Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.
A group of middle-aged time-share investors get ripped off and their desire for revenge is well-timed for them to be recruited by a bank clerk who feels the same about his employers.
In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.
Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. While successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.
The quiet life of Baker Dill, a fishing boat captain who lives on the isolated Plymouth Island, where he spends his days obsessed with capturing an elusive tuna while fighting his personal demons, is interrupted when someone from his past comes to him searching for help.
A vicious serial sex killer is on the loose, and landscape gardener and shop-window outfitter Loris is the prime suspect, thanks to his unfortunate habit of getting caught in compromising situations (for which there is always a totally innocent explanation that the police fail to spot). Undercover policewoman Jessica is assigned by eccentric police psychologist Taccone to follow Loris.
Detective Nishi is relieved from a stakeout to visit his sick wife in hospital. He is informed that she is terminally ill, and is advised to take her home. During his visit, a suspect shoots one detective dead and leaves Nishi's partner, Horibe, paralyzed. Nishi leaves the police force to spend time with his wife at home, and must find a way to pay off his debts to the yakuza.
A day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship in Milan.
A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.
A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
The Words follows young writer Rory Jansen who finally achieves long sought after literary success after publishing the next great American novel. There's only one catch - he didn't write it. As the past comes back to haunt him and his literary star continues to rise, Jansen is forced to confront the steep price that must be paid for stealing another man's work, and for placing ambition and success above life's most fundamental three words.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.
An assassin goes through obstacles as he attempts to escape his violent lifestyle despite the opposition of his partner, who is secretly attracted to him.
When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.
Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy.
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the truth, and reality.
Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter.
A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
Haia wanted to continue her education at master's level, but unfortunately she had to swallow the bitter pill because her scholarship was closed by the government. Not yet finished with his sadness because he failed to get a scholarship, Haia actually received an unexpected offer from one of his lecturers. Prof. Fatih offered Haia to become the second wife of his niece, Aisa's husband. It doesn't stop there, as a solution to Haia's despair at failing to get a scholarship, Aisa promises to pay for Haia's college needs if necessary.
A Los Angeles policewoman's partner has her pose as a stripper to lure a killer of strippers.
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
An unprecedented series of violent tornadoes is sweeping across Oklahoma. Tornado chasers, headed by Dr. Jo Harding, attempt to release a groundbreaking device that will allow them to track them and create a more advanced warning system. They are joined by Jo's soon to be ex-husband Bill, a former tornado chaser himself, and his girlfriend Melissa.
In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditsy Annie Hall.
Middle-aged suburban husband Richard abruptly tells his wife, Maria, that he wants a divorce. As Richard takes up with a younger woman, Maria enjoys a night on the town with her friends and meets a younger man. As the couple and those around them confront a seemingly futile search for what they've lost -- love, excitement, passion -- this classic American independent film explores themes of aging and alienation.
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home.
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
In the style of a documentary this tragic comedy tells the story of a relationship crisis between two married couples and their longing to break out of their miserable daily lives. In this East German post-wall movie Andreas Dresen introduces the sad everyday life of two couples from Frankfurt an der Oder in a honest and tolerable manner.
Clarence marries hooker Alabama, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood, while the owners of the coke try to reclaim it.
Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.
An average, everyday metalworker and volunteer firefighter content in his marriage to his childhood sweetheart finds his emotions unexpectedly stirred when he falls for a pretty waitress from a nearby town.