Biography of the renaissance painter Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio (Nigel Terry). His paintings were accalimed but also eyed suspiciously for their dark and erotic subject matter. Caravaggio's private life was equally controversial, as he lived a menage a trois with the thief Ranucchio (Sean Bean) and his sexworker wife Lena (Tilda Swinton).

If anybody could do justice to Caravaggio's art in a film, it was Derek Jarman. CARAVAGGIO was premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 1986.