In post-9/11 New York City, an eclectic group of citizens find their lives entangled, personally, romantically, and sexually, at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality.
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims, and he begins to use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
The movie is set around a small group of characters experiencing relationships which build and crumble before the viewers eyes. The title of the film refers to the belief, expressed by several of characters, that the goldfish retains a memory of something for only three seconds. Tom, one of the principal characters in the film, draws comparisons between this and the human tendency to jump from one relationship to the next, "forgetting" the pain that any previous one might have caused. The film shows complexities involved in straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships.
Just 10 minutes from the center of Madrid (but also from Rome, Paris, London ...), hundreds of hungry men meet in a fortuitous and secret way. Some are looking for quick and easy sex, others are trying to escape loneliness, most are looking for themselves ...
In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.
Larry Flynt is the hedonistically obnoxious, but indomitable, publisher of Hustler magazine. The film recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his girlie magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for all people.
Bored and restless, Alice spends much of her time lusting after Jim, a local sawmill worker. When not lusting after him, Alice fills the hours with such pursuits as writing her name on a mirror with vaginal secretions and wandering the fields with her underwear around her ankles. And, in true teenaged tradition, she spends a lot of time writing in her diary.
A tobacco planter on Réunion island in the Indian Ocean becomes engaged through correspondence to a French woman he does not know. The woman that arrives does not look like the picture he received, but he marries her anyway.
Eric and Louise's honeymoon is disrupted by a stranger who claims he will perform a miracle. Meanwhile, Eric's brother and best friend are both experiencing trouble with their own relationships and want to warn him about challenges of marriage.
In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.
Sunny, a priest, comes to know that Vavachan is running an old age home with vile intentions. He wants the corpses of the inmates for the medical college run by his son. Sunny decides to expose this.
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
When teen-socialite Kelly Van Ryan and troubled bad girl Suzie Toller accuse guidance counselor Sam Lombardo of rape, he's suspended by the school, rejected by the town, and fighting to get his life back. One cop suspects conspiracy, but nothing is what it seems...
A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.
In early-1970s Las Vegas, Sam "Ace" Rothstein gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he's a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro, his ex-hustler wife Ginger, her con-artist ex Lester Diamond and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger.
A heroic fire captain values dedication and service to others above all else, but the most important partnership in his life, his marriage, is about to go up in smoke.
After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.
A transgender woman returns – with her two male lovers – to her family home in the countryside to look after her dying mother.
Jacob is a young man used to getting everything he wants. For several years, he has been living in a happy homosexual partnership with Jørgen, and one night Jacob decides to pop the big question to Jørgen. Jørgen happily accepts Jacobs marriage proposal, but then something happens: Jacob falls in love with a girl, and not just any girl. The girl is Caroline, married to Jørgens younger brother Tom.
Vijay's marriage is fixed to Pavitra, the daughter of a wealthy man. Things take a turn when Vijay accidentally meets Merin and falls in love with her.