Julian Jons is a talented but troubled young artist. He has just been released from an asylum, where he has spent the last seven years for the murder of Anna, his girlfriend/model. Attempting to start painting again, he is pursued by journalist Jennifer Cole, who is intrigued by this complex, brooding man. Against the backdrop of the modern art world, she begins to dig into the past, fully aware that it holds painful memories for Julian, and perhaps danger for herself.

A sketch artist for the police helps a witness recall who she saw leaving the scene of a murder, and discovers that the person is his wife. Not willing to believe she was responsible, he resketches the pictures so they don't look like her, and he begins his own investigation of the murder.

Arcadia Lost tells the story of two teenagers stranded in rural Greece after a car wreck. Charlotte (Haley Bennett) is a sixteen-year-old with a deep desire to find connection who hides behind a sullen disposition and her newfound sexual power. Sye (Carter Jenkins) is her recent stepbrother, introverted, intelligent, but forever at an ironic distance from the world through his camera and caustic wit. As they wander the dusty roads and staggering vistas of the Peloponnese, they come across the vagabond philosopher-drunk Benerji (Nick Nolte), an ex-patriot American who is an odyssey of his own. They reluctantly adopt him as their guide, and begin an adventurous journey toward the mystic waters on the sacred flanks of Mount Parnassus that takes them through a landscape both ancient and modern, forcing them to confront the truth of their past and the frightening, beautiful reality of their present.

When the citizens of a small evangelical town systematically begin committing suicide, a young girl struggling to reconcile her Christian upbringing with her desire to experience the outside world finds her faith put to the ultimate test.