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The Ninth Gate (1999), directed by Roman Polanski, is a neo-noir, mystery horror thriller about the rare book business, wherein rare-book dealer Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is hired by bibliophile Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) to validate a seventeenth-century copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, by Aristide Torchia, and what he encounters en route.

The film, based upon the novel The Club Dumas (1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, comprises three genres, and was co-written by director Roman Polanski. The premiere showing was at San Sebastián, Spain, on 25 August 1999 — a month before the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival; in North America, it failed critically and commercially, because, reviewers claimed, it was a lesser effort than Rosemary's Baby (1968), his best supernatural-theme film; nonetheless, The Ninth Gate earned a world-wide gross of $58.4 million against a $38 million budget.

Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is a New York City rare-book dealer motivated solely by financial gain. Wealthy book collector Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) hires Corso to authenticate his recently acquired copy of the seventeenth-century author Aristide Torchia's book The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, reputedly a version of a book whose author was the devil himself. The book contains nine engravings that, when correctly interpreted and the legends properly spoken, will raise the Devil. Since two other copies exist, Balkan suspects that the book might be a forgery, and asks Corso to travel to Europe determine whether his or any of the other two are genuine and, if so, to acquire them for Balkan, at any cost or by any means.

Balkan’s copy of The Nine Gates had previously belonged to bibliophile Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide soon after selling the book to Balkan. Moreover, Telfer’s widow, Liana (Lena Olin), wants the book back, as Telfer originally bought the book for her. Liana seduces Corso but fails to re-acquire her book. Meanwhile, Corso’s business partner and rare-book shop owner, Bernie (James Russo), whom Corso had asked to hide the book, is murdered and his corpse disposed to reflect one of the engravings in The Nine Gates, which, as in the image of the The Hanged Man Tarot card, shows a man hanged by one foot upside down.

Corso travels to Toledo, Spain, to talk with the Ceniza brothers (José López Rodero), twin-brother book restorers, who point out to him three of the book’s engravings signed “LCF”, which, with their prompting, Corso understands means that Lucifer himself designed and cut them. Corso next goes by train to Sintra, Portugal, and visits Victor Fargas (Jack Taylor), in a mysterious house (the main house of Quinta da Regaleira), whose copy of The Nine Gates Corso compares with Balkan’s. To his surprise, he discovers that the signature "LCF" is, in the Fargas copy, found in different engravings, which vary in detail from their counterparts in the Balkan copy. The next morning, a mysterious young woman (Emmanuelle Seigner) who has crossed paths with Corso since Balkan summoned him for this assignment awakens Corso and leads him back to Fargas’s house to find the old man murdered and the engravings ripped out of his copy of The Nine Gates. Later, the unnamed woman displays supernatural abilities in rescuing Corso from Liana’s bodyguard (Tony Amoni).

In Paris, Corso examines the third copy of The Nine Gates, owned by the Baroness Kessler (Barbara Jefford). There, he records three further differences in her copy, before she is killed and the engravings from her book also ripped out. Now believing that each copy of The Nine Gates is genuine, Corso suspects that the secret to opening the nine gates is a combination of the three copies. Liana steals Balkan’s copy from Corso’s hotel room; he follows her to a mansion, and witnesses her using it in leading a Satanist ceremony. Suddenly, Balkan interrupts the ceremony, kills Liana, takes the engraving pages, and his own, intact, copy, and drives away — also believing that Corso’s deduction, that the three copies are genuine, is correct.

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