O incomodado detetive de Nova York Frank Keller investiga uma assassina em série que procura por vítimas, usando anúncios pessoais em um revista e toca a música "Sea of Love" na cena do crime. Com a ajuda de seu parceiro, Sherman Touhey, Frank cria um plano para achar a assassina usando seus próprios anúncios. Mas quando Frank se apaixona por sua principal suspeita, Helen Cruger, ele luta para conciliar sua vida pessoal e seu dever profissional.
"Sea of Love" is a very conventional film for the most part and it will undoubtedly drive the more hardcore crime fans to complete distraction by mining the erotic thriller genre with much of the running time being consumed by the burgeoning sexual encounters of the central couple Frank and Helen. The film will frequently border on the downright boring as a direct result of this, especially amongst the more restive viewers just interested in who did it and why. However, the film successfully toys with us throughout by stringing us along in this regard until the very end when it delivers a tremendous and very satisfying conclusion to the series of murders, but in terms of Frank's and Helen's romance....well, the outcome of that is a good deal more ambiguous.