| Director | Luca Guadagnino |
|---|---|
| Genre | horror film, romance film |
| Runtime | 130 min |
| Country | Italy, United States |
| Budget | $20 million |
| Box office | $15.3 million |
In 1988, teenager Maren Yearly lives in Virginia, where she is invited to a sleepover by a classmate. Although she knows she's not allowed to go, she sneaks out. During the sleepover, she compulsively bites her classmate's finger, partially severing it. Maren and her single father, Frank, quickly move to Maryland. Shortly after Maren's 18th birthday, Frank abandons her, leaving her cash, her birth certificate, and a tape.
In the tape, Frank tells the story of Maren's first cannibalistic episode, when she killed her babysitter as a young child. Similar incidents continued to occur over the years, and while Frank helped her evade the consequences, he became distressed by Maren's lack of remorse. He concludes the tape with the hope that she will overcome her urges. Maren decides to go to Minnesota, the birthplace of her mother, Janelle, of whom she has no memories.
She takes a bus to Columbus, Ohio, where she meets Sully, an eccentric fellow "eater" who located her by smell. She follows Sully to a house with a dying, elderly woman. The next morning, Maren awakens to find Sully devouring the woman's corpse and joins him. Maren flees shortly after. While stealing supplies from a convenience store in Indiana, Maren meets Lee, later finding him having eaten a man who harassed a customer inside the store.
Stealing his victim's truck, Lee offers Maren a ride. As they embark on a cross-country road trip, Maren and Lee fall in love. During a brief stay in Lee's hometown in Kentucky, Maren notices his unwillingness to talk about his father's absence and why Lee avoids the town. His younger sister, Kayla, unaware of his true nature, scolds him for constantly leaving.
Maren and Lee encounter what also appear to be a pair of “eaters”, Jake and Brad. Maren rebels at the fact that Brad doesn't share their cravings, but instead voluntarily chooses to participate in cannibalism. Jake also speaks of the intensity of consuming a body "bones and all". Lee and Maren leave while the men are asleep, causing Jake to wake up and chase after them. After Maren expresses hunger during a stop at a local carnival, Lee seduces, then attacks a booth worker and kills him. Once she and Lee have feasted on the body, Maren is guilt-ridden to discover that the man was married and had children.
Using a phone book, Maren finds the home of her grandmother, Barbara, who had no prior knowledge of her existence. Barbara reveals that she and her husband adopted Janelle at birth after she was abandoned behind a police station, and that Janelle has since voluntarily committed herself to a psychiatric hospital in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.
Maren meets Janelle, who has eaten her own hands. She reads a letter Janelle wrote to her, which concludes with the belief that Maren would be better off dead. Janelle attacks her, but a nurse restrains her. Maren confronts Lee about his decisions, then runs away while he is asleep in the car at a gas station. She is eventually approached by Sully, who has been following her. She reprimands him, causing him to storm off in anger. Once Lee realizes Maren is gone, he decides to return home.
After a while, Maren returns to Kentucky. While there, she runs into Kayla, who tells her that on the night their alcoholic and abusive father disappeared, he beat his two children and disappeared while Kayla ran to find the police. Initially considered the prime suspect, Lee was cleared of involvement when the blood on him was proven to be his own.
After Maren reunites with Lee, they rekindle their relationship and travel west. Lee reveals to Maren that his father also ate people, bit his son during their fight, and that Lee eventually fed on him. Maren declares her love for Lee, and the two decide to attempt to live a normal life together.
Sometime later, the couple is living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Maren works at a college bookstore. She returns home one day to find Sully has broken into their apartment, and he forces himself on to her and taunts her with a knife. After Lee returns, the pair manage to kill Sully, but Lee is fatally wounded in the struggle. While searching Sully's purse, Maren finds strands of Kayla's hair and realizes she was Sully's last victim. Lee expresses his wish for Maren to eat him, "bones and all”, which she reluctantly does.