Eccentric billionaire industrialist, Hollywood film mogul, famous for romancing some of the world's most beautiful women, Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) was bigger than life. The drama recounts the years of his life from the late 1920s through the 1940s, a time when Hughes was directing and producing Hollywood movies and test flying innovative aircrafts he designed and created.

He seduced some of the biggest stars of the age, Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett ) and Jane Russel (although you only see mention of her breasts in the film). Cate Blanchett provides a beautiful portrayal of the clever, cute and at times tomboyish Hepburn.

Hepburn is one of the first to realise that Hughes eccentricities and behaviour are becoming increasingly erratic. Eventually this will lead him to where his life finishes - paranoid and alone living in a room behind the Beverley Hills Hotel, using his money to keep the world away.