Antinea, the Queen of Atlantis, rules her secret kingdom hidden beneath the Sahara Desert. One day two lost explorers stumble into her kingdom, and soon realize that they haven't really been saved-- Antinea has a habit of taking men as lovers, then when she's done with them, she kills them and keeps them mummified.

Maigret is called to the high-class Hotel Majestic to investigate a body. The wife of a wealthy American has been killed - but to Maigret's surprise she has a gun in her purse. He begins to follow up the handful of clues that could explain her secret life and her demise.

Two young officers, Saint-Avit and Morhange, get lost in the desert and find themselves prisoners of the beautiful Antinéa, queen of the city of Atlantis. Saint-Avit, blinded by his love for her, obeys her when she orders him to kill his comrade... With L’Atlantide, Pabst offers a psychoanalytic reading of Benoit’s novel, with a dominant female figure who enslaves her lovers before destroying them. The film’s fantasy dimension is disturbing, L’Atlantide bathes in a humid nightmare atmosphere, between the desperate search for a missing friend and the apparitions of an underworld lost in the desert. A long, discursive flashback suggests the Parisian origins of Antinéa, born from the marriage between Clémentine, a pretty, light-thighed French Cancan dancer, and an Arab prince seduced during a theatrical performance. But again, it's impossible to know whether these are the ramblings of an old alcoholic or the strange truth.

The French-language version of the The Threepenny Opera with a different cast from the German version.