Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
When the dead discover a means to contact the living through electronic devices, cellphones and computers become open gateways to monstrosities and destruction.
Set in the dense forests of 1940s Eastern Europe, this story reveals the supernatural encounters that challenge three soldiers' understanding of life and death.
The 6 Guarani villages of Jaraguá, in São Paulo, fight for land rights, for human rights and for the preservation of nature. They suffer from the proximity to the city, which brings lack of resources, pollution of rivers and springs, racism, police violence, fires, lack of infrastructure and sanitation, among others. Unable to live like their ancestors, their millenary culture is lost as it merges with the urban culture.
A young woman who sees no reason to continue her miserable existence, hires a professional to end it for her. However even for a professional, the job may not be as easy as it looks.
A discount store clerk strikes up an affair with a stock boy who considers himself the incarnation of Holden Caulfield.
A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese.
After the suicide of his best friend, a teenage boy is forced to deal with his guilt and sexuality.
A multi-national forestry company engages in genetic experimentation to increase logging yield in a remote section of forest...
High school student Sohee starts job training at a call center, but she faces pressure of greedy company. Detective Oh Yu-jin, who has something in common with Sohee starts to follow traces to reveal the truth.
Many years after a sweltering summer that spun out of control, Eva returns to the village she grew up in with an ice block in the back of her car. In the dead of winter, she confronts her past and faces up to her tormentors.
Four friends gather at a villa with the intention of eating themselves to death.
After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.
When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardize his ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.
Steve Moore is sixteen and lives with his younger sister, mother Cheryl and her boyfriend John, in a modest house in Bakersfield, California. An abusive and often intoxicated man, John rules the household, and though his attacks on Steve result in emergency hospital visits, Cheryl's loyalty is to her boyfriend. To protect her relationship with John, she "ditches" her son, having him arrested and locked in a correctional "mental" facility, before coercing her older brother Burt, who lives in Hollywood, to take him. Steve quickly discovers that Burt cannot even provide temporary lodging, but an administrator at his new high school directs him to a shelter for runaway kids where he soon learns to navigate his way.
Herbert Pomeroy's wife Juanita spends his money extravagantly and irresponsibly, finally driving him to bankruptcy. Desperate, he sends his son Frankie to live with his friend Henderson, a South Seas trader, then commits suicide. Although Juanita spends years searching for her son, she finally gives up and takes a world cruise on the yacht of wealthy Jules Lennox. One day the yacht docks on Henderson's island and Juanita, meeting Henderson, persuades him to let her be Frankie's governess. Complications ensue, involving a poor physician, a jealous island woman and a witch doctor.
When Conrad returns to his hometown to identify his mother's body, he is forced to confront the painful memories of his childhood.
A Marine officer reported as killed in Vietnam, but who was actually a POW, returns home. Instead of being welcomed home, however, he discovers that his father has died, his wife has remarried, his daughter has been adopted, his business has been sold, and his life has completely changed.