Querelle is a sailor on shore leave in the French port of Brest. Following an argument, in which he stabs and kills his drug-smuggling partner, he seeks shelter in a nearby brothel. There he befriends the predatory madam, Lysiane, who leads him into his first homosexual encounter. From then on Querelle embarks upon a voyage of highly charged and sometimes violent sexual self-discovery that will transform him forever from the man he once was...