As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
Mr. K, a traveling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of his hotel. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.
Dede is a sole parent trying to bring up her son Fred. When it is discovered that Fred is a genius, she is determined to ensure that Fred has all the opportunities that he needs, and that he is not taken advantage of by people who forget that his extremely powerful intellect is harboured in the body and emotions of a child.
Priest returns to New York from Paris to find his friend's murderer. With a couple of new allies, he attempts to bring the killers to justice while trying not to get into criminal activity like he did years ago.
A small town teenager in the 1960s believes her dreams of becoming a famous singer will come true when her rock star idol gets stranded in town. But a leak in a nearby chemical plant that is believed to be causing mass mutations threatens to turn her dream into a nightmare.
A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.
Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.
Ahmed, 18, is French of Algerian origin. He grew up in the Parisian suburbs. On the benches of the university, he meets Farah, a young Tunisian full of energy recently arrived from Tunis. While discovering a body of sensual and erotic Arabic literature that he never knew existed, Ahmed falls deeply in love with this girl, and although literally overwhelmed by desire, he will try to resist it.
A teenage bride becomes a war widow when her Marine Corps husband is killed in Vietnam, until into her life comes a civilian recreation director who works at Camp Pendleton.
Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.
Straight out of Jersey comes Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$, an aspiring rapper fighting through a world of strip malls and strip clubs on an unlikely quest for glory.
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
An examination of the romantic life of a young man in New York City and his sometimes fleeting, sometimes profound experiences with the women he encounters.
Jack Peterson, a widowed father of three young children, encounters Ginny Newsom, a wildlife biologist, whose mission is tracking trumpeter swans, a family of which settle in a pond on the Peterson farm. Could that be romance in the air?