It follows the story of Jeanne, a peasant woman who makes a faustian deal with the devil after she is raped by the local nobility on the night of her wedding day.

[6] It is notable for its erotic, religious, violent, and psychedelic imagery, with its tackling themes of misogyny, feudal oppression, moral depravity, rebellion, and witch-hunting.

As a result, the couple's fortunes rise even as famine strikes the village, and the baron raises taxes to fund his war effort.

In exchange for sharing her cure for the plague, the baron offers to make Jeanne the second-highest noble in the land, but she refuses, saying she wishes to take over the entire world.

According to Jason DeMarco of Paste Magazine, its visuals consist mostly of still paintings panned across "with occasional expressive bursts of color and movement scattered throughout".

[9] Jasper Sharp of Midnight Eye also observed that its visuals, designed by illustrator Kuni Fukai, resemble modernist and Art Nouveau painters such as Gustav Klimt, Aubrey Beardsley, Odilon Redon, Alphonse Mucha, Egon Schiele and Félicien Rops.

[12][13] In August 2016, Hat & Beard Press released a companion book containing illustrations, script outtakes, film stills and staff interviews.

[14] The restoration was screened on July 10, 2015, in a preview at Japan Cuts,[16][17] and then played on September 24 at Fantastic Fest in Austin[18][19][20] before a theatrical run beginning on May 6, 2016, in New York City and San Francisco.

The site's critical consensus reads: "Belladonna of Sadness has more than enough brilliant visual artistry to keep audiences enraptured even as the film's narrative reach slightly exceeds its grasp".

[27] In 2016, Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times reviewed the film, calling it dated by today's standards and saying that it "looks exploitative and misogynistic 43 years later".