Wild Side is a 1995 erotic thriller film co-written and directed by Donald Cammell and starring Anne Heche in her first lead role, along with Christopher Walken, Joan Chen, Steven Bauer, and Allen Garfield.

Cammell's original version of the film that featured a non-linear narrative was recut without his permission by the production company Nu Image, with the new cut emphasizing the sex scenes, turning it into an exploitation picture with an incoherent story.

The film gained some notoriety for the strong lesbian sex scene between Heche and Chen featured in the unrated version, which the production company Nu Image used to market the film starting in 1997, during Anne Heche's famous relationship with Ellen DeGeneres.

Alex Lee is a bank employee struggling to pay the mortgage on her beachfront home in Los Angeles.

Her most frequent client is Bruno Buckingham, an eccentric but dangerous money launderer who enjoys engaging in sadomasochism with Alex as a dominatrix.

Still under Tony’s thumb and with her bank manager threatening to fire her and keep her from finding another job elsewhere, Alex schemes to steal the Foot Fetish money herself and leave the country, most likely for Guadalajara or China.

In despair, Virginia breaks up with Alex, returns to Bruno’s apartment, and attempts suicide with an overdose of pills.

Tony, piecing everything together, angrily confronts Alex at her home later that night and demands the stolen disk at gunpoint.

In a voiceover, Alex reveals that she and Virginia decided to travel to Mexico by bus and, from there, sail by ship to China.

[citation needed] A "director's cut" version by Cammell's wife and co-screenwriter China Kong and his editor and sometime producer Frank Mazzola was released in 2000 and was noted by critics.

[3] The film is known for its graphic lesbian love scenes between stars Joan Chen and Anne Heche.

[4][5] Cammell's depression reportedly was exacerbated by the studio's recutting his recent movie Wild Side without his permission.