Patrick Bateman cares more about a business card than a human life. Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000) turns Bret Easton Ellis’s notorious novel into a razor-sharp satire of 1980s Wall Street vanity. Christian Bale delivers a career-defining performance as a killer with perfect skin and an empty soul. Spoilers follow, so consider yourself warned.
Table of Contents
Detailed Summary
Morning Routine and the World of Pierce & Pierce
Patrick Bateman works as a vice president at Pierce & Pierce in 1987 Manhattan. He is 27, wealthy, and obsessed with his appearance. His morning routine involves ice packs, exfoliating masks, and a thousand crunches.
His narration reveals the truth early. Beneath the polish, he insists, no real person exists at all. He describes himself as simply not there.
Dinner at the trendy restaurant Espace introduces his circle. Timothy Bryce, Craig McDermott, and David Van Patten trade insults and reservation tips. Evelyn, his fiancée, talks about weddings while Patrick quietly fantasizes about violence.
The Business Card Scene
A boardroom meeting turns into the film’s most famous showdown. Bateman proudly presents his new card, complete with bone coloring and Silian Rail lettering. Van Patten tops it, and Bryce tops that.
Paul Allen’s card lands last. Its subtle off-white coloring and tasteful watermark leave Bateman visibly shaken and sweating. For him, this small humiliation cuts deeper than anything else in the film.
First Blood in the Alley
That night, Bateman walks through an alley and finds a homeless man named Al with his dog. He feigns compassion, then berates the man for his situation. Moments later, he stabs Al to death and stomps on the dog.
Nothing changes in his life afterward. He goes clubbing, snorts cocaine, and gets rejected at the exclusive restaurant Dorsia. His rage simmers under a flawless smile.
Dinner with Paul Allen
Paul Allen keeps mistaking Bateman for a colleague named Marcus Halberstram. Rather than correct him, Bateman exploits the confusion. He books dinner, gets Allen drunk, and brings him back to his apartment.
Newspapers cover the floor. Bateman puts on a raincoat, praises the merits of Huey Lewis and the News, and buries an axe in Allen’s head. Afterward, he drags the body past an unbothered doorman inside a sleeping bag.
He lets himself into Allen’s apartment next. A suitcase gets packed, and a message goes onto Allen’s answering machine, claiming Paul has flown to London. His cover story is in place.
Detective Kimball Arrives
Private investigator Donald Kimball visits Bateman’s office to ask about Allen’s disappearance. His questions sound polite but probe constantly. Bateman stumbles over his alibi and references dinner with Marcus Halberstram.
Kimball never openly accuses him. He keeps circling back, however, with friendly lunches and casual follow-ups. Whether he suspects anything remains one of the film’s great questions.
Christie, Sabrina, and the Video Camera
Bateman picks up a sex worker he names Christie and hires an escort he calls Sabrina. He lectures them about Phil Collins while a camcorder records everything. Flexing in the mirror, he admires himself far more than the women.
Christie leaves bruised and shaken the next morning. He pays her off without a hint of remorse.
Failed Murders and Near Misses
In a restaurant bathroom, Bateman tries to strangle Luis Carruthers. Luis misreads the attack as a romantic advance and confesses his feelings. Bateman flees in disgust, utterly thrown.
Later, he invites his assistant Jean over for dinner. He loads a nail gun and points it at the back of her head. A voicemail from Evelyn interrupts, and he sends Jean home.
The Chainsaw Chase
Bateman brings Christie back along with a friend, Elizabeth. This time the night unfolds in Paul Allen’s apartment. Elizabeth dies in bed, and Christie discovers a closet full of corpses.
She flees down the hallway, screaming. Bateman chases her naked with a chainsaw, drops it down the stairwell, and the blade finds her. His luck seems impossible, which is exactly the point.
Breaking Up with Evelyn
At a restaurant, Bateman ends his engagement. He tells Evelyn he needs to engage in homicidal behavior on a massive scale. She hears none of it and sobs about the wedding.
Meanwhile, Kimball meets him again. He mentions that someone claims to have seen Paul Allen in London. Bateman relaxes, even though the detail makes no sense given what he did.
Movie Ending
Bateman stops at an ATM late one night. Its screen flashes a message instructing him to feed it a stray cat. He produces a gun, and a woman who witnesses this intervenes. He shoots her.
Police arrive, and a chase erupts through the empty streets. Bateman fires at a patrol car, which explodes in a fireball. He stares at his gun in disbelief, since no handgun should do that.
He runs to an office building, kills a security guard, and shoots a janitor. Hiding in an office, he calls his lawyer, Harold Carnes. In a frantic voicemail, he confesses to 20, maybe 40 murders, including Paul Allen.
Morning brings him back to Allen’s apartment. It is spotless, freshly painted, and up for sale. A realtor named Mrs. Wolfe calmly asks him to leave and never return.
Jean, back at the office, opens his planner. Page after page contains grotesque drawings of murder and mutilation. Her face shows horror, mixed with quiet grief for a man she cared about.
Bateman meets Carnes at Harry’s Bar. Carnes calls him “Davis” and laughs about the hilarious voicemail. He insists, moreover, that he dined with Paul Allen in London just days earlier.
Bateman sits with his friends while Ronald Reagan discusses the Iran-Contra affair on television. His final narration admits the confession meant nothing. No punishment arrives, and no catharsis follows. A sign behind him reads “This is not an exit.”
Did the murders happen? Harron has said she never intended the film as a dream, and she has expressed regret that many viewers read it that way. Her ending shows a world so shallow and interchangeable that nobody notices a killer among them. Allen’s “sighting” in London likely stems from mistaken identity, the same kind that plagued Bateman all along.
A darker reading of the clean apartment exists as well. Mrs. Wolfe may have discovered the bodies and quietly scrubbed the scene to protect the property’s value. Either way, Bateman gets away with everything, and that is the satire’s final cruelty.
Are There Post-Credits Scenes?
No. American Psycho ends on the “This is not an exit” sign, followed by a standard credits roll set to David Bowie’s “Something in the Air.” Nothing plays after the credits.
Type of Movie
American Psycho is a black comedy horror satire. It blends psychological thriller tension with sharp social commentary about greed and conformity in the Reagan era.
Tone shifts constantly. One minute Bateman delivers a deadpan pop music lecture; the next, he swings an axe. Harron plays the violence for both shock and absurdity, never letting the audience settle.
Cast
- Christian Bale – Patrick Bateman
- Willem Dafoe – Donald Kimball
- Jared Leto – Paul Allen
- Reese Witherspoon – Evelyn Williams
- Chloë Sevigny – Jean
- Justin Theroux – Timothy Bryce
- Josh Lucas – Craig McDermott
- Bill Sage – David Van Patten
- Matt Ross – Luis Carruthers
- Samantha Mathis – Courtney Rawlinson
- Cara Seymour – Christie
- Guinevere Turner – Elizabeth
- Reg E. Cathey – Al
- Krista Sutton – Sabrina
- Stephen Bogaert – Harold Carnes
Film Music and Composer
John Cale composed the original score. This Welsh musician co-founded The Velvet Underground before building a long career in avant-garde and film music. His score stays sparse and unsettling, with strings creeping beneath Bateman’s monologues.
Licensed pop songs steal the spotlight, though. Huey Lewis and the News’s “Hip to Be Square” soundtracks Paul Allen’s murder, while Phil Collins’s “Sussudio” plays during the threesome. Genesis’s “In Too Deep” and Katrina and the Waves’s “Walking on Sunshine” round out Bateman’s taste.
Not every song made the cut. Bateman praises Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All,” yet the recording never plays. Huey Lewis’s track was pulled from the soundtrack album, and that absence became a story in itself.
Filming Locations
Toronto, Ontario, hosted most of the production, standing in for Manhattan. Its offices, restaurants, and apartments offered convincing 1980s-style interiors at a lower cost. Exteriors in New York City supplied the skyline and street authenticity.
Locations matter because Bateman’s world is all surface. Glossy restaurants, sterile apartments, and glass-walled offices reflect his emptiness. Every setting looks expensive and feels hollow.
Awards and Nominations
American Psycho received no Academy Award nominations. Its reputation grew through home video and cult appreciation rather than trophies, and critics now rank Bale’s performance among the decade’s best.
Behind the Scenes Insights
- Mary Harron co-wrote the script with Guinevere Turner, who also plays Elizabeth.
- Harron insisted on Christian Bale, but Lionsgate initially replaced her with Oliver Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio. After DiCaprio left, Harron and Bale returned, and DiCaprio joined the ranks of actors who were almost cast in iconic roles.
- Bale modeled Bateman’s hollow friendliness on a Tom Cruise talk show appearance, noting intense energy with nothing behind the eyes.
- Bale spent months training to sculpt Bateman’s gym-obsessed physique.
- Willem Dafoe reportedly shot his Kimball scenes three ways: believing Bateman guilty, believing him innocent, and unsure. Harron mixed the takes.
- The MPAA initially gave the film an NC-17 for the threesome scene. Harron trimmed footage to secure an R rating.
- Bale’s flexing in the mirror during the “Sussudio” sequence came from his own choices on set.
- Bale accepted a modest fee because the studio did not consider him a bankable star at the time.
Inspirations and References
Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel American Psycho provides the source. That book sparked outrage before publication; its original publisher dropped it over the graphic violence. Ellis drew on his own observations of Wall Street yuppie culture.
Harron treated the material as satire first. She focused on the era’s consumerism and the way identity became a matter of brands. Horror staples like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre flicker on Bateman’s television, nodding to the genre’s roots.
Alternate Endings and Deleted Scenes
An unrated cut restores roughly 18 seconds of footage trimmed from the threesome scene. These moments extend the sex scene rather than add violence.
Home releases include a handful of deleted scenes, mostly extended dialogue among Bateman’s colleagues and additional moments with Evelyn. No alternate ending has ever surfaced; Harron’s conclusion remained intact through every version.
Book Adaptations and Differences
Ellis’s novel and Harron’s film differ sharply. Ellis writes page after page of brand names, restaurant menus, and music criticism. The film compresses these into quick narration and a few monologues.
Violence marks the biggest gap. Ellis describes torture, mutilation, and sexual violence in extreme detail. Harron keeps most of the gore offscreen and emphasizes absurdity.
Several victims and subplots vanish. For instance, the book includes a horrific rat scene, the killing of a child at a zoo, and the murder of Bateman’s old girlfriend Bethany. Paul Allen goes by Paul Owen on the page.
Jean receives more warmth onscreen. Her discovery of the planner drawings gives the film an emotional beat the novel lacks. Both versions end with the lawyer scene and the words “This is not an exit.”
Memorable Scenes and Quotes
Key Scenes
- Business card comparison, where watermarks cause more panic than murder.
- Bateman’s Huey Lewis lecture before the axe falls on Paul Allen.
- Morning routine monologue, with its chilling admission of an absent self.
- Christie’s chainsaw chase down the apartment stairwell.
- ATM demanding a stray cat, kicking off the chaotic finale.
- Jean turning the pages of Bateman’s planner.
Iconic Quotes
- “I have to return some videotapes.”
- “Look at that subtle off-white coloring.”
- “Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?”
- “I’m into, uh, well, murders and executions mostly.”
- “There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman.”
- “This confession has meant nothing.”
Easter Eggs and Hidden Details
- Bateman’s business cards misspell “Acquisitions” as “Aquisitions,” and nobody in the boardroom notices.
- Bateman tells Christie that Tom Cruise lives in his building’s penthouse, a sly nod to Bale’s inspiration for the character.
- He repeatedly rents Brian De Palma’s Body Double, a thriller famous for its drill murder.
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre plays on his TV during his crunches, foreshadowing his own chainsaw scene.
- A Les Misérables poster hangs in his apartment, matching his circle’s Broadway obsession.
- “Murders and executions” gets misheard as “mergers and acquisitions,” summing up the film’s thesis in one slip.
- Bateman attributes a quote to Ed Gein that fans often point out came from a different killer, a fitting error for an unreliable narrator.
Trivia
- American Psycho premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2000 before its April theatrical release.
- Its budget sat around $7 million, and it earned over $30 million worldwide.
- Bale was 25 during filming; Bateman is 27.
- A direct-to-video sequel, American Psycho 2: All American Girl (2002), starred Mila Kunis and had little connection to the original.
- Duncan Sheik adapted the story into a stage musical that reached Broadway in 2016.
- Reese Witherspoon and Jared Leto both went on to win Academy Awards years later.
Why Watch?
Few films skewer wealth and vanity this precisely. Bale’s performance is hilarious and terrifying at once, and Harron’s direction keeps every scene sharp. Decades later, the satire feels more relevant than ever. Watch it, then argue about the ending for days.
Director’s Other Movies
- I Shot Andy Warhol (1996)
- The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)
- The Moth Diaries (2011)
- Charlie Says (2018)
- Daliland (2022)
Recommended Films for Fans
- Fight Club (1999)
- Taxi Driver (1976)
- The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
- Nightcrawler (2014)
- The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
- The Menu (2022)
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
- Wall Street (1987)
- Gone Girl (2014)
