The Center of the WorldMovies like The Center of the World
- Key Features:
- Las Vegas, Intimacy, Emotional connection, Isolation, Depression, Flashback, Character study, Nudity-high, Sexual content-moderate, Existential crisis, Wealth and privilege
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Adult audiences, Character-driven drama fans, Independent film enthusiasts, Viewers interested in complex relationships
- Emotional Arc:
- Detachment → Vulnerability → Ambiguity
The Center of the World

A couple checks into a suite in Las Vegas. In flashbacks we see that he's a computer whiz on the verge of becoming a dot.com millionaire, she's a lap dancer at a club. He's depressed, withdrawing from work, missing meetings with investors. He wants a connection, so he offers her $10,000 to spend three nights with him in Vegas, and she accepts with conditions. Is mutual attraction stirring?
The Center of the World
During a wild vacation in Las Vegas, career woman Joy McNally and playboy Jack Fuller come to the sober realization that they have married each other after a night of drunken abandon. They are then compelled, for legal reasons, to live life as a couple for a limited period of time. At stake is a large amount of money.

A strange family: 17-year-old Phil lives with his mother and twin sister in an old mansion on the outskirts of town. When he returns from summer camp, the mood in the mansion has soured somehow. Phil doesn’t worry about it, hanging out with his best friend Kat instead. When he starts to feel attracted to a mysterious new student at school, Phil is plunged into emotional turmoil only exacerbated by the trouble at home.

A Seattle couple travel to New York to interview colorful former dancer Tobi for research on a dissertation about dance. But soon, common niceties and social graces erode when the questions turn personal and the true nature of the interview is called into question.

A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler into a series of life-changing encounters in this drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. As he wanders through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commonality, but out of that commodity comes raw, unguarded emotions for all.

Failed musician Jay abandoned his family and now earns a living as head bartender in a trendy London pub. Every Wednesday afternoon, a woman comes to his house for graphic, almost wordless, sex. One day, Jay follows her and learns about her. This eventually disrupts their relationship.

A fidgety, wisecracking video store clerk develops a fixation on a particularly reclusive customer, a frequent visitor to the pornography section of Cinefile, the video store where he works in Los Angeles. After multiple failures to impress her during their brief daily transactions, he finds her street address in the store's database, drives to her apartment building and initiates an unconventional campaign to win her affections.

Johnny is a successful banker with great respect for and dedication to the people in his life, especially his future wife Lisa. The happy-go-lucky guy sees his world being torn apart when his friends begin to betray him one-by-one.

Jack is an internet gambler living in NYC. After the death of his roommate, he becomes fixated on Scarlet - a cam girl from San Francisco. His obsession reaches a boiling point when fantasy materializes in reality and Jack sees Scarlet on a rainy NYC Chinatown street.

In a dazzling, dreamlike Las Vegas, longtime couple Hank and Frannie break up on their fifth anniversary and each pursue the fantasy of new love over one neon-soaked night—he with a free-spirited acrobat, she with a seductive musician. But as illusion and reality blur, both must decide whether passion or devotion truly defines the heart.

The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.

Chronicles Jack Harris, one of the pioneers of internet commerce, as he wrestles with his morals and struggles not to drown in a sea of conmen, mobsters, drug addicts, and pornstars.

In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.

Chelsea is an in-demand call girl whose $2,000 an hour price tag allows her to live in New York's lap of luxury. Besides her beauty and sexual skill, Chelsea offers her clients companionship and conversation, or, as she dubs it, "the girlfriend experience." With her successful business and a devoted, live-in boyfriend, Chelsea thinks she has it made... until a new client rocks her world.

Bernie works at a Las Vegas casino, where he uses his innate ability to bring about misfortune in those around him to jinx gamblers into losing. His imposing boss, Shelly Kaplow, is happy with the arrangement. But Bernie finds unexpected happiness when he begins dating attractive waitress Natalie Belisario.

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

Confined to a claustrophobic hotel room, the heir to a hotel empire and the dominatrix who has primed him for success become locked in a battle of wits and wills as he tries to end his relationship with her.

In the not so distant future, Theodore, a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system. This unconventional love story blends science fiction and romance in a sweet tale that explores the nature of love and the ways that technology isolates and connects us all.

John Gage offers a down-on-his-luck yuppie husband $1 million for the opportunity to spend the night with the man's wife.

Lonely, unstable gas station attendant Melinda is tired of being overshadowed by her more confident, outgoing co-worker Sheila. When the gas station is held up at gunpoint by Billy, a desperate man in need of quick cash, Melinda finds an opportunity to make a connection with the robber, regardless of who gets hurt.

While traveling for work in a city far from their homes, a novelist and a corporate accountant find themselves in bed together. Although she’s married, and he’s seeing someone, their intense attraction turns a one-night stand into an unexpected relationship and a respite from the obligations of daily life. Through a series of moments – some profound, some silly, some intensely intimate – we see a portrait of an evolving relationship that could become the most significant one of their lives.

Joe, a programmer and obsessive self-quantifier, and Emily, a budding comedy performer, are happily married until they decide to use one another in their work. A dark comedy about love, technology, and what can’t be programmed.

Vicky recalls her romances with her exes Hao Hao and Jack in the neon-lit clubs of Taipei.

On their road trip through the southwestern desert, Alex and his girlfriend Scarlett arrive in a town in the middle of nowhere and take a room in a mysterious hotel so that Scarlett, who is feeling increasingly ill, can get some rest.

New York concierge Doug Ireland wants to go into business for himself and refurbish a hotel on Roosevelt Island, N.Y., but he needs an investor. With a few weeks left before his option on the site runs out, Doug agrees to help wealthy Christian Hanover conceal his affair with salesgirl Andy Hart from his wife. Despite his own attraction to Andy, Doug tries to stay focused on getting Christian to invest $3 million in his project.

In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.

A disparate group of characters unknowingly bond by the sexual choices they make. Consumed by loneliness, a British businessman ponders a rendezvous with a prostitute. The businessman's wife prepares to call it quits with her younger lover. A Brazilian student breaks up with her boyfriend in London. A recovering alcoholic travels to Phoenix in search of his missing daughter. A paroled sex offender struggles to stay composed when propositioned in a Denver airport. A widower's religious devotion is put to a difficult test.

While searching for his fiancee Ritsuko, Sakutarou rediscovers through flashbacks the void deep within him caused by the events from his high school days.

On her deathbed, a mother makes her son promise never to get married, which scars him with psychological blocks to a commitment with his girlfriend. They finally decide to tie the knot in Vegas, but a wealthy gambler arranges for the man to lose $65K in a poker game and offers to clear the debt for a weekend with his fiancée.

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

Documentary filmmaker Erik and closeted lawyer Paul meet through a casual encounter, but they find a deeper connection and become a couple. Individually and together, they are risk takers — compulsive, and fueled by drugs and sex. In an almost decade-long relationship defined by highs, lows, and dysfunctional patterns, Erik struggles to negotiate his own boundaries and dignity and to be true to himself.

When Albert Stockwell comes home from work one day he finds a note from his wife of 15 years, Nancy, saying she has gone to see friends. After waiting several days, Albert realizes that his wife is missing. Nancy has met her salvation on the Internet in the form of Louis Farley. Nancy and Louis, both wounded souls, take comfort in one another through e-mail, pictures, and promises of perverse sexual encounters.

In a vibrant tapestry of love and longing, nine interconnected souls navigate romance and heartbreak in L.A., where passions collide and truths unfold, revealing that the heart's desires often lead us where we least expect.

A ferocious, misogynistic, and morally deprived serial killer is active in Las Vegas. Obsessed with the collapse of the Twin Towers, and with Nazi tendencies, he even targets underage girls.

A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.

An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.

It's a story of 29-year-old top-manager Max who is really sure he is absolutely successful. All his life is around earning and spending money. But one day he meet a girl who is from another, real, world. And his own world starts to crash down.

A former stripper's talent with numbers lands her a job with a professional gambler who runs a sports book in Las Vegas.

A traveling art saleswoman tries to shake off a flaky motel manager who falls for her and won't leave her alone.

A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

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.

While on a business trip in Los Angeles, Edward Lewis, a millionaire entrepreneur who makes a living buying and breaking up companies, picks up a prostitute, Vivian, while asking for directions; after, Edward hires Vivian to stay with him for the weekend to accompany him to a few social events, and the two get closer only to discover there are significant hurdles to overcome as they try to bridge the gap between their very different worlds.

A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.

The twisted tale of Kenneth, socially insecure technical writer who forms an obsessive relationship with "Nikki", an anatomically accurate silicone sex doll he orders over the Internet.

Two con artists have spent 26 years training their only daughter to swindle, scam and steal at every turn. During a desperate and hastily conceived heist, they charm a stranger into joining them, only to have their entire world turned upside down.

Louise, a widow with two children, almost crushes a stranger with her car. She takes care of him, even if he's not really wounded. It turns out that he has mental disorders and that they can help each other much more than they thought.

An heiress who's been shut inside her apartment building for nearly two decades is forced to confront her fears after one of her neighbors is killed and a detective arrives to begin the investigation.

A recently orphaned heiress meets a young racing yacht captain on Long Island. He shows interest in her and, being heiress to $200,000,000, love may not be the reason.

After winning the lottery, François goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to a prostitute named Daniela to live with him as his wife until his money runs out.

A romantic comedy that brings together three disparate characters who are learning to face a challenging and often confusing world as they struggle together against a common demon—sex addiction.

Dylan is done with relationships. Jamie decides to stop buying into the Hollywood clichés of true love. When the two become friends they decide to try something new and take advantage of their mutual attraction - but without any emotional attachment.

Set in London's world of high class call girls, Amoureux Solitaires tells the story of London based French escort Virginie, and Rupert, a man who rescues trafficked girls.

A production company begins casting for its next feature, and an up-and-coming actress named Rose tries to manipulate her filmmaker boyfriend, Alex, into giving her a screen test. Alex's wife, Emma, knows about the affair and is considering divorce, while Rose's girlfriend secretly spies on her and attempts to sabotage the relationship. The four storylines in the film were each shot in one take and are shown simultaneously, each taking up a quarter of the screen.

A mentally disturbed young woman takes a job at a posh country club and falls in with a clique of wealthy college kids where she's taken under the wing of the clique's twisted leader, who harbors some dark secrets too terrifying to tell.

A middle-aged businessman faces bankruptcy after his partner's suicide and a rival's unscrupulous offer to buy his company. Determined to avoid the trap, he finds an unexpected solution through a prostitute.

An adman attempts to rebuild his shattered life after suffering a nervous breakdown.

Financial TV host Lee Gates and his producer Patty are put in an extreme situation when an irate investor takes over their studio.

A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.

Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.

A shy bank employee unexpectedly invites a young woman to a café, leading to a one-night stand. When he shares this with his disillusioned friend, the writer helps him navigate a dazzling social ascent.

Gambling addiction bring the stories of three otherwise unconnected people together as it destroys each of their lives.

Alan Clay, a struggling American businessman, travels to Saudi Arabia to sell a new technology to the King, only to be challenged by endless Middle Eastern bureaucracy, a perpetually absent monarch, and a suspicious growth on his back.

As an asteroid nears Earth, a man finds himself alone after his wife leaves in a panic. He decides to take a road trip to reunite with his high school sweetheart. Accompanying him is a neighbor who inadvertently puts a wrench in his plan.

Jean-Pierre, a wealthy businessman, is lonely. He still desires his wife but she only seems interested in shopping and the beauty salon. Tired of lunching alone every day, one day he decides to invite his chauffeur to join him, and a relationship quickly develops as the two find they have much in common. Are they just cash machines for their wives? Don't they deserve some love in return? Jean-Pierre confiscates his wife's credit card, but things don't turn out exactly the way he'd hoped...

A stroke of good luck turns lethal for Sam Phelan and his wife Leslie when they are faced with a life-changing decision that brings strange and sinister Pyke Kubic to their doorstep. As Pyke leads Sam and Leslie on a tumultuous adventure through the streets of Chicago, each are pulled deeper and deeper into a desperate spiral of deception and violence – all in the name of money.

Julian Michaels has designed the ultimate resort: VICE, where anything goes and the customers can play out their wildest fantasies with artificial inhabitants who look, think and feel like humans. When an artificial becomes self-aware and escapes, she finds herself caught in the crossfire between Julian's mercenaries and a cop who is hell-bent on shutting down Vice, and stopping the violence once and for all.

Fresh to Las Vegas with no connections, Nomi Malone takes a job as an exotic dancer. Her talents are quickly noticed by Cristal, a headlining dancer who senses an opportunity to bolster her own act. But Nomi won’t play second fiddle and soon begins her venomous path to the top, ruthlessly backstabbing anyone who gets in her way.

A young woman thinks she’s found a path to internet stardom when she starts making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger – until the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.

Mr. Devereaux is a powerful man. A man who handles billions of dollars every day. A man who controls the economic fate of nations. A man driven by a frenzied and unbridled sexual hunger. A man who dreamed of saving the world and who cannot save himself. A terrified man. A lost man.

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.

A woman taking a cab ride from JFK airport engages in a conversation with the driver about the important relationships in their lives.

After she and her husband lose their jobs, a former Texas homecoming queen inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a prostitution ring after she unknowingly accepts a position at a massage parlor.

Bounced from her job, Erin Grant needs money if she's to have any chance of winning back custody of her child. But, eventually, she must confront the naked truth: to take on the system, she'll have to take it all off. Erin strips to conquer, but she faces unintended circumstances when a hound dog of a Congressman zeroes in on her and sharpens the shady tools at his fingertips, including blackmail and murder.

After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.

When a man is offered a million dollars to play a game in which hunters try to kill him, he thinks he has found the perfect loophole: they can only attack when he’s alone. His only problem is that none of his friends or family believe the game is real. Forced to seek companionship in unexpected places, he navigates the bizarre challenge with humor, paranoia, and a surprising search for connection.

After a drunken house party with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a gay club. Just before closing time he picks up Glen but what's expected to be just a one-night stand becomes something else, something special.

For a book project, photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders took photographs of 30 stars of adult movies, each pair of photographs in the same pose, clothed and nude. This film records the photo shoots and includes interviews with the performers and commentary from eight writers (and John Waters). The actors and writers discuss economics, nudity and exhibitionism, careers, and private lives.

Reclusive author Loretta Sage writes about exotic places in her popular adventure novels that feature a handsome cover model named Alan. While on tour promoting her new book with Alan, Loretta gets kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire who hopes she can lead him to the ancient city's lost treasure that featured in her latest story. Alan, determined to prove he can be a hero in real life and not just on the pages of her books, sets off to rescue her.

Ian begins a relationship with Drew's daughter, who works in the financial sector. The couple gets involved in a tragic accident that will change their lives forever. At the same time, the accident has a major impact on both their families who, despite the class difference, cross paths.

An aspiring actress makes a pact with her fiancé to take a job as an exotic dancer to care for her cancer stricken father. Once the pact the couple made is broken, their lives are changed forever.

A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.

Two romantically involved corporate spies team up to manipulate a race to corner the market on a medical innovation that will reap huge profits and allow them to lead an extravagant lifestyle together.

Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.

Sam and Gray are such a well-matched pair that it is difficult to believe they are brother and sister rather than husband and wife. They both share a love of 1940s movies and dancing, and when they meet Charlie, they have something else in common: They both fall in love with her. Sam must deal with unexpected feelings of jealousy, while Gray struggles to come to terms with her sexual orientation.

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

Herman has a weakness for strip clubs. Donny has a thing for condiments and Tiffany is a newly celibate martial artist. These are Andy's new friends after he unsuspectingly follows his dream girl into a sexual addiction recovery group. At first this seems like the best possible news! However, Andy's professional and personal life begins to unravel as he deepens his ties to this lovable, but damaged group.

Former pool hustler "Fast Eddie" Felson decides he wants to return to the game by taking a pupil. He meets talented but green Vincent Lauria and proposes a partnership. As they tour pool halls, Eddie teaches Vincent the tricks of scamming, but he eventually grows frustrated with Vincent's showboat antics, leading to an argument and a falling-out. Eddie takes up playing again and soon crosses paths with Vincent as an opponent.

A socially awkward and volatile small business owner meets the love of his life after being threatened by a gang of scammers.

Nina is a young, carefree actress who arrives in Paris searching for her big break. There, she finds drama both on- and offstage as she becomes involved with three men: a mild-mannered real-estate agent who offers her stability, a bad-boy actor who lives dangerously on the edge, and an intense theater director who casts her in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” As opening night approaches, the emotional extremes of Nina’s love life fuel her art.

Faced with their fantasies, six couples try to explore the hidden sides of their intimate life. Six questions on access to pleasure. From role play to abstinence, via exhibition, six separate stories with the same questioning of desire today in the center.

John leads an ordinary life with a monotonous routine. One day John runs into a woman on the subway who is as beautiful as she is mysterious named June. His encounter with her finally leads him to have a goal in his bumptious life.

Set in the glamour of the New York and Paris art scenes, gallery owner Brooke Gatwick and her newscaster husband Owen Shore, face temptation, jealousy, twists and mystery when two seductive newcomers enter their lives.

At a Greek hotel in the off-season, a chambermaid, a man obsessed with BMW cars, and a photo-store clerk attempt to film and photograph various badly re-enacted struggles between a man and a woman.

An edgy action thriller set in Las Vegas during a terrorist attack. A genius computer loner takes control of the city and the attack as he fights with his fits of overwhelming depression and obsessions with love and death.

Desperate for a good story, a sex-addicted journalist throws himself into the world of high-class escorts when he starts following a Stanford-educated prostitute.

Three young boys pool their money and pay V, a kindhearted prostitute, to strip for them. Afterward, she drives them home to the suburbs -- but then her car breaks down. It's just as well, though, because a mobster named Waltzer is after her, and V realizes the suburbs are the perfect place to hide. But things get a lot more complicated when V falls in love with Tom, a single father who is unaware of her real profession.

After a blow to the head, Abby decides she can't do it anymore. Her life just can't be only about the house, the kids and the wife. She needs more: she needs to be Eleanor.

Film director Wai asks gang leader Ball to invest in a movie. He cheats famous actors Lok and Sa Sa to take the classical film, and then he finds two stunt actors, April and KK, for the love scene. With the editing, he changes the film with famous actors acting erotic movie. Everything is smooth, but Ball comes up and asks for “special service” from April in exchange for his continued investment in the movie…

