Sleeping Beauty is a 2011 Australian erotic drama film written and directed by Julia Leigh in her directorial debut.

Lucy is required to sleep alongside paying customers and be absolutely submissive to their erotic desires, fulfilling their fantasies by voluntarily entering into physical unconsciousness.

[5] The film is based on influences that include Leigh's own dream experiences, and the novels The House of the Sleeping Beauties and Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Nobel laureates Yasunari Kawabata and Gabriel García Márquez, respectively.

[11] In response to a classified ad for yet another short-term job, Lucy meets Clara, who runs a service that combines lingerie modelling and catering performed by young women at a black tie dinner party for mostly male clients.

[15] The film ends with the scene captured by the hidden camera: the dead old man and the sleeping girl both lying peacefully together in bed.

Writer and director Julia Leigh, primarily a novelist, said in an interview with Filmmaker that she initially wrote the film without the intention of directing it.

[6] In writing the script, Leigh drew from several literary inspirations, including Yasunari Kawabata's House of the Sleeping Beauties and Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez,[7] as well as the eponymous fairytales by Charles Perrault and The Brothers Grimm and the biblical story[20] of an old King Solomon[21] who had young virgins brought to him from all over his realm to sleep alongside him.

[23] Kawabata's novel had been adapted in 2006 by German director Vadim Glowna, as Das Haus der schlafenden Schönen [de] (House of the Sleeping Beauties), but had been released to generally negative reviews.

[citation needed] Emily Browning said she didn't have a problem with nudity, but she admitted the scene with the sadist character was unpleasant to film.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Sleeping Beauty's provocative premise and luminous art design is hampered by a clinical, remote presentation, delivering boredom and shock in equal measure.

"[28] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.