Sunset Boulevard

• Police cars race down Sunset Boulevard, a famous street in Los Angeles, where the lifeless body of Joe Gillis is found floating in the swimming pool of a palatial mansion.
• Joe Gillis is a struggling screenwriter with a few lackluster credits to his name, down on his luck and unable to find work.
• Joe attempts to talk Sheldrake, a powerful producer at Paramount Studio, into buying Bases Loaded, his latest script.
• Sheldrake's script reader Betty Schaefer harshly critiques Bases Loaded.
• Joe then unsuccessfully attempts to borrow money from his friends and agent.
• With no money on hand and his car about to be repossessed, Joe’s only option appears to be leaving the bright lights of Los Angeles for a low-paying newspaper job in Ohio.
• Joe escapes the car repo men chasing him across the city, but blows out a tire in front of a ritzy mansion on Sunset Boulevard.
• The mansion on Sunset Boulevard is not as deserted as it appeared to be; a woman's voice calls out to Joe, thinking him to be a pet undertaker providing funeral arrangements for her dead pet chimpanzee.
• Joe is ushered inside by a mysterious butler, Max.
• The house owner, Norma Desmond, is a long-forgotten star of the silent screen.
• Norma is intrigued to learn Joe is a writer and invites him to stay and take a look at a lengthy script she has written about Salome.
• Norma hopes the script will become the movie that resurrects her acting career.
• Joe thinks the script is terrible but opportunistically sweet-talks Norma into hiring him as her editor.
• Norma pays Joe's overdue rent without his knowledge and Joe's free will essentially vanishes.
• Norma becomes rather obsessed with Joe, showering him with gifts, including a bespoke tuxedo and Vicuna topcoat.
• A great December rain leaks through Joe’s room and forces him to relocate to a room in the main house previously used by Norma’s three ex-husbands.
• Max reveals that he regularly writes Norma’s fan mail to feed into her illusions of enduring public adoration.
• For New Year’s Eye, Norma arranges a grand, private party for her and Joe, where she confesses her love for him.
• Joe tries to decline Norma's advances gently, but he comes to accuse her of taking advantage of him.
• Norma angrily reacts to Joe's rejection and slaps him.
• Max is Norma's ex-husband and willingly returned to her as a servant—life without her was unendurable.
• Joe agrees to work on the script with Betty and calls the mansion to let Max know he is moving out.
• Joe brutally tells Norma there is no comeback, no script, and no fan letters.
• Norma prepares for her comeback with a barrage of intense beauty treatments; in the meantime Joe begins to work secretly with Betty on the screenplay at nights.
• Max discovers the studio contacted Norma only because they want to rent her rare luxury car, a 1929 Isotta-Fraschini.
• Joe is attracted to Betty but restrains himself, partly because she’s engaged and partly he does not want to abandon his now comfortable life with Norma.
• Norma finds the script with Betty's name on it and calls her, telling her that Joe is a user and not a good man.
• Norma considers the script for Salome complete and sends it off to Cecil B. DeMille at Paramount Studio.
• With this newfound revelation concerning the toxicity of his living situation and Hollywood, Joe prepares to leave Norma and return to Ohio.
• Norma has tried to kill herself using Joe's razor, prompting Joe to rush back to the mansion and make love to her as an apology.
• Norma is welcomed back by many of the older hands and technicians who worked at Paramount Studio in her heyday.
• Joe takes the phone and invites Betty to the mansion to witness this for herself.
• Joe flees to another party hosted by his friend, Artie Green, where he encounters the script reader Betty—Artie’s soon-to-be fiance—again.
• Betty compliments the thematic potential of a particular scene in one of Joe's stories.
• Betty and Artie have become engaged but Betty falls for Joe as they spend time working together.
• Joe feigns fulfillment with his life as a gigolo when Betty arrives to upset him and extricate himself from the complicated love triangle.
• Max wants to hide these facts from Norma to protect her oblivious, delicate ego.
• After one night of writing, a sinister Max approaches Joe and confesses his former status as a respected director who discovered Norma and made her a star.
• Joe spots Betty and they briefly swap ideas about the script, but Joe abruptly leaves per Max’s demands.
• Betty leaves in tears.