It's the early 1920s in Paris, and Jake, a World War I veteran, is hopelessly in love with charismatic British socialite Lady Brett Ashley. Brett, however, settles for no one: an independent, liberated divorcee, all she wants out of life is a good time. When Jake, Brett, and a crew of their fellow expatriate friends travel to Spain to watch the bullfights, both passions and tensions rise. Amid the flash and revelry of the fiesta, each of the men vies to make Brett his own, until Brett's flirtation with a confident young bullfighter ignites jealousies that set their group alight.