks’ character has some… particular tastes, smash hit erotic thriller “Basic Instinct” (and knock-offs like “Body Of Evidence”), nausea-inducing ‘comedy’ “Exit To Eden” with Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O’Donnell, and ropey British fetish-themed-film “Preaching To The Perverted.”

Plus of course, Catherine Breillat’s “Romance”; Philip Kaufman’s Marquis De Sade biopic “Quills” with Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet; Chen Kaige’s terrible English-language thriller “Killing Me Softly” starring Heather Graham; Gretchen Mol in “The Notorious Betty Page”; Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson in Craig Brewer’s provocative “Black Snake Moan”; John Cameron Mitchell’s brilliant and very explicit “Shortbus”; and the aforementioned “Nymphomaniac” and “The Duke Of Burgundy.”

– Oliver Lyttelton, Nik Grozdanovic