In ancient Judea, a Jewish aristocrat opposing Roman occupation of his homeland reunites with his childhood friend, now a Roman commander — setting in motion a saga of betrayal, adventure, tragedy, revenge, and faith.
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
The young Bavarian princess Elisabeth, who all call Sissi, goes with her mother and older sister Néné to Austria where Néné will be wed to an emperor named Franz Joseph, Yet unexpectedly Franz runs into Sissi while out fishing and they fall in love.
Sissi is now the empress of Austria and attempts to learn etiquette. While she is busy being empress she also has to deal with her difficult new mother-in-law, while the arch-duchess Sophie is trying to tell the emperor how to rule and also Sissi how to be a mother.
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.
The Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, learn that their prospects of marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune. After Henry Dashwood dies unexpectedly, his estate must pass on by law to his son. These circumstances leave Mr. Dashwood's wife and daughters without a home and with barely enough money to live on. As Elinor and Marianne struggle to find romantic fulfillment in a society obsessed with financial and social status, they must learn to mix sense with sensibility in their dealings with both money and men.
Despite mixed emotions, Frederick Winterbourne tries to figure out the bright and bubbly Daisy Miller, only to be helped and hindered by false judgments from their fellow friends.
The Prussian Army is stationed in a small town where they enjoy the girls at the local boarding school.
In 1930s Shanghai, a young office girl falls in love with a factory worker in the same company.
The Romanian count known as Dracula is summoned to London by Arthur Holmwood, a young Lord who is one the verge of being wed. Unknown to Arthur's future bride Lucy, her future husband is infected with syphilis and therefore cannot consummate their marriage. Arthur has laid his hopes of being cured on the enigmatic count; as it is said that Dracula has extraordinary powers. But these supernatural powers have sinister origins. The Count is a vampire. Soon Arthur realizes his serious mistake as all hell breaks loose and the Count infects others with his ancient curse. But Dracula has not counted on the young Lord acquiring the assistance of the Dutch Vampire expert Prof. Abraham Van Helsing.
A devastated youngster awaits a chance to take revenge on his father's murderer, who is seen as a leader in a village.
In 17th century Holland, a faction of royalists is scheming to restore the monarchy and jail the De Witt brothers, who control the Republic. At the same time Tulip Fever is raging, and bulb-grower Cornelis van Baerle tries to obtain the secret of black tulips. Van Baerle will soon find himself threatened by radical royalists and rival bulb-grower Isaac van Boxtel.
Haunted by a childhood romance and recollections of love lost during the 1947 Partition of India, 95-year-old Ishar Singh Grewal shares his story with his grandson Nirvair, the past unfolding through memories of migration, longing, and a romance that endures across generations.
When Ivy, an Edwardian belle, begins to like Miles, a wealthy gentleman, she is unsure of what to do with her husband, Jervis, or her lover, Dr. Roger. She then hatches a plan to get rid of them both.
A housewife with the dream of becoming a writer is unhappy in her marriage and finds love in the arms of another woman.
The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.
In 1714 Peru, a friar is tried by the Spanish Inquisition for questioning God's intentions when five die in the collapse of an Andean rope bridge.
Pressured by his superiors to disgrace public intellectual Warczewski, a professor and respected writer whom they believe to be a "camouflaged Zionist," rough security-services colonel Rozek enlists his sexy but naive girlfriend, Kamila, to insinuate herself into the distinguished older man's life and report on his every move. Not particularly interested in serving communism but eager to please her domineering lover, Kamila accepts the mission, reporting under the code name "Little Rose." As quick scenes contrast Kamila's crude pleasures with Rozek and her more refined experiences with Warczewski, it becomes clear that the more time the unschooled young woman spends with the professor, the more she comes to have true feelings for him.