A rare book dealer finds himself at the heart of a string of paranormal events when he is hired to find the last two copies of a text, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, capable of summoning the Devil.

British couple Fiona (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) and Nigel (Hugh Grant) are sailing to Istanbul en route to India. They encounter a beautiful French woman, and that night, Nigel meets her while dancing alone in the ship's bar. Later, he meets her crippled American husband Oscar (Peter Coyote), who tells him their story. While living in Paris for several years trying to be a writer, he becomes obsessed with a woman he met by chance on a bus. He tracks her down and they start a steamy love affair. Soon, Oscar finds himself enslaved body and soul by her love, and continues to tell Nigel the details of this relationship in various stages over several visits to Oscar's cabin.

After hearing stories of her, a passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.

In a hotel room in Paris, a doctor comes out of the shower and finds that his wife has disappeared. He soon finds himself caught up in a world of intrigue, espionage, gangsters, drugs and murder.

A Taliban member who lives in Afghanistan is taken captive by the Americans after killing an American soldier and two contractors. He is transferred to Europe for interrogation but manages to escape from his captors and becomes an escaped convict on a continent he does not know.