10. Maîtresse
Nestling in between the release of In The Realm Of The Senses and Flower And Snake, the 1975 film Maîtresse can be seen as France's first major contribution to the cinematic exploration of S&M. Starring Gerard Depardieu in one of his earliest roles as a small time crook who inadvertently burgles a home in which a torture chamber sits in the basement, it's a transgressive film which explores the world of a professional dominatrix. The scenes of fetishism were, in the words of the British Board of Film Classification, "miles in excess of anything we have ever passed in this field" although they conceded that the film was neither exploitative nor badly made. It wasn't until 2003 that the film was passed with all the cuts waived.