Human DesireMovies like Human Desire
- Key Features:
- Film noir, Adultery, Murder, Political disillusionment, Fatal attraction, Betrayal, Obsession, War veteran, Infidelity, Crime, Greed
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Film noir enthusiasts, Classic movie buffs, Crime drama fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Desire → Betrayal → Destruction
Human Desire

A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in a sordid affair with a co-worker's wife and murder. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, in 1997.
Human Desire
Kathy leaves the newspaper business to marry homicide detective Bill, but is frustrated by his lack of ambition and the banality of life in the suburbs. Her drive to advance Bill's career soon takes her down a dangerous path.

A married man's one-night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.

A secret, passionate affair happens in the summer of 1969 between Colonel Jin Pyeong, trapped in a loveless marriage with Soo Jin, and Jong Ga Heun, the Chinese-Korean wife of Captain Kyung Woo Jin.

Connie is a wife and mother whose 11-year marriage to Edward has lost its sexual spark. When Connie literally runs into handsome book collector Paul, he sweeps her into an all-consuming affair. But Edward soon becomes suspicious and decides to confront the other man.

A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.

Star-crossed lovers Thérèse and Laurent think they've gotten away with murder after Thérèse's weakling husband "falls" from a speeding train. But when forced to contend with a blackmailer's demands and the mute accusations of Thérèse's mother-in-law, it's only a matter of time before the law, their passion or blind chance trips them up.

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

A wife and mother is consumed by the thought that her husband's co-worker is trying to win him away from her and their family.

A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.

A young doctor falls in love with a disturbed young woman and apparently becomes involved in the death of her husband. They head for Mexico trying to outrun the law.

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

Julian makes a lucrative living as an escort to older women in the Los Angeles area. He begins a relationship with Michelle, a local politician's wife, without expecting any pay. One of his clients is murdered and Detective Sunday begins pumping him for details on his different clients, something he is reluctant to do considering the nature of his work. Julian begins to suspect he's being framed. Meanwhile Michelle begins to fall in love with him.

Harry Mitchell is a successful Los Angeles manufacturer whose wife is running for city council. His life is turned upside down when three blackmailers confront him with a videotape of him with his young mistress and demand $100,000. Fearing that the story will hurt his wife's political campaign if he goes to the police, Harry pretends that he will pay the men, but does not follow through.

After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicious crime syndicate.

A wealthy, possessive husband's investigation reignites his young wife's past love, leading them to plot against him. As obstacles fall away, their passion faces a new test.

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.

Alex Cutter is a boozy, belligerent and deeply cynical Vietnam veteran whose encounter with a landmine during the war has left him minus an eye, a leg and an arm. When his drifter playboy friend Richard Bone is falsely accused of murder, Cutter sets out for revenge in his own inimitable style.

In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.

Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.

A former Union Army officer plans to sell out to Anchor Ranch and move east with his fiancée, but the low price offered by Anchor's crippled owner and the outfit's bullying tactics make him reconsider. When one of his hands is murdered he decides to stay and fight, utilizing his war experience. Not all is well at Anchor with the owner's wife carrying on with his brother who also has a Mexican woman in town.

Paris doctor Catherine starts to think her husband, Bernard, is having an affair when she hears an unfamiliar woman's message on his voice mail. Hoping to learn more about his extramarital activities, Catherine heads to a strip club, where she hires call girl Nathalie to have a fling with Gerard. As the affair progresses, Nathalie gives Catherine regular status reports, and the relationship between the women evolves from business to personal.

After a brief encounter with David Hammond, an old college friend, successful lawyer Ellie Warren tries to mend her marriage with her husband Marcus. But she finds herself caught in a terrifying game of cat and mouse when the encounter escalates into an obsession that jeopardizes everyone she loves.

After being diagnosed with dementia, an elderly war veteran is forced by his estranged family to hire a live-in nurse, only to find she harbors a sinister secret.

During an extreme heatwave, a beautiful Florida woman and a seedy lawyer engage in an affair while plotting the murder of her rich husband.

Fashion designer Joanna Crane leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the attention of a sexually frustrated private detective, and a psychopathic priest in possession of a murderous sex toy.

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

A tabloid editor assigns a young reporter to solve a murder the editor committed himself.

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.

A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.

Not long after they cross paths at an art gallery, architect Ray Reardon and hypnotically sensual Lena are married with children. But as strange incidents occur, Ray begins to realize he may not really know the woman he married.

Harry Collings returns home to his farm after drifting with his friend, Arch. His wife, who had given up on him, reluctantly allows him to stay, and soon believes that all will be well again. But then Harry has to make a difficult decision regarding his loyalties and priorities.

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.

A Vietnam veteran, Charles Rane, returns home after years in a POW camp and is treated as a hero. He has a hard time adjusting, and things go badly. A movie about the walking dead, before that meant just flesh-eating zombies.

Seen-it-all New York detective Frank Keller is unsettled - he has done twenty years on the force and could retire, and he hasn't come to terms with his wife leaving him for a colleague. Joining up with an officer from another part of town to investigate a series of murders linked by the lonely hearts columns he finds he is getting seriously and possibly dangerously involved with Helen, one of the main suspects.

With his family away for their annual summer holiday, a publishing executive decides to live a bachelor's life. The beautiful but ditzy blonde from the apartment above catches his eye and they soon start spending time together—maybe a little too much time!

An aging horror-movie icon's fate intersects with that of a seemingly ordinary young man on a psychotic shooting spree around Los Angeles.

A young man is plunged into a life of subterfuge, deceit and mistaken identity in pursuit of a femme fatale whose heart is never quite within his grasp.

Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton are rival Madison Avenue advertising executives who each dislike each other’s methods. After he steals a client out from under her cute little nose, revenge prompts her to infiltrate his secret "VIP" campaign in order to persuade the mystery product’s scientist to switch to her firm.

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.

During World War II, a secret agent must seduce and assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai.

A U.S. Navy pilot and his squad are assigned to bomb a group of heavily defended bridges deep behind enemy lines during the Korean War.

After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.

While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love for her; he doesn't want her to go. Together they wander the railroad station where Mary is to take the train to Paris, then ultimately reunite with her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. Will she throw away her old life for this passionate new romance?

When an elite assassin marries a beautiful computer whiz after a whirlwind romance, he gives up the gun and settles down with his new bride. That is, until he learns that someone from his past has put a contract out on his life.

Bored with her marriage to burnt out poet turned corporate executive Thierry, Zandalee falls prey to an old friend of her husband, the manipulative and egotistical Johnny and becomes enmeshed in a sensual, passionate and destructive affair.

A gallerist risks her family and flourishing career when she enters into an affair with a talented painter and slowly loses control of her life.

A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.

The thin line between love and hate turns deadly when a wife discovers her husband’s affair — and they both take extreme measures to get what they want.

Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.

A Korean man in China takes an assassination job in South Korea to make money and find his missing wife. But when the job is botched, he is forced to go on the run from the police and the gangsters who paid him.

Gloria Wandrous, a promiscuous fashion model, falls in love with Weston Liggett, the hard drinking son of a working class family who has married into money.

A woman's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls for her boss's wife. She must soon defend herself as she becomes entangled in a web of malice.

A bitter young man sets out to get back at the gangsters who murdered his father.

In the late 1940s, a murderous couple known as the 'The Lonely Hearts Killers' kills close to a dozen people. Two detectives try to nab the duo who find their targets via the personals in the paper.

In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.

Frank Johnson, a sole witness to a gangland murder, goes into hiding and is trailed by Police Inspector Ferris, on the theory that Frank is trying to escape from possible retaliation. Frank's wife, Eleanor, suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage. Aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett, Eleanor sets out to locate her husband. The killer is also looking for him, and keeps close tabs on Eleanor.

Los Angeles, California. A cop who, unhappy with his job, blames others for his work problems, is assigned to investigate the case of a prowler who stalks the home of a married woman.

Upon waking up to the news that the man she’d gone on a date with the previous night has been murdered, a young woman with only a faint memory of the night’s events begins to suspect that she murdered him while attempting to resist his advances.

Ann, a frustrated wife, enters into counseling due to a troubled marriage. Unbeknownst to her, her husband John has begun an affair with her sister. When John’s best friend Graham arrives, his penchant for interviewing women about their sex lives forever changes John and Ann’s rocky marriage.

A high-priced call girl is forced to depend on a reluctant private eye when she is stalked by a psychopath.

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.

After losing their spouses in a plane crash, an internal affairs cop and a congresswoman find each other's keys in each other's loved ones' possessions and discover that the two were having an affair.

In the sterile setting of a powerful multinational, a ruthless corporate executive and her ambitious protégée bare their claws in a vicious battle for supremacy.

An ambitious Hollywood hustler becomes involved with a reclusive female star, whom he tries to lure out of retirement.

A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband's killer.

Detective Kyle Bodine falls for Rachel Munro who is trapped in a violent marriage. After she shoots her husband, Kyle relucantly agrees to help hide the body, but his partner is showing an unusual flair for finding clues.

An ambitious lawyer finds himself caught in a power struggle between a corrupt pharmaceutical executive and his firm’s senior partner. When the case takes a deadly turn, he must race to uncover the truth before he loses everything.

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

A dabbler-in-crime and his assistant hire an ex-police reporter to recover some stolen papers.

A beautiful woman, Sandra, seduces a wealthy businessman, Miles Rennburg. Little does he realise that she has been sent to kill him at the behest of her boyfriend/crime partner, Lester. Controlling all this is Sue, Lester's wife.

After the renewed flings with their former lovers prove to be disastrously unlike the romantic memories, an unfaithful couple returns to each other.

Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs, to marry him.

Best-selling author Tyvian Jones has a life of leisure in Venice, Italy, until he has a chance encounter with sultry Frenchwoman Eva Olivier. He falls for her instantly, despite already having wedding plans with Francesca Ferrara. Winning Eva's affection proves elusive; she's more interested in money than in love. But Tyvian remain steadfast in his obsession, going after Eva with a fervor that threatens to destroy his life.

Mysterious Orfamay Quest hires Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe to find her missing brother. Though the job seems simple enough, it leads Marlowe into the underbelly of the city, turning up leads who are murdered with ice picks, exotic dancers, blackmailed television stars and self-preserving gangsters. Soon, Marlowe's life is on the line right along with his case.

To nab a sales manager who's at large after murdering his family, a detective investigates the man's colleagues, who seem to be hiding something.

A wealthy wife's affair with her daughter's guitar tutor is threatened when the tutor is attacked and rescued by a hired killer, leading him to suspect their secret is out.

Kim Sun-woo is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculative crime boss, Kang who assigns Sun-woo to a simple errand while he is away on a business trip; to shadow his young mistress, Hee-soo, for fear that she may be cheating on him with a younger man with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair.

A middle-aged businessman meets a band of rowdy youths and is smitten by one, named Francesca.

The rivalry between the manipulative boss of an advertising agency and her talented protégée escalates from stealing credit to public humiliation to murder.

A former boxer turned taxi driver earns the scorn of his nagging wife and gets mixed up with jewel thieves.

During a car accident, Vincent Eastman watches his whole life flash before his eyes, and he doesn't like what he sees. While maintaining the semblance of a marriage with his wife, Sally, Vincent has been carrying on with a mistress, Olivia. She's everything Sally isn't -- warm, passionate, carefree. So why can't he choose between the two, especially when his indecision is taking its toll on his daughter?

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

Private detective Philip Marlowe becomes embroiled in an investigation involving a wealthy Californian family after a beautiful blonde hires him to track down her former lover.

Upon arriving to a small town, a drifter quickly gets into trouble with the local authorities — and the local women — after he robs a bank.

A $10-million diamond rip-off, a stolen identity, a new life married to a diplomat. Laure Ash has risked big, won big. But then a tabloid shutterbug snaps her picture in Paris, and suddenly, enemies from Laure's secret past know who and where she is. And they all want their share of the diamond heist. Or her life. Or both.

Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the seismic effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.

Tom Rath is a suburban father and husband haunted by his memories of World War II, including a wartime romance with Italian village girl Maria, which resulted in an illegitimate son he's never seen. Pressed by his unhappy wife to get a higher-paying job, Rath goes to work as a public relations man for television network president Ralph Hopkins. Drawn into poisonous office politics, Tom finds he must choose his career or his family.

Catherine, a novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite, becomes a prime suspect when her boyfriend is brutally murdered -- a crime she had described in her latest story.

On the streets they call cash dead presidents. And that's just what a Vietnam veteran is after when he returns home from the war only to find himself drawn into a life of crime. With the aid of his fellow vets he plans the ultimate heist -- a daring robbery of an armored car filled with unmarked U.S. currency!

When a woman's father goes missing, she enlists a local to aid in her search. The pair soon discover that her father has died at the hands of a wealthy sportsman who hunts homeless men as a form of recreation.

A notorious dirty cop makes an honest attempt to catch a serial killer who even murdered his own parents.

An assassin goes through obstacles as he attempts to escape his violent lifestyle despite the opposition of his partner, who is secretly attracted to him.

While traveling, Emmanuelle meets Kei, a man who constantly eludes her. Though she indulges in the many alluring distractions, she can’t shake their chance encounter. Will she submit to her basest desires to forge a deeper relationship?

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.

