Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.
Nukui
Ryuzo and his 7 former henchmen are all retired yakuza, but they now live as regular old men. One day, Ryuzo becomes the victim of a phishing fraud. He calls his 7 men together to reform their society.
Kong, a deaf-mute, lives a life of quiet desperation working for Bangkok mobsters. Despite his disability, Kong's mentor Joe trains him to be a stone-cold assassin. After a brutal hit abroad, Kong returns to Bangkok and falls in love with young pharmacy clerk. But when Joe's girlfriend Aom is raped, the duo risk everything for revenge.
A hot-shot detective in Yokohama kills a witness during a drug investigation. He flees to the countryside and evades his past for several years, only to return to find the woman he loved married to his former partner. He searches for answers to his troubled past, knowing that his inevitable doomed fate is more or less sealed.
Naive office girl Yuko supports her blithe big city lifestyle with a part-time job at a neighborhood cafe. Attracted to her manager there, the shallow but charming Yutaka, she willingly succumbs to his lascivious advances only to discover afterward that he already has a girlfriend by the name of Midori. Even so, Yuko's feelings for Yutaka continue to grow regardless of his aloofness. Before long she finds herself reluctantly cajoled into working as a hostess in a small karaoke bar. Fatalistically accepting his dalliances with flames old and new, she perseveres not so much in hope of a more substantial relationship, but rather out of fear of losing him. There are other men out there waiting for her -- kinder, more considerate and eagerly available. But for Yuko, there is only the non-committal, yet torridly magnetic Yutaka. Why him? Not even Yuko seems to know the answer.
A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy’s reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution by impressing its Governor through his prowess as a long distance runner. He is encouraged to compete in an upcoming race, but faces ridicule from his peers.
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.
Oscar winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto weaves man-made and natural sounds together in his works. His anti-nuclear activism grew after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, and his career only paused after a 2014 cancer diagnosis.
Hong Kong 1997, where young people dream of love and death, suicide and murder. Moon is a cynical young debt collector, smitten by Ping, a young woman dying of kidney disease. A suicide note from a student they don't know ends up intertwining their fates.
Undiagnosed, untreated and generally untethered schizophrenic Julien lives with his pregnant younger sister Pearl, anorexic would-be wrestler brother Chris, sympathetic grandmother, and severely depressed German father.
Four couples meet for Sunday brunch only to discover they are stuck in a house together as the world may be about to end.
Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.
Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.
A deaf garbage collector happens upon a broken and discarded surfboard. The discovery plants in him dreams of becoming a surf champion. Encouraged by his also deaf girlfriend, he persists against all odds.
On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.
Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.
Ko Chun, a renowned gambler, loses his memory in an accident and starts behaving like a child. Little Knife, an amateur gambler, offers him shelter and realizes that he has a penchant for gambling.
Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?
Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.
The 1978 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, president of the most important political party in Italy at the time, Democrazia Cristiana, as seen from the perspective of one of his assailants -- a conflicted young woman in the ranks of the Red Brigade.
Terry Malloy is a kindhearted dockworker, and former boxer, who is tricked by his corrupt bosses into leading his friend to death. After falling in love, he tries to leave the waterfront and expose his employers.
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
West Germany in '50s is becoming an economic superpower. In such climate, Rosemarie is just one of many enterpreneurs who wants her piece of new fortune. She uses her charms to bring members of West German industrial elite to her bed. There she finds business secrets and later sells them to French competition. However, when scandal errupts, Rosemarie would find that she can't beat the system.
Luisa Latin, betrayed by her husband, is imprisoned for the murder of her husband's mistress - who is still alive. When Luisa is released from prison, she kills her.
This TV-Movie is based on real events that took place in southern Germany in the mid 80's. A policeman tries to build a house for his family while he experiences financial troubles; everything goes tragically wrong from then on.
Hit man Cleve approaches writer/cop Dennis about a story for his next book: How Cleve made a living, working for one of the most powerful politicians in the country. To get the story right, they travel around the country to gather statements and evidence, while strong forces use any means they can to keep the story untold.
Young Bundeswehr soldiers Tom and Charly are stationed in Kosovo with the KFOR peacekeeping force. Their mission is to secure peace. Although the brutal war between the enemy Serbs and Albanians is officially over, the hatred between people continues to smoulder. When Tom and Charly rescue the young Serbian Mirjana from the fatal shot of the young sniper Durcan, they get caught between all fronts. They lose their professional distance due to the resulting closeness to Mirjana - who has to learn that her father was a war criminal - but also to Durcan - whose entire family was wiped out. Soon they are entangled in a conflict about guilt, manipulation, love and revenge...
Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.
A young woman convenes with her extended family in a provincial village where her cousin, in a coma, is hospitalized after attempting suicide.
Paul, a young idealist trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, takes a job interviewing people for a marketing research firm. He moves in with aspiring pop singer Madeleine. Paul, however, is disillusioned by the growing commercialism in society, while Madeleine just wants to be successful. The story is told in a series of 15 unrelated vignettes.
Okoma, a witty young woman working as a conductor in an old, rickety bus in Kōfu, Yamanashi (rural Japan), has a creative idea that could avert the dwindling number of passengers when her job and the bus company itself are at stake.
The dead body of a young man who was kidnapped is found, the police looks for the kidnappers as a web of corruption its uncovered in the police department.
Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.
After she discovers that her boyfriend has betrayed her, Hilary O'Neil is looking for a new start and a new job. She begins to work as a private nurse for a young man suffering from blood cancer. Slowly, they fall in love, but they always know their love cannot last because he is destined to die.
Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shepherd, one of the world's most powerful men, can have anything he wants -- and what he covets most is Sydney Ellen Wade, a Washington lobbyist. But Shepherd's attempts at courting her spark wild rumors and decimate his approval ratings.
A young British officer resigns his post when he learns of his regiment's plan to ship out to the Sudan for the conflict with the Mahdi. His friends and fiancée send him four white feathers as symbols of what they view as his cowardice. To redeem his honor, he disguises himself as an Arab and secretly saves their lives.