Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.
In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.
Although his alcoholism has been treated, Alain still feels he is deeply unwell and does not feel he can leave the detoxification clinic once and for all. His wife, living in New York, continues to pay for his treatment, but no longer contacts him directly. He intends to commit suicide, but first takes a ride to Paris to catch up with old friends.
The story about the relationship between a manic depressive man, Mr. Jones, and the female doctor who takes more than a professional interest in his treatment.
After a failed suicide attempt, a man receives a substantial inheritance from a long lost relative and meets a struggling single mom with an eccentric young daughter. Together they embark on a journey of self discovery and healing.
Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.
A stuttering young boy, pressured by his father, finds solace in his bicycle—until a troubled boy steals it, leading to an unlikely friendship.
For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.
The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness. The film shows the currents that brought them together and the facets of their natures that first made them seem compatible but eventually drove them apart. Their story reflects, to a degree, the situation of anyone who has ever shared the life of another.
In 1948, decades after fleeing Armenia to the US as a child, Charlie returns in the hopes of finding a connection to his roots, but what he finds instead is a country crushed under Soviet rule. After being unjustly imprisoned, Charlie falls into despair, until he discovers that he can see into a nearby apartment from his cell window - the home of a prison guard.
A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
After her widowed father dies, deaf teenager Dot moves in with her godparents, Olivia and Paul Deer. The Deers' daughter, Nina, is openly hostile to Dot, but that does not prevent her from telling her secrets to her silent stepsister, including the fact that she wants to kill her lecherous father.
Percy Nilegaard collects Swedish single men and embarks on a bus trip to Tallinn with a so-called "highly-experienced driver".
A young artist lives with his father, a radical friend and music loving young woman. His father dies, the radical friend leaves him and the woman is taken away by her family to another city.
When talented young writer Elizabeth Wurtzel earns a scholarship to Harvard, she sees it as her chance to escape the pressures of her working-class background and concentrate on her true talent. But what starts out so promising leads to self-destructive behavior and paralyzing depression that reflects an entire generation's struggle to navigate the effects of divorce, drugs, sex, and high expectations.
A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.
"Boxcar" Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early '30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man "Big" Bill Shelly and the two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment.