New York pretentious Diana Sullivan is writing a series of articles on the theme of "family" for Cosmopolitan magazine. Primarily to keep an eye on her but also because of the personal connection, Diana invites her mid-teen daughter, Grace Sullivan, to accompany her on a trip to research the next in the series, dealing with their own family, most specifically a wing that lives deep in the backwaters of the Louisiana bayou, which has been largely overtaken by oil companies of late. They are most directly connected by brothers: Diana's grandfather Mike, and Joe, the patriarch of the Louisiana wing. Diana and Grace have never met their Louisiana relations, they in turn who do not even know that Diana and Grace exist. As difficult as it becomes, Diana and Grace are able to meet their Louisiana relations, led by Joe's widowed young wife, Ruth Sullivan, who acts as if Joe is still with them, who sees anything related to the city as suspect, and who rules her household with an iron fist to ...

　　悬疑的故事设计，巧合的恋情发生，令影片情节峰回路转！
　　漂亮的夜总会女歌手梅维斯·马洛午夜时分在自己的房间里被人勒死，班尼特被人看见曾匆匆从马洛的房间里走出来，警方遂将班尼特作为重点嫌疑对象并予以追捕，班尼特的夫人凯瑟琳和马洛的丈夫马蒂以最佳表演搭档身份为掩护开展调查，在调查中马蒂对凯瑟琳有了好感，由此案情却有了转机……

　　It has been said that most great twentieth century novels include scenes in a hotel, a symptom of the vast uprooting that has occurred in the last century: James Ivory begins Quartet with a montage of the hotels of Montparnasse, a quiet prelude before our introduction to the violently lost souls who inhabit them.
　　Adapted from the 1928 autobiographical novel by Jean Rhys, Quartet is the story of a love quadrangle between a complicated young West Indian woman named Marya (played by Isabelle Adjani), her husband Stefan (Anthony Higgins), a manipulative English art patron named Heidler (Alan Bates), and his painter wife Lois (Maggie Smith). The film is set in the Golden Age of Paris, Hemingway's "moveable feast" of cafe culture and extravagant nightlife, glitter and literati: yet underneath is the outline of something sinister beneath the polished brasses and brasseries.
　　When Marya's husband is put in a Paris prison on charges of selling stolen art works, she is left indigent and is taken in by Heidler and his wife: the predatory Englishman (whose character Rhys bases on the novelist Ford Madox Ford) is quick to take advantage of the new living arrangement, and Marya finds herself in a stranglehold between husband and wife. Lovers alternately gravitate toward and are repelled by each other, now professing their love, now confessing their brutal indifference -- all the while keeping up appearances. The film explores the vast territory between the "nice" and the "good," between outward refinement and inner darkness: after one violent episode, Lois asks Marya not to speak of it to the Paris crowd. "Is that all you're worried about?" demands an outraged Marya. "Yes," Lois replies with icy candor, "as a matter of fact."
　　Adjani won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performances in Quartet: her Marya is a volatile compound of French schoolgirl and scorned mistress, veering between tremulous joy and hysterical outburst. Smith shines in one of her most memorable roles: she imbues Lois with a Katherine-of-Aragon impotent rage, as humiliated as she is powerless in the face of her husband's choices. Her interactions with Bates are scenes from a marriage that has moved from disillusionment to pale acceptance.
　　Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory's screenplay uses Rhys's novel as a foundation from which it constructs a world that is both true to the novel and distinctive in its own right, painting a society that has lost its inhibitions and inadvertently lost its soul. We are taken to mirrored cafes, then move through the looking glass: Marya, in one scene, is offered a job as a model and then finds herself in a sadomasochistic pornographer's studio. The film, as photographed by Pierre Lhomme, creates thoroughly cinematic moments that Rhy's novel could not have attempted: in one of the Ivory's most memorable scenes, a black American chanteuse (extraordinarily played by Armelia McQueen) entertains Parisian patrons with a big and brassy jazz song, neither subtle nor elegant. Ivory keeps the camera on the singer's act: there is something in her unguarded smile that makes the danger beneath Montparnasse manners seem more acute.

　　20岁的上流社会男孩哈洛（Bud Cort 巴德•库特 饰）对死亡异常迷恋，喜欢伪装自杀吓唬母亲，热衷参加葬礼，甚至购买了一辆灵车。母亲习以为常，却也不堪忍受，因此催促哈洛早日成家，成熟起来。在他人的葬礼上，哈洛认识了79岁的穆德（Ruth Gordon 露丝•高登 饰），一个与他有着相同爱好的老妇人，从此走入慕德奇妙多彩的世界。
　　开朗搞怪的慕德使阴郁的哈洛逐渐开朗，并最终向她展开心扉。哈洛的死亡游戏接连吓跑多个应征女孩，忍无可忍的母亲决定让他参军，他和慕德却设计摆脱了兵役困扰。两个忘年交的朋友越走越近……

　　查理（伊恩·基思 Ian Keith 饰）爱上了厨师的女儿艾玛（科琳·格里菲斯 Corinne Griffith 饰），然而，这段感情是注定不会受到众人的祝福的，为了避免东窗事发，查理将艾玛送到了自己的叔叔汉密尔顿（HB·沃纳 H.B. Warner 饰）家。
　　没过多久，艾玛就识破了查理的谎言，明白自己其实是被后者无情的抛弃了。绝望和愤怒之中，她决定嫁给一直对自己很好的汉密尔顿，可是这段仓促的婚姻很显然并不能给艾玛带来真正的幸福。一天，艾玛结识了名为尼尔森（维克特·凡科尼 Victor Varconi 饰）的军官，为了能够让尼尔森在港口同拿破仑的军队交战，艾玛不惜抛头露面四处奔走，一来二去之间，两人相爱了。

　　一位年老的推销员在失去工作后试图与家人和睦相处，并同时面临着个人的转折。

　　An earthquake in the Salton Sea unleashes a horde of prehistoric mollusk monsters. Discovering the creatures, a Naval officer and several scientists attempt to stop the monsters, but they escape into the canal system of the California’s Imperial Valley and terrorize the populace.