Widowed shopkeeper Cesira and her 13-year-old daughter Rosetta flee from the allied bombs in Rome during the second World War; they travel to the remote village where Cesira was born. During their journey and in the village and onward, the mother does everything she can to protect Rosetta. Meanwhile, a sensitive young intellectual, Michele, falls in love with Cesira.
Following an argument two roommates learn to forgive each other.
Jim Craig has lived his first 18 years in the mountains of Australia on his father's farm. The death of his father forces him to go to the lowlands to earn enough money to get the farm back on its feet.
A young illustrator fights the haunting memories of his wife's tragic death. One day, his hope for healing is at risk when his family's desire for a happy Christmas force him to hold his pain and guilt inside.
Former top U.S. security adviser Elizabeth "Libby" Lamm is threatened by associates from her dark past including Rachel Burke a steely, commanding politician with an unwavering knack for achieving her goals. Colluding with Rachel is Adrian, an unyielding, patriotic chief of staff. Martin harbors another type of obsession with Libby in this story of betrayal and regret.
Living in a small rural town, with little available emotional help around her, a young woman returns for a visit to her therapist. She finally receives a profoundly symbolic message, guiding her to find answers and solutions while living in a toxic relationship.
When his brother mysteriously disappears, Derek Lacey returns to his hometown to demand answers and face the family and people he left behind.
After getting laid off, young single-mom Beth finds herself living in her car and struggles to hide her homelessness from her estranged brother Ben.
Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.
Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son. Questioning his life, he paints, surfs and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe. When Gabe's older brother returns home for the summer, Zach suddenly finds himself drawn into a relationship he didn't expect.
Jo is a neglected 16-year-old girl whose promiscuous mother marries a dandy. Jo gets pregnant after a tryst with a black cook, who leaves her over his impending responsibilities of fatherhood, and she only finds support in a gay male friend.
Just before Christmas, department store clerk Steve Mason meets big spending customer Connie Ennis, who's actually a comparison shopper sent by another store. Steve lets her go, which gets him fired. They spend the afternoon together, which doesn't sit well with Connie's steady suitor, Carl, when he finds out, but delights her young son Timmy, who quickly takes to Steve.
In the middle of what would have otherwise been a banal evening, everything Céleste has been trying to hide comes to light.
After a year away for work, a husband spends his first night back home trying to reconnect with a wife who seems more distant than he remembered.
Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.
Leda Beth Vincent lives in the small town of Shiloh and works as a cocktail waitress there. She is not too well thought of as she is nothing of a blushing virgin. But she is far from a whore and brings up her daughter Julie, a high school student, as a loving responsible mother. So, when she becomes aware that Julie's very popular history teacher, Mr Baker, spreads antisemitic ideas among his pupils, Leda Beth decides to ask Mr Baker for an explanation. But she comes up against a wall. Nobody in town - Julie less than all others - wants to support her and it looks as if she will have to bring the Board of Education to court. The trouble is that a school dropout and a tramp of her kind does not count for much compared to the holders of knowledge and of morality.
A girl with autism and her best friend run away from home in search of her mother with the only clue that she is in "heaven".
New York City is in a panic caused by an insane murderer; Maria, a police officer is entrusted with the case; to do this, she pretends to be a prostitute. One night, she meets a possible suspect who holds her and her partner hostage.