A sixteen-year-old boy discovers his father's suicide. Distraught, he goes searching for ways to numb the pain. He then meets a mysterious woman who turns out to be a dominatrix and finds solace in her arms.
John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), a lonely St Albans bank clerk, orders a mail-order bride Nadia (Nicole Kidman) from Russia on the Internet. John is uncomfortable and shy, but Nadia is sexually bold. Though Nadia cannot speak English and John cannot speak Russian, they soon bond. Later on, a man she introduces as her cousin Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his friend Alexei (Vincent Cassel) turn up to celebrate her birthday. Alexei soon shows that he has a temper. After a violent altercation, Alexei holds Nadia hostage and demands a ransom from John. John has grown to care for Nadia and is forced to steal from the bank where he has worked for ten years. After the ransom is paid, he realises that he has been the victim of an elaborate con. Nadia, Yuri, and Alexei are criminals, and Alexei is actually Nadia's boyfriend.
Lors de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Nathalie Baksova est une jeune femme russe qui cumule la double fonction de médecin et d'agent secret soviétique. Alors qu'elle se rend dans un village pour soigner un malade, un convoi allemand est attaqué par la résistance russe non loin de là. Gravement blessé, le général Hartz est transporté par le lieutenant Erik Müller dans la maison où se trouve Nathalie. Ce dernier la menace de l'envoyer dans un camp de détention si elle ne secourt pas son collègue. Mais, lors d'une seconde embuscade, Hartz est abattu par un résistant et Nathalie sauve la vie de Müller. Alors qu'il est conduit en lieu sûr, elle est arrêtée par les Nazis et déportée en Pologne.
Le 20 juin 1977, Paul quitte son ami Jérôme pour une semaine à New York. Il lui écrit tous les jours et dans sa dernière lettre, il lui annonce qu’il ne reviendra jamais. Jérôme à son tour part à New York à la recherche de Paul.
Antoine a pour profession la comptabilité et pour violon d'Ingres le chant choral. Sa vie se déroule sans histoire auprès de sa compagne Édith. Le cabinet d'expertise qui l'emploie l'envoie en mission dans un centre sportif.
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.
Young and handsome Sergio (Ricardo Meneses) works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon. He is uninterested in his pretty female co-worker Fatima, who displays an avid interest in him, so instead Sergio roams the city. Eventually Sergio becomes fascinated with a sleek motorcycle and its arrogant owner - a young man totally indifferent to Sergio. Sergio's surfacing desires unleash his darkest impulses, sending him down a dangerous path of violence, depravity, and degradation.
A teenage girl who was molested by her father calls David Kelley, a radio psychologist working for KDRX, and shoots herself on the air. Later, a real estate broker shows off a house to prospective buyers, and discovers the decomposing remains of another realtor in the washroom, the fourth victim of a psychopath dubbed the "Open House Killer". Outside Grant Real Estate, which David's girlfriend Lisa runs, someone digs through the trash, and takes discarded Seller Listings. The vagabond goes to one of the listed houses, and murders the realtor and buyer inside with a plunger that has had razor blades attached to it. The Open House Killer (who gives his name as "Harry") then calls David at KDRX, and opines that his victims deserved their fates.
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».
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.
It is 1957, 12 years after World War II. Maximilian Theo Aldorfer (Dirk Bogarde), a former Nazi SS officer who had pretended to be a doctor in order to be able to take sensational photographs in the concentration camps, and Lucia Atherton (Charlotte Rampling), a concentration camp survivor who had an ambiguous sadomasochistic relationship with Aldorfer. Flashbacks show Max tormenting Lucia, but also acting as her protector.
Henry Harding MP, a British government minister on a moral crusade, hires an inexperienced young computer whizzkid, Peter Emery who works for a Christian computer company called Holy Hardware, to infiltrate the United Kingdom BDSM scene. Harding is set on putting a club called "House of Thwax" run by Mistress Tanya Cheex out of business, and is sure that Peter's secretly videotaped evidence of the club's activities will do the trick. However, the virginal Peter takes a liking to Tanya Cheex and finds himself falling for the Mistress. Amongst the locations used Layer Marney Tower in Essex plays a pivotal role for a party scene.
Klaus, a former Nazi German doctor who practiced horrific experiments with children during World War II, has continued with his sick attraction for torturing and killing young boys during his exile in a remote village in Catalonia. His latest victim is a child he has tortured and later kills with a blow to the head, taking photographs of the crime. This sadistic act has been witnessed by Angelo, another of Klaus' victims, who has spied him from a window, later stealing the tortured incriminating writings and photographs of the doctor's crimes. Klaus tries to commit suicide jumping from a tower, but he survives. As a result of his failed attempt he is now unable to breathe on his own and is immobile, confined permanently in an iron lung to survive.
A man keeps his girlfriend tied up in his small apartment and tortures her. She is undressed, subjected to various types of bondage, whipped, and tortured with a razor blade. He also brushes her hair, applies make-up on her, and breaks down and cries in the fetal position. In the end the girl gets free and has her revenge.
Quills begins during the Reign of Terror, with the incarcerated Marquis de Sade penning a story about the libidinous Mademoiselle Renard, an aristocrat who meets the preeminent sadist in her executioner.