American Beauty/Best scene/Sam Mendes/Wes Bentley/Ricky Fitts/Allison Janney/Chris Cooper

Lester Burnham is a middle-aged magazine executive who despises his job. His wife, Carolyn, is an ambitious real estate broker; their sixteen-year-old daughter, Jane, abhors her parents and has low self-esteem. The Burnhams' new neighbors are retired United States Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts and his near-catatonic wife, Barbara. The Fitts' teenage son, Ricky, obsessively films his surroundings with a camcorder, collecting hundreds of recordings on video tapes in his bedroom, and uses his part-time job of a social events waiter as a front for his secret marijuana dealings. Frank is a strict disciplinarian who previously forced Ricky into a military academy and briefly committed him to a psychiatric hospital. Jim Olmeyer and Jim Berkley, a gay couple who live nearby, welcome the family to the neighborhood; Col. Fitts later reveals his homophobia when angrily discussing the incident with Ricky. Lester becomes infatuated with Jane's vain cheerleader friend, Angela Hayes, after seeing her perform a half-time dance routine at a high school basketball game. He starts having sexual fantasies about Angela, in which red rose petals are a recurring motif. Carolyn begins an affair with a married business rival, Buddy Kane. Lester is told he is being laid off, but instead blackmails his boss, Brad, for one year's salary plus benefits. He continues his liberation by taking up employment at a fast-food outlet, purchasing his dream car and doing physical workout after he overhears Angela telling Jane that she would find him sexually attractive if he improved his physique. He begins smoking marijuana supplied by Ricky, and flirts with Angela whenever she visits Jane. The girls' friendship wanes after Jane starts a relationship with Ricky; they bond over what Ricky considers the most beautiful imagery he has ever filmed: a plastic bag being blown in the wind. Lester discovers Carolyn's infidelity, but reacts indifferently. Buddy ends the affair, fearing an expensive divorce. Frank becomes suspicious of Lester and Ricky's friendship and later finds his son's footage of a nude Lester lifting weights, which Ricky captured by chance. After watching Ricky and Lester through Lester's garage window, Frank mistakenly concludes they are sexually involved. He later beats Ricky and accuses him of being gay. Fed up with his father's authoritarian lifestyle, Ricky goads Frank to expel him from their home by falsely admitting to the charges. Carolyn is shown sitting in her car, where she takes a handgun from the glove box. Ricky finds Jane in the midst of an argument with Angela and convinces her to flee with him to New York City, before admonishing Angela as being boring and ordinary. Frank confronts Lester and attempts to kiss him, but Lester rebuffs Frank, who flees. Lester finds a distraught Angela sitting alone in the dark. She asks him to tell her she is beautiful; he does, and the pair kiss. However, moments before they are about to have sex, Angela admits her virginity and Lester decides not to go through with the act. Instead, they talk, and bond over their shared frustrations. Angela goes to the bathroom and Lester smiles at a family photograph in his kitchen before being shot by an unseen intruder. Ricky and Jane find Lester's body, while Carolyn is seen crying in the closet. A bloodied Frank returns home, where a gun is missing from his collection. Lester's closing narration describes meaningful experiences during his life; he says that, despite his death, he is happy because there is so much beauty in the world.