A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.
Ichiko works as a private nurse for a family she almost became a part of. While Ichiko cares for the grandmother, she is also a confidant to Motoko, the eldest sister. But one day, Motoko’s younger sister disappears. And the media soon reveal the kidnapper to be Ichiko’s own nephew.
After a young protégé's murder confirms a prison gang leader's growing misgivings about his life inside, he joins a reform-minded warden's efforts to improve the prison, eyeing it as a path to early release. Gaining fulfillment and self-worth, he becomes a valued partner in the new changes before explosive gang resistance forces a deadly choice between the gangster he is and the changing man he knows he now is.
Single mother Diana struggles to provide for her child and pay for her college education. When she meets two dancers from a nearby gentlemen's club, Diana's convinced there's fast money to be made stripping.
Barry Munday, a libido-driven wage slave who spends all his time either ogling, fantasizing about or trying to pick up women, wakes up in hospital after a freak attack only to find that his testicles have been removed.
After Carlos, an impoverished teen from a fractured home, receives a desperate note from Sarah, a pen pal he lost touch with a year ago, he uses her letters to solve the mystery of her disappearance and crimes she may have been a part of.
Recently married, Quentin and Tracy Collins have just moved into Collinwood, a New England estate that has long been in the Collins family and which Quentin has just inherited. They soon find themselves plagued by spirits of past residents.
In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.
Xiao Wu, who had been at odds with his father, Lao Wu, accidentally travels back in time to the 1980s. He prevents the first encounter between his parents in mainland China. In order to correct this mistake, he tries to return to the past again, to encourage his mother to chase his father. Do the parents meet and fall in love again despite Xiao Wu's intervention?
Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.
After returning to Los Angeles from a group therapy session, documentary filmmaker Bob Sanders and his wife, Carol, find themselves becoming vigilante couples counselors, offering unsolicited advice to their best friends, Ted and Alice Henderson. Not wanting to be rude, the Hendersons play along, but some latent sexual tension among the four soon comes bubbling to the surface, and long-buried desires don't stay buried for long.
Taking over Leeds United, Brian Clough's abrasive approach and his clear dislike of the players' dirty style of play make it certain there is going to be friction. Glimpses of his earlier career help explain both his hostility to previous manager Don Revie and how much he is missing right-hand man Peter Taylor.
A series of intertwining tales involve "pleasure seekers and pleasure providers" during the course of one night in Geylang, Singapore's red-light district. There are three distinct stories, united only by the presence of characters from all the stories in a streetside eatery:
Francesca, a pregnant Los Angeles widow, journeys to her late husband's Minnesota hometown to finally meet his mother and family. After being met with icy acceptance from her mother-in-law, then getting stranded with her in a blizzard, Francesca begins to discover terrifying secrets about her husband's family.
Imagine a world where absolute conformity rules, and word and thought, including loyalty to Big Brother is demanded. It's the year 1984 and such a world exists. Divided into three vast states, whose inhabitants are dominated by all powerful governments, an illegal love affair begins. Soon, worker drone Winston becomes the target of a brain-washing campaign to force him back to conformity.
A disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem.
No sooner has 15-year-old Lee Keegan been expelled from his private school than an apocalyptic event wipes out most of the world's population. With his father dead and mother trapped abroad, Lee is given one instruction: go back to school. But safety and security at St. Mark's School for Boys is in short supply. Its high walls can't stop the local parish council from forming a militia and imposing marshal law, while inside the dorms the end of the world is having a dangerous effect on his best friend and his unrequited crush on the school nurse isn't helping him concentrate on staying alive.
Harmony is tricked into auditioning for the Holiday Chorus — directed by an ex-boyfriend. By Christmas Eve, they could be harmonizing in the key of love.