The Countess

The Countess (2009) is a historical drama and thriller written, directed, and led by Julie Delpy — watch it online on iFILM. Her subject is Countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560–1614), the Hungarian noblewoman whose trial records place her among the most notorious figures in early modern European history.

Widowed and at the height of her power, Báthory falls hard for a much younger man played by Daniel Brühl. He leaves her for someone his own age. That rupture is the hinge of the film: a dark superstition — that bathing in young women's blood preserves beauty — slides from private obsession into systematic practice. William Hurt plays the imperial official tasked with building a case the Hungarian nobility would prefer to keep sealed.

Delpy is not interested in the horror for its own sake. What she traces is something colder: how unchecked power and dread of aging hollow out a person until what is left can justify anything. Stream The Countess (2009) online on iFILM.