Four vignettes on the lives of the Cuban people in the pre-revolutionary era. In Havana, Maria is ashamed when a man she loves discovers how she makes a living. Pedro, an old farmer, discovers that the land he cultivates is being sold to an American company. A student sees his friends attacked by the police while they distribute leaflets supporting Fidel Castro. Finally, a peasant family is threatened by Batista's army.
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.
A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War who wins a lottery for relocation to the United States with three other lost boys. Encountering the modern world for the first time, they develop an unlikely friendship with a brash American woman assigned to help them, but the young man struggles to adjust to this new life and his feelings of guilt about the brother he left behind.
An African-American Mafia hit man who models himself after the samurai of ancient Japan finds himself targeted for death by the mob.
The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.
After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune. Lula's mother, Marietta, desperate to keep them apart, hires a hitman to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru, an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.
Nina is totally heartbroken at the death of her boyfriend Jamie, but is even more unprepared for his return as a ghost. At first it's almost as good as it used to be – hey, even the rats that infested her house have disappeared. But Jamie starts bringing ghostly friends home and behaving more and more oddly.
A writer stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident.
Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.
While vacationing without her busy British diplomat husband, a married woman falls for another man.
In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their influence over the court. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen whom they groom to present to the Emperor. The Emperor falls in love with her and she becomes the Princess Yang Kwei-fei. The Yangs are then appointed important ministers, though An Lushan is not given the court position he covets. The ministers misuse their power so much that there is a popular revolt against the Yangs, fueled by An Lushan.
U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard is accompanying a plane load of convicts from Chicago to New York. The plane crashes spectacularly, and Mark Sheridan escapes. But when Diplomatic Security Agent John Royce is assigned to help Gerard recapture Sheridan, it becomes clear that Sheridan is more than just another murderer.
Thief Duke Anderson—just released from ten years in jail—takes up with his old girlfriend in her posh apartment block, and makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being recorded on audio and video, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.
On the windswept Suffolk mudflats creaks a bird-hide, inside which hovers Roy Tunt, a prematurely aged, mildly obsessive-compulsive birder. With one more sighting - the elusive sociable plover - he will have 'twitched' the entire British List. Tunt has his shortwave radio, packed-lunch and a portrait of his ex-wife Sandra for company. Suddenly, in the midst of a conversation with Sandra's portrait, the hide door blows open and a bedraggled stranger - unshaven, edgy and bloodied introduces himself as Dave John, a fugitive from the storm. After a tense introduction, the two men discover that they have a good deal in common, sharing sandwiches, tea and personal exchanges which are frank, poignant and often funny. As the two men begin to form a close bond news of a police manhunt sets them both on edge driving their fragile relationship to a tragic conclusion.
A devout Mormon living in L.A. becomes a pornographic actor after his martial arts moves impress a big-time director.
It's 1933, and eight young women are friends and members of the upper- class group at a private girl's school, about to graduate and start their own lives. The film documents the years between their graduation and the beginning of the World War in Europe, and shows, in a serialized style, their romances and marriages, their searches for careers or meaning in their lives, their highs and their lows.
When a pandemic strikes the world, Victor and his family get stuck within a hippie community.
The prospects for continuing life on Earth in the year 2058 are grim. So the Robinsons are launched into space to colonize Alpha Prime, the only other inhabitable planet in the galaxy. But when a stowaway sabotages the mission, the Robinsons find themselves hurtling through uncharted space.
Catherine and Oracio are real estate advisors, and are visiting two properties in quick succession: a large bourgeois house "which can have a swimming pool and RER view", and a small modern apartment in the heart of Bougival's golden triangle.
In the year 2024, the ozone layer is believed to have been destroyed, and it's up to MacLeod and Ramirez to set things right. Opposition comes from both the planet Ziest (MacLeod and Ramirez's homeworld) and a corporation profiting from the supposed lack of ozone. Also, flashbacks show the story behind MacLeod and Ramirez's exile from Ziest.