Clay Spencer and his wife, Olivia, live in a small town deep in the mountains. When Clay isn't busy drinking with his buddies or railing against the town minister, he's building the house he's always promised Olivia. He is overjoyed when he learns his eldest son will be the first Spencer to attend college, if he can resist the charms of a pretty local girl and rustle up the money for tuition.
Poor physics student Marie is studying at the Sorbonne in 1890s Paris. One of the few women studying in her field, Marie encounters skepticism concerning her abilities, but is eventually offered a research placement in Pierre Curie's lab. The scientists soon fall in love and embark on a shared quest to extract, from a particular type of rock, a new chemical element they have named radium. However, their research puts them on the brink of professional failure.
After learning that her sister, Faith, has committed suicide in Portugal, Phoebe, an 18-year-old hippie, decides to uproot from her San Francisco home to travel to Europe. Phoebe hopes to discover and experience the life that led to her sister's death by retracing her footsteps, which eventually leads to Wolf -- Faith's boyfriend. However, as Phoebe's journey continues, a series of visions of Faith pushes her mind to the brink.
Sarah Barcant, a lawyer in New York City who grew up in South Africa, returns to her childhood dwelling place to intercede for Alex Mpondo, a Black South African politician who was tortured during apartheid.
A comedy about a screenwriter (Wuhl) whose old movie script is read by a producer (Landau) and the search for financial backers begins. But it seems that each money source (Aiello, DeNiro, Wallach) has his own mistress that he wants put into the film. Gradually, the screenwriter is forced to make changes to his script to accommodate these backers until he finally sees no semblance of his original ideas in the writing.
A tale of twin girls, Dóra and Lili, who are born in 1880 Budapest at the same moment Thomas Edison presents his electric lightbulb to the world. The sisters are soon orphaned and separated in childhood, and follow different paths: one grows up to be a naïvely idealistic, bomb-toting anarchist, the other a pampered, hedonistic courtesan. Their paths cross once again on the Orient Express on New Year's Eve 1899...
For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up -- not even thinking about it -- as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.
Natalie allows her classmate Jeff, who ran away from home after a fight with his stepfather, to stay at her place while her father is away on a business trip. Natalie soon starts dating Jeff's friend James Casey, who isn't as faithful as she thinks, while her best friend Polly falls in love with baseball player Zoo Knudsen.
Neal Cassady is living the beat life during the 1940s, working at The Tire Yard and and philandering around town. However, he has visions of a happy life with kids and a white picket fence. When his girlfried, Joan, tries to kill herself he gets scared and runs away. But when Joan reappears will he take the chance at that happiness, or will he turn his back on it?
Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.
A widow finds out from her late husband's mistress that his death was not an accident. Both women work together to unmask the truth behind the man they both loved.
With the strange disappearance of Laura, two colleagues, her older boyfriend, Rafael, and Ezequiel, learn of their recent discoveries, which may help them locate her. However, the story is bigger and stranger than they could imagine.
After an elaborate application process, Empress Elisabeth of Austria hires Countess Irma as her new lady-in-waiting and takes her to her summer residence on Corfu. As the two women become closer there, this soon leads to tensions back in Vienna.