Marie, a school teacher, is in a romantic relationship with Paul, but she is disappointed in his comparative lack of interest in sexual activity. One morning, Marie drives to a bar, where she meets Paolo; the two later have sex.

One day, Roberto, the headmaster, brings Marie to her house. The two begin engaging in BDSM until Marie asks him to stop, though she confesses to have imagined what it's like to be bound and implies that she enjoyed being gagged. On the way home, a man forcibly has sex with Marie in the stairway; he leaves right as Paul returns, but the latter does not see her.

Upon returning home after a session with Roberto, Paul demonstrates interest in sex and manages to accidentally impregnate Marie. After one checkup during which the doctor reveals the baby's gender, the couple have sex for the first time in months – but also last.

After an unhappy night out to a bar, Marie wakes up about to go into labor but Paul is out cold. Frustrated, she turns on the gas and leaves, with Roberto driving her to the hospital. She successfully delivers the child and as expected, Paul dies in the gas explosion. As his coffin is being lowered into the ground, Marie watches from a distance, the baby in her arms.

• Caroline Ducey as Marie
• Sagamore Stévenin as Paul
• François Berléand as Robert
• Rocco Siffredi as Paolo
• Ashley Wanninger as Ashley
• Emma Colberti as Charlotte
• Fabien de Jomaron as Claude

In an interview with The Post, Catherine Breillat appeared to confirm the rumors of actual on-set sex. "An actor never pretends," she said. "At the same time, I'm not perverse. I don't impose on my actors or actresses any more than is absolutely necessary. But I don't pretend. I don't simulate. The deal was, we'd go as far as we had to, as far as the film required."^[5] Caroline Ducey accepted the part of Marie knowing that 'going all the way' was written into her contract. Apparently, Ducey began the film thinking that it would also be an exit from the sexual relationship she was in, but then decided while it was being made that she wanted to stay with her boyfriend. By the end, she was in a state of considerable distress. ^[6]

In Europe, Romance was shown in mainstream cinemas; in the United States, it was reduced to a mainstream-acceptable R rating, and the European original version is un-rated. In the UK, the BBFC passed the film uncut for cinemas, though home releases suffered a brief cut to an ejaculation shot. In March 2004, the original version was broadcast, late-night on German public television. In Australia, the original version of Romance was broadcast uncut on the cable television network World Movies.^{[citation needed]} The film was initially refused classification in Australia, before it was awarded an R18+ on appeal.^[7] It single-handedly paved the way for actual sex to be accommodated in the R18+ classification in Australia.^[7]

In Canada, particularly in Alberta and the Maritimes, the sexuality was seen as gratuitous to the film and it was given an A rating and XXX rating in those regions.^[8][9] In June 2008, in the Netherlands, the original version of Romance was broadcast on Dutch public TV by VPRO as one of a series of Erotica art house cinema.^{[citation needed]}

• Sadism and masochism in fiction
• Unsimulated sex

• Angelo, Adrienne. (2010) 'Sexual Cartographies: Mapping Subjectivity in the Cinema of Catherine Breillat', Journal for Cultural Research, 14(1), pp. 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797580903363082.
• Coulthard, Lisa. (2010) 'Desublimating Desire: Courtly Love and Catherine Breillat', Journal for Cultural Research, 14(1), pp. 57–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797580903363090.
• Coulthard, Lisa and Birks, Chelsea. (2016) 'Horrible Sex: The Sexual Relationship in New Extremism', in L. Coleman (ed.) Sex and Storytelling in Modern Cinema: Explicit Sex, Performance and Cinematic Technique. I.B.Tauris & Co., pp. 71–94. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755694655.
• Gorton, Kristyn. (2007) ‘"The Point of View of Shame": Re-viewing female desire in Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999) and Anatomy of Hell (2004)’, Studies in European Cinema, 4(2), pp. 111–124. https://doi.org/10.1386/seci.4.2.111_1.
• Hottell, Ruth A. and Russell-Watts, Lynsey. (2002) 'Catherine Breillat’s Romance and the Female Spectator: From Dream-Work to Therapy', L’Esprit Créateur, 42(3), pp. 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2010.0395.
• Krisjansen, Ivan. and Maddock, Trevor. (2001) 'Educating Eros: Catherine Breillat’s Romance as a Cinematic Solution to Sade’s Metaphysical Problem', Studies in French Cinema, 1(3), pp. 141–149. doi:10.1386/sfci.1.3.141
• Mtshali, Marya .T. and Fahs, Breanne. (2014) 'Catherine Breillat’s Romance and Anatomy of Hell : Subjectivity and the Gendering of Sexuality', Women: A Cultural Review, 25(2), pp. 160–175. https://doi.org/10.1080/09574042.2014.944415.
• Phillips, John. (2001) 'Catherine Breillat’s Romance: Hard Core and the Female Gaze', Studies in French Cinema, 1(3), pp. 133–140. https://doi.org/10.1386/sfci.1.3.133.
• Wheatley, Catherine. (2010) 'Contested Interactions: Watching Catherine Breillat’s Scenes of Sexual Violence', Journal for Cultural Research, 14(1), pp. 27–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797580903363066
• Wilson, Emma. (2001) 'Deforming Femininity: Catherine Breillat’s Romance’, in Lucy Mazdon (ed.) France on Film: Reflections on Popular French Cinema. London: Wallflower, pp. 145–157.

• Romance at IMDb  
• Romance at AllMovie
• Romance at the TCM Movie Database
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• Romance at Rotten Tomatoes