Ann Bishop Mullany lives in Baton Rouge. She is unhappily married to John, a successful lawyer, and has never experienced an orgasm. She is seeing a counselor for her problems. Graham Dalton is an old college friend of John. He is now a seeming drifter who, after nine years, returns to live in Baton Rouge. Graham arrives to find Ann, who has no idea that John has invited Graham to stay with them until he finds an apartment. When John arrives home, Graham's demeanor becomes remarkably more guarded, due in large part to John's overt disapproval of Graham's bohemian persona. They also discuss the fact that Graham's college girlfriend, Elizabeth, is also living in Baton Rouge.
The story may not be linear and exhibits several instances of temporal disruption. A dark-haired woman (Harring) escapes her own murder, surviving a car accident on Mulholland Drive. Injured and in shock, she descends into Los Angeles and sneaks into an apartment which an older, red-headed woman has just vacated. An aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Watts) arrives at the same apartment and finds the dark-haired woman confused, not knowing her own name. The dark-haired woman assumes the name "Rita" after seeing a poster for the film Gilda (1946), starring Rita Hayworth. To help Rita remember her identity, Betty looks in Rita's purse, where she finds a large amount of money and an unusual blue key.
Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve), a young and beautiful housewife, is unable to share physical intimacy with her husband, Dr. Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel), despite their love for each other. Her sexual life is restricted to elaborate fantasies involving domination, sadomasochism, and bondage. Although frustrated by his wife's frigidity toward him, he respects her wishes.
On a snowy evening, the middle-aged bachelor Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) finds the self-diagnosed nymphomaniac Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) beaten up and lying in the alleyway behind his apartment. He takes her back to his home and, over tea, listens intently as Joe recounts the eventful story of her libidinous life. Seligman, a highly-educated but cloistered man, connects and analyzes Joe's stories with what he has read about.
Story of 10 middle-aged women of different backgrounds find their lively distaff side within and outside the bonds of marriage, work and family life. The story is told through a prism of infidelity, insecurity, neurosis, boredom, frustration, menopause ...etc.
Claude, un élève brillant, doué et manipulateur du lycée Gustave Flaubert, à tendance pervers narcissique, provoque l’enthousiasme de son professeur de français à qui il fait part de ses écrits voyeuristes, qu'il rédige au détriment d'un camarade de classe.
After a rooftop chase, where his acrophobia and vertigo result in the death of a policeman, San Francisco detective John "Scottie" Ferguson retires. Scottie tries to conquer his fear, but his friend and ex-fiancée Midge Wood suggests another severe emotional shock may be the only cure.
A naïve young woman (Joan Fontaine), whose name is never mentioned, is in Monte Carlo working as a paid companion to Edythe Van Hopper (Florence Bates) when she meets the aristocratic but brooding widower Maximilian "Maxim" de Winter (Laurence Olivier). They fall in love, and within two weeks they are married.
Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), a famous Italian film director, is suffering from "director's block". Stalled on his new science fiction film that includes veiled autobiographical references, he has lost interest amid artistic and marital difficulties. As Guido struggles half-heartedly to work on the film, a series of flashbacks and dreams delve into his memories and fantasies; they are frequently interwoven with reality.
Film producer James Ballard (James Spader) and his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger), are in an open marriage. The couple engage in various infidelities, but between them have only unenthusiastic sex. Their arousal is heightened by discussing the intimate details of their extramarital sex.
The people of Harford Road are firmly divided into two camps; neuters, the puritanical residents who despise anything even remotely carnal, and the perverts, a group of sex addicts whose unique fetishes have all been brought to the fore by accidental concussions.
Alex est en pleine crise de la quarantaine. À la suite d'une erreur, il s'achète sur Internet Monique, une poupée moulée en silicone dernier cri. Ses avantages par rapport à une femme réelle : elle est toujours disponible, toujours heureuse, compréhensive, ne fait pas de crises, ne pleure pas. Il est séduit, son entourage ne suit pas…
François, cinéaste, s'apprête à tourner un film policier.
Il fait passer des essais pour une scène de nu à une comédienne qui lui révèle le plaisir qu'elle éprouve dans la transgression de petits interdits érotiques. Poussé par le désir d'apporter quelque chose de nouveau dans le cinéma, il décide de mettre en scène un film mi-fiction mi-réalité, tournant autour de ce qui se révèle de façon inattendue une énigme et un tabou : les petites transgressions qui donnent du plaisir. Sa recherche dans le domaine érotique le confronte à des questions de fond auxquelles, tout comme Icare s'approchant du soleil, il va se brûler les ailes.
A dysfunctional and sometimes violent romance happens between Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a middle-aged, wealthy Frenchman, and a young, impoverished and beautiful flamenco dancer from Seville, Conchita, played by Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina. The two actresses each appear unpredictably in separate scenes, and differ not only physically, but temperamentally as well.
Sylvain, solitaire et cinéphile, tient le cinéma de quartier d'une commune de province en Saône-et-Loire et habite dans son sous-sol. À chaque fin de séances, il part en quête meurtrière nocturne.