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Jacques Demy's auspicious debut – "a musical without music" set in the port city of Nantes – stars Anouk Aimée as the title character, a cabaret singer awaiting the return of Michel (Jacques Hardin), her long-absent lover and the father of her child. Michel went to America seven years ago and promised to return when he became rich. In Michel's absence, Lola is being courted by her childhood friend Roland (Marc Michel) and American sailor Frankie (Allan Scott). At some point, it seems that Lola will settle down with one of them, but her heart still belongs to Michel. The film is dedicated to Max Ophüls and the film title obviously alludes to Ophüls' Lola Montes as well as to the heroine of Josef Von Sternberg's The Blue Angel. Marc Michel makes a reference to his unrequited love towards Lola when he reappears in Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

Writer/director John Turturro's Fading Gigolo centers on an elderly New York bookstore owner (Woody Allen) who becomes a pimp when he turns his middle-aged friend (Turturro) into a gigolo hoping to raise enough money when it looks like their store is going to close. Eventually, they begin to make more money than they ever expected.