After her husband loses his job, a housewife from a middle-class, conservative family in Calcutta gets a job as a salesperson.
Arindam, a matinee idol, is going by train to collect an acting award. On the train, he is confronted by Aditi, a journalist who somewhat unwillingly starts to take his interview. Arindam, won over by Aditi's naivete, starts to disclose his past, his fears and his secrets.
A young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to make a series of drawings of the estate while her husband is away.
In 1870s India, Charulata is an isolated, artistically inclined woman who sees little of her busy journalist husband, Bhupati. Realizing that his wife is alienated and unhappy, he convinces his cousin, Amal, to spend time with Charulata and nourish her creative impulses. Amal is a fledgling poet himself, and he and Charulata bond over their shared love of art.
A news anchor, a comedian, an actress, and a soccer player with big egos have to travel across the globe to meet the Malawa tribe for a TV show.
A young man with a vendetta against a business tycoon seduces and kills his eldest daughter and then proceeds to his younger daughter but she begins to suspect her new lover's ulterior motive.
Archi, a local politician’s daughter, and Parshya, a fisherman’s son, fall in love resulting in violence between the families due to the stringent casteism in the village.
A struggling young musician and devoted fan of Ricky Nelson wants to be just like his idol and become a rock star.
Ayesha is a widow with a secret past, living with her beloved son Saleem in a small town in Pakistan close to the Indian border. When the fires of Islamic nationalism invade their tranquil lives, Saleem and a few of the town's other young men are soon gripped by a religious fervour, and they attempt to bring radical Islamic law to their friends and neighbours. After a group of Sikh pilgrims arrive in town, tensions reach boiling point as Ayesha's haunted past comes rushing back.
A way of life is dying on a remote Scottish island, but some of the inhabitants resist evacuating to the mainland.
A well-off Indian family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman's long lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle class perspective on the world.
This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.
Two neighbours — a persecuted journalist and a resigned housewife — forge a strong bond on the day of Adolf Hitler's historic 1938 visit to Rome.
Part-time model Valentine unexpectedly befriends a retired judge after she runs over his dog. At first, the grumpy man shows no concern about the dog, and Valentine decides to keep it. But the two form a bond when she returns to his house and catches him listening to his neighbors’ phone calls.
When a Jamaican sprinter is disqualified from the Olympic Games, he enlists the help of a dishonored coach to start the first Jamaican bobsled team.
A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.
Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Major champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.
A fading actor best known for his portrayal of a popular superhero attempts to mount a comeback by appearing in a Broadway play. As opening night approaches, his attempts to become more altruistic, rebuild his career, and reconnect with friends and family prove more difficult than expected.
Mabel Longhetti, desperate and lonely, is married to a Los Angeles municipal construction worker, Nick. Increasingly unstable, especially in the company of others, she craves happiness, but her extremely volatile behavior convinces Nick that she poses a danger to their family and decides to commit her to an institution for six months. Alone with a trio of kids to raise on his own, he awaits her return, which holds more than a few surprises.
Drunk and disillusioned Roman, Marcellus Gallio, wins Jesus' robe in a dice game after the crucifixion. Marcellus has never been a man of faith like his slave, Demetrius, but when Demetrius escapes with the robe, Marcellus experiences disturbing visions and feels guilty for his actions. Convinced that destroying the robe will cure him, Marcellus sets out to find Demetrius — and discovers his Christian faith along the way.
In 1971, military dictatorship in Brazil reaches its height. The Paiva family — Rubens, Eunice, and their five children — live in a beachside house in Rio, open to all their friends. One day, Rubens is taken for questioning and does not return.
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior's reflection in his teacup.
After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctor, nurse and clerk responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is asked by Fertig's boss to defend him. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.
Vinayachandran and Sindhu are an ideal couple, who are so fond of each other that the greatest thing that they love, according to their neighbours Nambiarettan and Shoshammetathi. Vinayan has just joined a reputed public school as a teacher of Malayalam. The fact that he wants to teach Malayalam is projected as a politically correct stand, which Vinayan promptly starts elaborating with his unconventional ways of teaching.
James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.
Kishanlal marries the beautiful Lachchi, but the day after the wedding, he leaves on business for five years. When Kishanlal reappears only a few days later, Lachchi is delighted, but this new Kishanlal is in fact a spirit who has taken the form of Lachchi's husband, after having seen her by chance and fallen in love with her. Four years later, the real Kishanlal returns and the townsfolk must determine who is who.
El Bola is a 12-year-old boy raised in a violent and sordid environment. Embarrassed by his family life, he avoids becoming close to classmates. The arrival of a new boy at school changes his attitude towards his classmates and friendship. The heart of the story is the change in El Bola's life, at almost all levels, after befriending this new classmate.
Ruby and her husband Claude are a working-class couple who live in suburban Arkansas. As crazy as they are for each other, their relationship is far from harmonious. (The lack of money doesn't help matters, either.) In fact, their whole family is fraught with unresolved conflicts. Then Claude's uncle is arrested on a felony charge, and everyone rallies round. Ruby's mother Jewel and flirtatious sister Rose (Claude's ex-girlfriend) even fly in from Tennessee; but, far from being a source of support, Jewel seems only to want to break up Ruby and Claude.
Actress Myrtle Gordon is a functioning alcoholic who is a few days from the opening night of her latest play, concerning a woman distraught about aging. One night a car kills one of Myrtle's fans who is chasing her limousine in an attempt to get the star's attention. Myrtle internalizes the accident and goes on a spiritual quest, but fails to finds the answers she is after. As opening night inches closer and closer, fragile Myrtle must find a way to make the show go on.
The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot -- the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.
Lola, a Mexican waitress working in Madrid, befriends a 30-year-old suicidal man who has borrowed $1,000,000 to spend on his last day on Earth, knowing he will be killed anyway if he fails to return the money. After meeting Lola, however, he decides that life might be worth living after all.
Ms. Isabel Archer isn't afraid to challenge societal norms. Impressed by her free spirit, her kindhearted cousin writes her into his fatally ill father's will. Suddenly rich and independent, Isabelle ventures into the world, along the way befriending a cynical intellectual and romancing an art enthusiast. However, the advantage of her affluence is called into question when she realizes the extent to which her money colors her relationships.
Returning by train to the French port of Le Havre, Jacques Lantier, a tormented railwayman, meets by chance the impulsive stationmaster Roubard and Séverine, his wife.
A Swedish pastor fails a loving woman, a suicidal fisherman and God.
Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.
Asya, a peasant girl, marries İlyas, a truck driver. The couple, who love each other very much, are separated when İlyas cheats on her, and their epic love story comes to an unexpected end. After that, Asya takes her son and wanders away, not knowing where she is going, until a familiar hand reaches out to help her selflessly.
In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.