Claire Cooper (Benning) is a suburban housewife and mother who illustrates children's stories and is married to an airline pilot (Aidan Quinn). Her world unravels when her daughter is kidnapped and brutally murdered.
After Jim (Julian McMahon) surprises his wife Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) with a new house, they have two daughters, Megan (Shyann McClure) and Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness). While Jim is away on a business trip, Linda is left to take care of the girls.
Viviane (Elkabetz) is a beleaguered hairdresser and mother of four who feels tied down by her situation and her conservative husband as well as his live-in mother. Things take a turn when her former lover returns to live in Haifa.
Une jeune femme, Colette, s'enfuit de l'hôpital psychiatrique Sainte-Anne avec un coussin sur le ventre pour faire croire qu'elle est enceinte et part pour la Camargue. Elle fait des rencontres incongrues, dont celle d'un amant d'autrefois qu'elle voulait retrouver et devenu entre-temps moine. Un flûtiste va changer le cours des choses.
Édith, ouvrière du textile âgée de 45 ans, doit choisir lorsque les patrons de son usine de Villefranche-sur-Saône décident de délocaliser l'entreprise au Maroc. Sans attache depuis que son fils est parti, elle est la seule ouvrière à accepter de partir pour ne pas se retrouver au chômage et ainsi débarque à Tanger. Elle va être confrontée à de multiples épreuves, mais va découvrir l'amitié.
Beware of a Holy Whore is a satirical meta-film about Fassbinder's previous production, Whity. It opens with a soliloquy (delivered by Werner Schroeter) about the synopsis of a Disney short featuring Goofy, the dog. Goofy cross-dresses in his aunt's clothes to teach a kindergarten class and, after being ridiculed by the class, takes a "poor orphan girl" into his home. The little girl is actually a dwarf gangster, Wee Willy, and he fools Goofy into caring for him by wearing the clothes that Goofy discarded after being ridiculed by the school children. That night Goofy's house is raided by police and Wee Willy is arrested, revealing the "poor orphan girl's" true identity to Goofy. When Willy's true identity is revealed the confused Goofy says, "What a shock that must have been for the poor little girl when she discovered that she is a crook". In both instances—attempting to teach the kindergarten class and caring for Wee Willy—Goofy is beaten by those for whom he only sought to care. This opening soliloquy alludes to the film's underlying themes of violence, self-blindness, and same-sex and bisexual relationships.
Carmen, in voice over paired with shots of the city and the sea, introduces herself as "the girl who should not be called Carmen." Somewhere a string quartet is rehearsing the late string quartets of Beethoven. The eccentric Jeannot (Godard himself) is living in a sanitarium where the doctor threatens to throw him out if he doesn't start to show signs of real illness. Carmen comes to visit him, and it is revealed he is a washed up filmmaker and her lecherous uncle. After getting her Uncle Jeannot to loan her his seaside apartment, Carmen and some others attempt to rob a bank. During the mayhem of the robbery, Carmen comes face to face with Joseph, a comically inept bank guard, and the two immediately fall in love. The string quartet continues to rehearse, inflecting the scenes of the robbery, and vice versa. The narrative link is that one of the members of the quartet is Claire, who is established earlier in the film as a potential love interest for Joseph.
Raoul (Gérard Depardieu) and his wife Solange (Carole Laure) are eating in a restaurant when Raoul expresses concern with Solange's apparent depression, as she eats little, suffers migraines and insomnia and also sometimes faints. He finds another man in the room, Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere), to be her lover and hopefully enliven her again. Stéphane is puzzled by Raoul's plan but gives in to his desperate appeals for help. The two men take turns sleeping with Solange, and both try to impregnate her without success, believing a lack of a child to be the source of her depression.