Michelle Pfeiffer as the title's pretty predator and Rutger Hauer as a legendary lycanthrope give human poignancy to this medieval fairy tale about lovers cursed to shape-change into animals. Richard Donner, who made the first Superman adventure, proves to have an elegant eye for ancient as well as everyday fables, and it's all ravishingly filmed in Italy by Vittorio Storaro, who's worked with director Bernardo Bertolucci on films such as The Last Emperor and The Sheltering Sky. Leo McKern dispels the dark from the Dark Ages with a comic turn as a Friar Tuck-ish priest, and Matthew Broderick makes an appealing young hero.

Captain Etienne Navarre is a man on whose shoulders lies a cruel curse. Punished for loving each other, Navarre must become a wolf by night whilst his lover, Lady Isabeau, takes the form of a hawk by day. Together, with the thief Philippe Gaston, they must try to overthrow the corrupt Bishop and in doing so break the spell.