Derek Jarman's stylised biopic about the life of the early Renaissance Italian painter Caravaggio, who died in 1610. Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) uses street thug Ranuccio Thomasoni (Sean Bean) as a model for his erotic paintings of St John, and a homosexual attraction between the two men is gradually revealed. Jarman's film includes deliberate anachronisms, including mortobikes and typewriters in seventeenth century Italy.