The Devils is a 1971 historical psychological horror-drama film written, produced and directed by Ken Russell, and starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed. A dramatised historical account of the fall of Urbain Grandier, a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest accused of witchcraft after the possessions in Loudun, France, the plot also focuses on Sister Jeanne des Anges, a sexually repressed nun who incites the accusations.
The Devils is in part adapted from the 1952 non-fiction book The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley, as well as John Whiting's subsequent 1960 play The Devils. United Artists initially pitched the idea to Russell, but bowed out after reading his finished screenplay, as they felt it was too controversial in nature. Warner Bros. agreed to produce and distribute, and filming largely took place at Pinewood Studios in late 1970.
The film's graphic portrayal of violent and sexual content, often combined with religion, ignited harsh reaction from censors, and it originally received an X rating in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It was banned in several countries, and heavily edited for exhibition in others. Although critics largely dismissed The Devils for its explicit content, it won awards for Best Director at the 33rd Venice International Film Festival, as well as from the U.S. National Board of Review. Although a director's cut of the film was given its first theatrical release in the UK in 2002, it has not been made officially available on home media, and releases of edited versions on DVD and streaming services remain scant. Following a debut at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 2026, Warner Bros. Clockwork is scheduled to theatrically release a 4K restoration of the director's cut in North America for one week beginning 16 October 2026, followed by a release in the UK and Ireland through BFI Distribution on 30 October; the restored version received an official NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association for "sexual content/graphic nudity". The Devils has been recognized as one of the most controversial films of all time by numerous publications and critics, and remained banned in Finland until 2001.
Plot
In 1634 France, following the aftermath of the Huguenot rebellions, the French Catholic statesman Cardinal Richelieu influences King Louis XIII in an attempt to gain further power. Richelieu seeks to consolidate his authority by systematically divesting France's feudal lords of their power and centralising the country's government. He convinces Louis that the fortifications of cities throughout France should be demolished to prevent Protestants from rising up. Louis agrees, but forbids Richelieu from carrying out demolitions in the fortified town of Loudun, having made a promise to its Governor not to damage the town.
Meanwhile, in Loudun – where Catholics and Huguenots live in harmony – the Governor has died, leaving control of the city to Urbain Grandier, a dissolute, proud and popular priest. He is having an affair with a relative of Canon Jean Mignon, another priest in the town; Grandier is, however, unaware that the neurotic, hunchbacked Sister Jeanne des Anges, the abbess of the local Ursuline convent, is sexually obsessed with him. Jeanne asks for Grandier to become the convent's new confessor. Grandier secretly marries another woman, Madeleine De Brou, but news of this reaches Jeanne, who becomes jealous. When Madeleine returns a book by Ursuline foundress Angela Merici that Jeanne had earlier lent her, the abbess attacks her and accuses her of being a "fornicator" and "sacrilegious".
Baron Jean de Laubardemont arrives with orders to demolish the city's walls, overriding Grandier's orders to stop. Grandier summons the town's soldiers and forces Laubardemont to back down pending the arrival of an order for the demolition from King Louis. Grandier departs Loudun to visit the King. In the meantime, Canon Mignon tells Jeanne that he is to be their new confessor. She informs him of Grandier's marriage and affairs, and also inadvertently accuses Grandier of witchcraft and of possessing her, which Mignon relays to Laubardemont. In the process, the information is pared down to just the claim that Grandier has bewitched the convent and dealt with the Devil. With Grandier away from Loudun, Laubardemont and Mignon decide to find evidence against him.
Laubardemont summons inquisitor Father Pierre Barre, a "professional witch-hunter", whose interrogations involve depraved acts of "exorcism", including the forced administration of enemas to his victims. Jeanne claims that Grandier has bewitched her, and the other nuns do the same. A public exorcism erupts in a church, in which the nuns remove their clothes and enter a state of "religious" frenzy. Duke Henri de Condé (actually King Louis in disguise) arrives, claiming to be carrying a holy relic which can exorcise the "devils" possessing the nuns. Barre then proceeds to use the relic in "exorcising" the nuns, who then act as though they have been cured – until Condé/Louis reveals the case allegedly containing the relic to be empty. The possessions and the exorcisms then continue unabated, descending into a massive orgy in which the nuns remove the crucifix from above the high altar and masturbate with it. Mignon is both shocked and aroused by the sacrilegious chaos.
During the chaos, Grandier and Madeleine return. Grandier denies bewitching the nuns and condemns Jeanne, but he and Madeleine are arrested nonetheless. The nuns are returned to the convent, where Jeanne attempts to hang herself, but is cut down before she dies. After being given a show trial, Grandier is shaven and tortured. The judges sentence Grandier to death by burning at the stake. Laubardemont has also obtained permission to destroy the city's fortifications. Despite pressure to confess to the charges, Grandier refuses, and is taken to be publicly burnt at the stake. His executioner promises to strangle him rather than let him suffer death by fire, but Barre starts the fire himself, and Mignon, visibly panic-stricken about the possibility of Grandier's innocence, pulls the noose tight before it can be used to strangle Grandier. As Grandier burns, Laubardemont orders for explosive charges to be set off and the city walls are blown up, causing the revelling townspeople to flee.
After the execution, Barre leaves Loudun to continue his witch-hunting activities elsewhere in the Vienne region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Laubardemont informs Jeanne that Mignon has been put away in an asylum for claiming that Grandier was innocent, and that "with no signed confession to prove otherwise, everyone has the same opinion". He gives her Grandier's charred femur and leaves. Jeanne kisses and masturbates with the bone. Madeleine, having been released, staggers over the rubble of Loudun's walls and walks out of the ruined city.
Cast
Themes
Addressing the film's initial reaction among critics, social groups and Warner Bros. executives, film historian Tim Lucas describes The Devils as "not merely an indictment of 17th Century conspiracies, but an indictment of political agendas which have been with us throughout the course of human history. When government is at its most immoral, history shows that it tends to ally itself with the Church, and to deflect public attention from its own corruption by demonizing convenient scapegoats—artists, philosophers, progressives... in a word, liberals." Comparing Grandier's demonization to various issues of contention in the United States during various decades of the 20th century, from alcohol in the 1920s to tobacco smoking in the 1990s, he notes that although public opinion on such issues evolves over time, the film articulates that "in the crossfire of ideals and oratory, lives are sometimes destroyed."
Meanwhile, film scholar Thomas Atkins attests that, while The Devils contains overt themes regarding religion and political influence, the film is more concerned with "sex and sexual aberrations". He interprets the film as being centrally thematically interested in sexual repression and its cumulative effects on the human psyche. Commenting on the Sister Jeanne character, Atkins writes: "There are any number of examples of tormented visualization involving the Mother Superior... What more stunning visual metaphor for the psychological suffocation of the Mother Superior than to stuff her deformed body into a tiny lookout space from which she watches her fantasy lover? The mere confinement of mass in congested space creates an understanding of the annihilating pleasures of her sexual drive." Atkins likens Sister Jeanne's erotic fantasy sequences to "eroticism from a deranged consciousness". Filmmaker Alex Cox concurs with this point, stating that The Devils "could have been a turgid tale of human rights versus intolerance", but instead became something "much more: an intense, at times surreal, at times hideously realistic story of sexual obsession and oppression".
The color white is featured significantly, specifically in the design of the cityscape, which largely consists of overtly white stone structures. Atkins insists that through this use of blank white, Russell establishes a "leitmotif of whiteness which resists and dissolves natural relationships"; Adam Scovell further notes that the "horrifying white-clean aesthetic" of Russell and Jarman's vision of Loudun appears to be inspired by Sister Jeanne's exorcism being compared to a "rape in a public lavatory" in the Huxley novel.
Production Development
In November 1965, following the Broadway opening of John Whiting's 1961 play The Devils—which was based on Aldous Huxley's non-fiction book The Devils of Loudun (1952), about the alleged 17th-century possessions in Loudun, France—producer Alexander H. Cohen announced plans to adapt the play for film, revealing that he had made a formal offer to Huxley's estate for the rights. After Cohen's deal failed to materialize, United Artists signed a deal with producer Robert H. Solo to make the adaptation in August 1969. Following the success of Women in Love (1969) in the United States, United Artists offered The Devils to director Ken Russell. According to journalist John Baxter and Russell's widow Lisi Tribble, he was familiar with the story by the time United Artists proposed the project to him, having watched a production of Whiting's play in London and subsequently being inspired to research its historical basis. Russell said that "when I first read the story, I was knocked out by it—it was just so shocking—and I wanted others to be knocked out by it, too. I felt I had to make it." Russell later said at the time he made the film: "I was a devout Catholic and very secure in my faith. I knew I wasn't making a pornographic film... although I am not a political creature, I always viewed The Devils as my one political film. To me it was about brainwashing, about the state taking over."
Though Russell admired Whiting's play, his screenplay mainly drew from Huxley's book as he found the play "too sentimental". Some extraneous elements incorporated into the screenplay were not found in either source, including details about the plague, which were supplied by Russell's brother-in-law, a scholar of French history. Upon studying Grandier, Russell felt that he "represented the paradox of the Catholic church... Grandier is a priest but he is also a man, and that puts him into some absurd situations." In Russell's original screenplay, the role of Sister Jeanne of the Angels, the disabled Mother Superior, was significantly larger, and continued after Grandier's execution. However, in order to shorten the lengthy screenplay, Russell was forced to cut down the role.