Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.
Odd couple Ivo Salvini, recently released from a mental asylum, and former prefect Gonnella wander through the countryside and discover a dystopia made of television commercials, beauty pageants, rock music, Catholicism, and pagan rituals.
A young Sicilian is swindled twice, but ends up rich; a man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night; a group of painters wait for inspiration; a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife; and two friends make a pact to find out what happens after death.
The intertwined lives of two women in 1970s France, set against the progress of the women's movement in which Agnes Varda was involved. Pomme and Suzanne meet when Pomme helps Suzanne obtain an abortion after a third pregnancy which she cannot afford. They lose contact but meet again ten years later. Pomme has become an unconventional singer, Suzanne a serious community worker - despite the contrast they remain friends and share in the various dramas of each others' lives, in the process affirming their different female identities.
The final part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life series is rich with exotic tales of slaves and kings, potions, betrayals, demons and, most of all, love and lovemaking in all its myriad forms. Mysterious and liberating, this is an exquisitely dreamlike and adult interpretation of the original folk tales.
Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son of a post-war German industrialist, is on the way to lie down with his farm's pigs, because he doesn't like human relationships.
Gabby, the waitress in an isolated Arizona diner, dreams of a bigger and better life. One day penniless intellectual Alan drifts into the joint and the two strike up a rapport. Soon enough, notorious killer Duke Mantee takes the diner's inhabitants hostage. Surrounded by miles of desert, the patrons and staff are forced to sit tight with Mantee and his gang overnight.
An aging poet summons his estranged sons to the hotel he is staying at because he feels his death is near; meanwhile, he encounters two women staying at the hotel.
Almería, Tabernas desert, Spain, 2002. Texas Hollywood is a dilapidated and dusty town where Western movies have not been shot for decades. Julián Torralba and his partners, veteran film stuntmen, survive there, recreating pathetic action scenes for the pleasure of the few foreign tourists who visit the isolated region.
Monika is young, beautiful and a virgin. She is only 16 years old, and, beside getting the attention of all her classmates, she also attracts older men. She has a relationship with a boy, Leo, but she doesn't know that he uses to pimp the girls he seduces to rich businessmen. One of Leo's client befriends Monika and becomes so obsessed that he pays Leo to get her. But Monika turns her attention to her art professor, unknowing that he too has his secrets.
A woman living in a small town discovers after fifty years that she is actually a man. Will she change her sex and suffer the reaction of a narrow-minded society?
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
A mother looks to escape her abusive past by moving to a new town where she befriends another mother, who grows suspicious of her.
A swinging, hypocritical college student cat raises hell in a satirical vision of the 1960s.
After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.
After 25 years of a good marriage, what will Darcy do once she discovers her husband's sinister secret?
Artie and Diane agree to look after their three grandkids when their type-A helicopter parents need to leave town for work. Problems arise when the kids' 21st-century behavior collides with Artie and Diane's old-school methods.
The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an "up-skirt" photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing – which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian – dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Edipo (Oedipus), and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Edipo that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…
During her wedding ceremony, Rachel notices Luce in the audience and feels instantly drawn to her. The two women become close friends, and when Rachel learns that Luce is a lesbian, she realizes that despite her happy marriage to Heck, she is falling for Luce. As she questions her sexual orientation, Rachel must decide between her stable relationship with Heck and her exhilarating new romance with Luce.
A tireless and charismatic novelty seeker, Tucker tricks his buddy Dan into lying to his fiancée Kristy, so they can go to an legendary strip club three and a half hours away to celebrate Dan’s last days of bachelorhood in proper style.
In 1987, Ricardo is 17 years old. This summer, Ricardo has a busy schedule: loose his virginity, find a way to get into bars, have a car, spend time with his friends. In order to rapidly make money, Ricardo decides to use his italian inheritance and take a shortcut in the medium of crime. But things will go wrong...
Two British best friends and in-laws Dawn and Jackie work together at a factory. When Dawn is diagnosed with a brain tumor Jackie shares $100,000 she's got from her secret lover with Dawn to fulfil her dream - a visit to Las Vegas. They buy two tickets and fly there...
A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.
The director of a failing summer camp decides to invite campers from ten years ago for a free weekend event, hoping that he can trick them into fixing up the place and also get their families to provide them some financial support. The boys and girls return to the camp and play pranks on each other and try to score with the other campers and the staff.
A good ol' boy (McKinnon) gets into trouble with some mobsters, and then must seek assistance from his estranged, identical twin gay brother.
A presumed-dead man's current wife and former wives squabble over his funeral arrangements.
Young surgeon becomes bored with his wife and family, he has a very successful career, but even with having so much in life, he feels empty and goes through a series of brief and meaningless relations with attractive women.
An actor whose career has gone flat resolves to pursue a more stable occupation while also trying to save his troubled marriage.
Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.
Michael has a great job, has his 4 best friends, and is in love with a beautiful girl at 30. He loves Jenna but his life seems predictable until someone else enters his life. It seems that everybody's having relationship problems.
After losing the woman of his dreams, Anderson is convinced he'll never fall in love again. But at the urging of his best friend, he spontaneously proposes to a dissatisfied waitress named Katie and an innocent dare evolves into the kind of love that both have been looking for all along.
Five years after jilting his pregnant fiancée on their wedding day, out-of-shape Dennis decides to run a marathon to win her back.
In a beauty salon in Beirut the lives of five women cross paths. The beauty salon is a colorful and sensual microcosm where they share and entrust their hopes, fears and expectations.
A worker's wife and six pretty daughters are desired by all the men in their little town, so he decides to move his family elsewhere.
Arnold is a gay man working as a drag queen in 1971 NYC. He meets a handsome bisexual man.
A devout Mormon living in L.A. becomes a pornographic actor after his martial arts moves impress a big-time director.
It's been a year since Katya's wedding so now Dasha is getting ready to marry.
On the night that Bo finds his boyfriend Sun cheating on her, she befriends Louis, a professional swindler who ends up recruiting her to join his entourage.
In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.