British couple, Nigel (Hugh Grant) and Fiona Dobson (Kristin Scott Thomas), are on a Mediterranean cruise ship to Istanbul en route to India. They encounter a beautiful French woman, Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner), and that night Nigel meets her while dancing alone in the ship's bar. Later Nigel meets her much older and crippled American husband Oscar (Peter Coyote), who is acerbic and cynical, having been jaded and a failure as a writer.
In 1944 in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist-occupied portion of Italy, four wealthy men of power, the Duke, the Bishop, the Magistrate, and the President, agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. They recruit four teenage boys to act as guards and four young soldiers (called "studs", "cockmongers", or "fuckers"), who are chosen because of their big penises. They then kidnap nine young men and nine young women and take them to a palace near Salò. Accompanying them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, who recount arousing stories for the men, who sadistically exploit their victims.
Christine Painter (Julie Walters) is a sexually naive waitress and single-mother who pays for her teenage son's tuition by renting flats to local tarts. She later becomes a call girl herself - joining her friend Shirley (Shirley Stelfox) and their "maid" Dolly (Danny Schiller) - and specializes in fetish/kink roleplay with older gentlemen. With her new family of friends and admirers, she becomes a huge sensation leading to wealth and infamy in the tabloids. The brothel business also brings out Christine's self-confidence, and leads to repairing a previously strained relationship with her father.
Andy (Jim Broadbent), a senior chef in a large London catering facility, buys a dilapidated fast-food van from a disreputable acquaintance named Patsy (Stephen Rea). He plans to clean, restore and put it into service on a local fast-food round. Wendy, his hard-working, good-natured and innuendo-prone wife, (Alison Steadman) is sensibly sceptical about the project but understands her husband's ambitions. Their twin 22-year-old daughters (Natalie and Nicola) have profoundly different attitudes: tomboyish Natalie, who works as a plumber's mate (Claire Skinner), thinks it is a good idea if it will make her father happy, whereas the bitter, shut-in Nicola (Jane Horrocks), contemptuously and typically dismisses Andy as a "Capitalist!" Late at night, an anguished Nicola binges on chocolate and snacks, then forces herself to vomit. Natalie – awake in the next room – overhears her.
Bettie Page is an ambitious, naïve, and devout young Christian woman who longs to leave Nashville, Tennessee following a childhood of sexual abuse, a failed wartime marriage, and a gang rape. In 1949, she departs for New York City, where she enrolls in an acting class. Amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs discovers her walking on the beach at Coney Island and she agrees to model for him. He suggests she restyle her hair with the bangs that would become her trademark.
Captured by a trio of thieves, Gwendoline is sold to a local casino owner, but, rescued by Willard, a mercenary adventurer, she is reunited with her maid, Beth, after the latter's abduction by the same thieves who had earlier kidnapped Gwendoline.
Paul and Mary Bland are a wine dealer and a nurse, respectively, who bemoan their low status in life and dream of opening a restaurant. An exceptionally prudish couple, they sleep in separate beds and disapprove of sex, except for "a little hugging and kissing". After Paul is fired from his job at a wine shop, the couple are left relatively penniless and the chances that they will ever realize their dream quickly diminish. Their plight is exacerbated by the fact that they live in an apartment building that is a regular site of swinger parties.
The story revolves around pious, young Pierre (Louis Garrel) who has just left a Catholic boarding school to live with his wealthy parents at their villa on the island of Gran Canaria. Pierre's father (Philipe Duclos) dies early in the movie, leaving his mother, Hélène (Isabelle Huppert) to care for him. Pierre soon learns, however, of the depraved nature of his parents.
A timid Japanese college student, Ai (愛, lit. "love"), works as a specialty prostitute for an exclusive escort agency that caters to wealthy, mostly perverted, Japanese men in Tokyo. To please her clients, she has to play out elaborate fantasy scenarios involving sexual humiliation and light SM/bondage.
In 1560, Erzsébet Báthory is born to Hungarian general George Báthory of Ecsed. From an early age, Erzsébet's parents raise her to accept hardness and cruelty. As a teenager, Erzsébet is impregnated by a young peasant lover and is forced to watch as he is brutally tortured and executed before her eyes; Erzsébet's mother takes the child away from her directly after its birth, ensuring that she never sees it again. Erzsébet is later married to the Hungarian baron Franz Nádasdy, with whom she has three children. After Nádasdy's return from the Ottoman-Hungarian Wars, he succumbs to a disease he contracted abroad and dies.
Thomas is a writer-director of a new play, an adaptation of the 1870 novel Venus in Furs by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Alone in a Parisian theatre after a day of auditioning actresses for the lead character, Wanda von Dunayev, Thomas laments on the phone of the poor performances to come through. As he is preparing to leave the theatre, an actress named Vanda arrives disheveled. In a whirlwind of energy and unrestrained aggression, Vanda convinces the director to let her read for the part. To Thomas's amazement, Vanda shows great understanding of the character and knows every line by heart. As the audition progresses, the intensity is redoubled and the attraction of Thomas turns into obsession.
Pepi cultive de la marijuana sur son balcon. Un flic qui habite en face, le remarque et vient chez elle pour le lui reprocher. Son regard est concupiscent si bien qu'elle soulève sa robe et lui propose de faire l'amour en échange de son silence. Le flic accepte. Elle lui précise toutefois qu'il doit passer par «derrière», ne voulant pas perdre sa virginité, qu'elle voulait monnayer pour 60 000 ptas, comme on l'apprendra plus tard. Le policier refuse et la pénètre. Il réalise en entendant ses cris que Pepi était réellement vierge. Celle-ci décide alors de se venger de ce viol avec l'aide de Bom et son groupe de musiciens, mais aussi celle de Luci, la femme masoschiste, mais abandonnée, du policier «qui la traite comme sa mère».
Entre 1978 et 1979, les habitants de l'Oise sont dans l'angoisse d'un maniaque, qui tue plusieurs auto-stoppeuses et qui échappe à la police. Celui qu'on surnomme alors « le tueur de l'Oise » est en fait un jeune gendarme timide qui va enquêter sur ses propres meurtres, jusqu'à perdre le contrôle de la situation.
Diego Montes (Nacho Martínez) is a bullfighter, forced into early retirement by a goring, and in the opening scene he finds sexual gratification viewing videos of violent death. In retirement he teaches bullfighting, and among his students is Ángel, a diffident young man who suffers from vertigo. During one episode of vertigo in the practice ring, the scene cuts from Ángel to a woman killing a man during sex with a pin she was wearing in her hair, striking at the base of the neck between the shoulder blades, as a matador kills a bull. After class, Diego asks Ángel if he is homosexual, noting that he is not experienced with women. Ángel says he is not and vows to prove himself. Later that day, Ángel attempts to rape Eva (Eva Cobo), a model who is both his neighbour and Diego's girlfriend. As she is leaving him, she trips in the mud and gashes her cheek. At the sight of her blood, Ángel faints.