The story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to, and one perfectly okay. They are all friends, and from time to time, they gather to talk about everything. One time, they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion“— the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships. At the dinner, they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it, naked.
Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
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.
A young police woman is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.
Second-hand car sales man Willenbrock has everything that he could ever wish for. He is married, has two lovers, a cottage in the German city Grünen, and a BMW. Yet one day while at his cottage he gets mugged and his life is drastically changed. Little by little the world he once felt safe in falls apart around him.
After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds an ex-soldier living in her apartment. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.
Deeply hurt by his wife's adultery, a man leaves her and his son to live high up alone in the mountains of Montenegro. Many years later, the war breaks out and the two enemy factions must cross the very mountain. One of them seeks the man's help to find a path through the snow. Later that day, he finds out that one of the other side's members is no other than his son.
Handsome 25-year-old Cesar had it all -- a successful career, expensive cars, a swank bachelor's pad, and an endless string of beautiful and willing women -- until he is thrown into a strange psychological mystery after a car accident scars his face and lands him in prison.
Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.
A man who loves games and theater invites his wife's lover to meet him, setting up a battle of wits with potentially deadly results.
Jesse, a small-time criminal, high-tails it to Los Angeles to rendezvous with a French exchange student. Stealing a car and accidentally killing a highway patrolman, he becomes the most wanted fugitive in L.A.
A trio of female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.
Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.
A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.
Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
After the death of his boss's wife, a young engineer faces the sudden psychological metamorphosis of his own wife, seemingly possessed by the soul of the deceased...
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.
A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.