Set tomorrow or the day after, in a world where sensation has replaced communication, Crash tells the story of James Ballard, a commercial director in the throes of a troubled relationship with his wife, Catherine. One day, Ballard is involved in a car accident that results in the other driver's death. Anxious to come to some understanding with the widow, Helen Remington who, like him, has been injured in the collision, Ballard joins her in an exploration of cars, sex, and death... and the point at which all three meet. Along the way, they encounter Vaughn, a fetishist who recreates and eroticizes famous car crash deaths, and Gabrielle, a woman whose scars and injuries are both disfigurements and decorations. In a world in which people 'love' their cars, Crash is the inevitable manifestation of mankind's endless fascination with things mechanical.