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.
Robert Packard
Record Producer (uncredited)
Paula Nelson goes to Atlantic City to meet her lover, Richard Politzer, but finds him dead and decides to investigate his death. In her hotel room, she meets Typhus, whom she ends up knocking out. His corpse is later found in the apartment of David Goodis, a writer. Paula is arrested and interrogated. From then on, she encounters many gangsters.
A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.
A struggling young musician and devoted fan of Ricky Nelson wants to be just like his idol and become a rock star.
It's 1992. Young Dina lives in a remote mountain village where life is strictly governed by centuries of tradition. Dina's grandfather has promised her to David, who is returning from the war. But with him comes a comrade-in-arms, the handsome Gegi, and Dina falls in love. Is it possible to defy the firmly established order?
Pashupati visits Kathmandu to meet his Mitbaa and pay his father's loans but his stay is made difficult by Bhasme and his gang.
A quiet killer is looking for a room. The real state agent, shy and expressionless, guides him through Tokyo, towards the ruins the decadent economy has left behind, in hopes of finding The Room.
When Mr. Elias discovers that his aunt, who lives in Brazil, comes to visit him, he decides to temporarily occupy the house of a wealthy neighbor who's away so that she doesn't discover that he's not as rich as he told her.
Young police detective Faina tries to experiment with herself in order to meet her dead love.
When a dysfunctional group of unpublished writers accept Hannah into their fold, the last thing they expect is her overnight success. Can these lovable misfits achieve their artistic dreams and avoid killing one another in the process?
An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.
While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.
A college student gets pregnant without having intercourse, affecting people close and unrelated to her in different ways.
Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.
Recovering from an attempted suicide, a man is selected to participate in a time travel experiment that has only been tested on mice. A malfunction in the experiment causes the man to experience moments from his past in a random order.
When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.
Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.
In the distant future, a federation marshal arrives at a research lab on a remote planet where a genetic experiment has gotten loose and begins feeding on the dwindling scientific group.
As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.
Set in the early 1990s, "As You Are" is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the course of their friendship through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation.
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.
A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.
Jerry, a small-town Minnesota car salesman is bursting at the seams with debt... but he's got a plan. He's going to hire two thugs to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a hefty ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. It's going to be a snap and nobody's going to get hurt... until people start dying. Enter Police Chief Marge, a coffee-drinking, parka-wearing - and extremely pregnant - investigator who'll stop at nothing to get her man. And if you think her small-time investigative skills will give the crooks a run for their ransom... you betcha!
Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home.
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a shocking secret.
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
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.
Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.
Paris, 1960s. Momo, a resolute and independent Jewish teenager who lives with his father, a sullen and depressed man, in a working-class neighborhood, develops a close friendship with Monsieur Ibrahim, an elderly Muslim who owns a small grocery store.
A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.
The young Harold lives in his own world of suicide-attempts and funeral visits to avoid the misery of his current family and home environment. Harold meets an 80-year-old woman named Maude who also lives in her own world yet one in which she is having the time of her life. When the two opposites meet they realize that their differences don’t matter and they become best friends and love each other.
Andy moves to New York to work in the fashion industry. Her boss is extremely demanding, cruel and won't let her succeed if she doesn't fit into the high class elegant look of their magazine.
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.
Walt is a lonely convenience store clerk who has fallen in love with a Mexican migrant worker named Johnny. Though Walt has little in common with the object of his affections — including a shared language — his desire to possess Johnny prompts a sexual awakening that results in a tangled love triangle.