Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.
A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".
On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.
In the translucent LA dusk we discover four women living very different lives. The camera follows each as they wind down their working days, their four stories weaving together as each prepares for their evening.
Ted, an unlikable office manager, is one day kidnapped by Jeremy, a bereaved recluse, and forced to play-act his dead brother David. Slowly gaining Jeremy's confidence, Ted discovers his captor's true intentions and makes a plan to escape.
Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.
Jesse, a small-time criminal, high-tails it to Los Angeles to rendezvous with a French exchange student. Stealing a car and accidentally killing a highway patrolman, he becomes the most wanted fugitive in L.A.
In Los Angeles, a gang of bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents commit their crimes while wearing masks of Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson. Believing that the members of the gang could be surfers, the F.B.I. sends young agent Johnny Utah to the beach undercover to mix with the surfers and gather information.
In an effort to prevent family history from repeating itself, meddlesome mom Daphne Wilder attempts to set up her youngest daughter, Milly, with Mr. Right. Meanwhile, her other daughters try to keep their mom's good intentions under control.
Tom Ludlow is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.
Childlike Englishman, Mr. Bean, is an incompetent watchman at the Royal National Gallery. After the museum's board of directors' attempt to have him fired is blocked by the chairman, who has taken a liking to Bean, they send him to Los Angeles to act as their ambassador for the unveiling of a historic painting to humiliate him. Fooled, Mr. Bean must now successfully unveil the painting or risk his and a hapless Los Angeles curator's termination.
Black drops fall from the water faucets, peek through the drains, and flood the city. Sisters Paula and Teresa, cornered in their apartment, can do nothing but observe as that strange substance takes hold of their lives. Hypnotized, with nowhere to go, they come into contact with the liquid. Gradually, reality begins to distort and they get lost in it.
Duke is a modern day telling of a classic western film. Dare and Roost are brothers who have been raised in a reformatory, taught to survive and conditioned to trust no one. They have moved to West Los Angeles, where Dare moonlights himself as a Detective and Roost blankets himself in old John Wayne films and reclusive habit. Cleaning the streets and ridding the neighborhoods of scum, this contemporary study finds Dare obsessed with a phantom like criminal (Winky) who seems to be terrorizing the community. Simultaneously, the same exact investigation is being led by official and likely engrossed Detective Robert Morrison. As Dare closes in on Winky and the entire department closes in on them both, these brothers must make the ultimate commitment and pay the extraordinary consequences therein.
In 1970s Hollywood, Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.
Daniel LaRusso moves to Los Angeles with his mother, Lucille, and soon strikes up a relationship with Ali. He quickly finds himself the target of bullying by a group of high school students, led by Ali's ex-boyfriend Johnny, who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo under ruthless sensei, John Kreese. Fortunately, Daniel befriends Mr. Miyagi, an unassuming repairman who just happens to be a martial arts master himself. Miyagi takes Daniel under his wing, training him in a more compassionate form of karate for self-defense and, later, preparing him to compete against the brutal Cobra Kai.
An ordinary man is suddenly forced into a plot to kill a politician in exchange for his kidnapped daughter's freedom.
With the help of a talking freeway billboard, a "wacky weatherman" tries to win the heart of an English newspaper reporter, who is struggling to make sense of the strange world of early-90s Los Angeles.
When Hong Kong Inspector Lee is summoned to Los Angeles to investigate a kidnapping, the FBI doesn't want any outside help and assigns cocky LAPD Detective James Carter to distract Lee from the case. Not content to watch the action from the sidelines, Lee and Carter form an unlikely partnership and investigate the case themselves.
The Driver specializes in driving getaway cars for robberies. His exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught yet. After another successful flight from the police a self-assured detective makes it his primary goal to catch the Driver. He promises pardons to a gang if they help to convict him in a set-up robbery. The Driver seeks help from The Player to mislead the detective.
Taffeta, a contemporary queer person of color, summons Abraham Lincoln to perform an elaborate historical fantasia within her own head — only to learn that she can’t hide from her own present-day demons in the shadows of someone else’s past.