Aspiring actress Eve Harrington maneuvers her way into the lives of Broadway star Margo Channing, playwright Lloyd Richards and director Bill Sampson. This classic story of ambition and betrayal has become part of American folklore. Bette Davis claims to have based her character on the persona of film actress Talullah Bankhead. Davis line "Fasten your seatbelts, it s going to be a bumpy night" is legendary, but, in fact, all of the film s dialog sparkles with equal brilliance.

A priest, a woodcutter and another man are taking refuge from a rainstorm in the shell of a former gatehouse called Rash?mon. The priest and the woodcutter are recounting the story of a murdered samurai whose body the woodcutter discovered three days earlier in a forest grove. Both were summoned to testify at the murder trial, the priest who ran into the samurai and his wife traveling through the forest just before the murder occurred. Three other people who testified at the trial are supposedly the only direct witnesses: a notorious bandit named Taj?maru, who allegedly murdered the samurai and raped his wife; the white veil cloaked wife of the samurai; and the samurai himself who testifies through the use of a medium. The three tell a similarly structured story - that Taj?maru kidnapped and bound the samurai so that he could rape the wife - but which ultimately contradict each other...