Three times Academy Award winning film based on the classic Thomas Hardy novel. Set in 19th Century England where a peasant discovers that his family are descendants from a noble family, the d'Urbervilles. He sends his daughter Tess to live with a rich cousin, Alec d'Urberville. She has a baby by him but it dies in infancy. Tess then runs away and on the way meets a pastor's son, Angel, with whom she falls in love and marries. When she tells Angel about her past he is unable to forgive and goes off to Brazil. Tess then goes back to Alec. But when Angel returns home, Tess kills her lover, Alec, in order to be with the only man she has ever loved, Angel.

It is Paris, just after the end of the First World War. The reclusive writer Marcel Proust (Marcello Mazzarella) remembers his childhood and muses on the nature of time and memory. As he becomes increasingly absorbed in his art, the boundaries between reality and fiction begin to blur, and he becomes involved with many fantastic characters, such as the Baron de Charlus (John Malkovich), his sometime lover Charlie Morel (Vincent Perez), wartime veteran Robert de Saint-Loup (Pascal Greggory) and his wife Gilberte (Emmanuelle Beart)...

Roman Polanski co-writes and directs this adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel, with Nastassja Kinski starring in the title role. In 19th-century England, a peasant farmer discovers that his family are descended from a noble family, the d'Urbervilles so he sends his daughter Tess Durbeyfield (Kinski) to live with her rich cousin, Alec d'Urberville (Leigh Lawson). After having a baby by him that dies in infancy, Tess runs away and meets a farmer named Angel Clare (Peter Firth) with whom she falls in love and marries. When she tells Angel about her past he is heartbroken and hastily rejects her, leaving Tess to return to Alec. But when Angel returns home, Tess kills Alec in order to be with the only man she has ever loved, Angel.