Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.
An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Set during a retreat of Christian Democrat politicians who practice spiritual exercises together, it is an allegory of corrupted power. Disturbing, claustrophobic settings are the background to a series of mysterious crimes.
A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
C.R. MacNamara is a managing director for Coca Cola in West Berlin during the Cold War, just before the Wall is put up. When Scarlett, the rebellious daughter of his boss, comes to West Berlin, MacNamara has to look after her, but this turns out to be a difficult task when she reveals to be married to a communist.
In 1900, a clan attempts to strike a deal with a Chicago industrialist to get him to build cotton mills in their Deep South town.
Josef K wakes up in the morning and finds the police in his room. They tell him that he is on trial but nobody tells him what he is accused of. In order to find out about the reason for this accusation and to protest his innocence, he tries to look behind the façade of the judicial system. But since this remains fruitless, there seems to be no chance for him to escape from this nightmare.
A Scottish warlord and his wife murder their way to a pair of crowns.
An American writer living in Rome witnesses an attempted murder that is connected to an ongoing killing spree in the city, and conducts his own investigation despite himself and his girlfriend being targeted by the killer.
Gentleman gangster Max and his partner, Riton, pull off their last, most successful heist and find themselves comfortable enough to retire in the style they enjoy. However, Max confides the details of the theft to his younger mistress, Josey -- who has secretly taken up with ambitious young rival gangster Angelo. Angelo then has Riton kidnapped and demands the stash of gold as ransom, which threatens Max's dreams of the perfect retirement.
An aged, wealthy trader plots with his servant to recreate a maritime tall tale, using a local woman and an unknown sailor as actors.
David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.
Hayat, her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosphorus. Hayat's father owns a small boat that secures the family's survival through a miscellany of not always lawful ventures. Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat's life is harsh and unrelenting. But Hayat has an instinct for survival. Her capacity for courage, endurance and hope in the face of these trials suggest that there is Life despite the manifold injustices of an unjust world.
A female wildlife photographer arrives on an East African reservation where a group of men trap wild animals for zoos and circuses.
When architect-turned-recluse Bernadette Fox goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica, her 15-year-old daughter Bee goes on a quest with Bernadette's husband to find her.
Pandora Reynolds is a woman who has never fallen in love – but one who men kill and die for. When she meets dashing and mysterious ship's captain Hendrik van der Zee, he pushes her to commit the ultimate act of love.
Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.
Three stories of murder and the supernatural: A museum worker is introduced to a world behind the pictures he sees every day. When two lifelong friends fall in love with the same woman and she is killed, they are obvious suspects. Is their friendship strong enough for them to alibi each other? When a young politician is hurt by the arrogant Secretary for Foreign Affairs Lord Mountdrago, he uses Mountdrago's dreams to get revenge.
The master of Italian horror, Lucio Fulci, stars as... Lucio Fulci, a filmmaker with a reputation for gruesome horror films. His body of work has started to plague his mental state, and he is haunted by the grotesque set-pieces his mind has conjured up during his career. His psychiatrist, Egon Schwarz, uses a hypnotised Fulci as an avatar to carry out his own disturbed fantasies, in hopes of ruining the master’s reputation once and for all.