At 10 years old, Owen becomes a ragged orphan when his mother dies. Abusive next-door neighbors the Conways take him in, and by 17, Owen has learned that might is right. At 25, he's a career gangster: loitering, gambling and drinking in dens of iniquity. Marie Deering arrives in Owen's area, eager to empower the impoverished, gang-affiliated youth through education. Owen slowly but surely leaves his old life behind, choosing the narrow path- all the while falling in love with Marie. Skinny, who's taken over Owen's role in the gang, reappears to him, spelling trouble.
After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.
A repressed young woman becomes obsessed with pornography and the mysterious rich patrons of the Times Square porn theater where she works selling tickets.
At a Catholic boys' school, domineering disciplinarian Father Goddard rules over his pupils with an iron hand. When one of his teenage charges confesses to murder, the dogmatic but deeply repressed Goddard finds his faith challenged and his life spiralling dangerously out of control.
In Paris, a gold smuggler is at war with other local gangsters who want piece of the action. Then the mob shows up and makes things worse. And an undercover US Treasury Department agent is trying to infiltrate the smuggling business.
Four Londoners are inseparably linked by their wartime experiences. In a time when the barriers of sexuality and social convention have been broken down, they enjoy a freedom never experienced before.
Rick Heller is a juvenile delinquent who keeps getting himself into trouble. To keep him out of trouble his mother puts him to work cleaning the cage of a gorilla named Katie which she is teaching to communicate through the use of sign language. When the owner of the gorilla takes her back to become a flea market freak Rick takes it upon himself to break Katie out and take her on an adventurous journey to get her out of the country.
The story about a very small god-forgotten village in Siberia reflects the history of Russia from the beginning of the century till the early 1980s. Three generations try to find the land of happiness and to give it to the people. One builds the road through taiga to the star over horizon, the second 'build communism' and the third searches for oil.
Victor Meynard, a hit man who still lives with his mother, is becoming more reluctant to pull the trigger during assignments. He meets a young man, Antoine, whom he takes under his wing after being unable to kill him. Their lives change when he meets Renée, an art forger who has earned the wrath of powerful mob leaders. Unwilling to assassinate the new object of his affections, Victor must run and hide with two new friends in tow.
Kang Tae-sik is a private detective who would do anything for money. One day, he gets framed for a murder by a ruthless boss of the criminal underworld and a mysterious caller watches and controls his every move. He must use a wide array of techno-gadgetry at his disposal to clear himself and exact revenge within 24 hours given to him.
Close friends Martha and Karen build a private boarding school together with the aid of the local doctor Joe. The school takes off and many students enroll, one of whom is a trouble-maker who tells a scandalous lie that threatens to destroy the trio's lives.
Three days in the lives of six friends who are nearly 30 years old, live in Grenoble, and have a rock band called the "Why Notes?". They're to play in Paris at Charles's school reunion. In getting to Paris and back, the characters interact with Aimee's ex-husband and her abrasive, cruel ex-mentor, Louise's would-be lover who turns out to have a husband, Mickey's long-time lover and her children, Bertrand's Germanic wife and their children who speak no French, and Frederic's distant mother. The band also meets Clara, a mercurial free spirit who beguiles Bertrand, then Mickey, then takes up with someone else in the band.
Widowed mother Mildred must suddenly redefine herself and find an outlet for her nurturing side when her adult daughter moves out of the family home. Though Mildred thinks she's found her purpose when her neighbor, overworked single mother Monica, asks her to look after her little boy, she has great difficulty learning to strike a healthy balance between giving selflessly to others and remembering to take care of herself.
In 1971, Cathy Rush becomes the head basketball coach at a tiny, all-girls Catholic college. Though her team has no gym and no uniforms — and the school itself is in danger of being sold — Rush looks to steer her girls to their first national championship.
The workaholic head of the compliance section of a New York bank flies to Monaco to investigate unusual deposits from an offshore bank and meets a down-on-his-luck international film star who has become embroiled in criminal activities.
In 1880s London, pornographic bookseller Verloc is a double agent for the Russian government, providing information to Chief Inspector Heat about a lazy anarchist organization. In order for the anarchists to be arrested, an act of terrorism must occur. So Verloc decides to set up bombs – which leads to tragedy – not only for himself but also for his family, including wife Winnie and brother-in-law, Stevie.
A fashionable contemporary art gallerist in Chelsea, New York falls for a brooding new music composer in this comic satire of the state of contemporary art.
Depressed and suicidal, thirtysomething bachelor Duncan – determined to find the secret to a healthy, strong relationship, – flashes back to his last five relationships (in the last four years) and considers what caused each one to fail. Based on the novel 'Essays in Love' by Alain de Botton.