Kansas, 1910. Widowed farmer Jacob Witting finds that taking care of both his farm and two children, Anna and Caleb, is too difficult to handle alone. John takes out an ad in a newspaper for a mail-order bride, to which the "plain and tall" Sarah Wheaton answers, soon traveling from Maine to Kansas to become John's wife. Despite the love that grows between Sarah and the family, Sarah finds herself homesick, and she must ultimately choose whether or not to stay.
The Civil War has ended, but Colonel Morsman Carver is on one final mission – to kill Gideon, no matter what it takes. Launched by a gunshot and propelled by rage, the relentless pursuit takes the two men through frigid snow-capped mountains and arid deserts, far from the comforts and codes of civilisation, into the bloodiest recesses of their own souls.
Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.
Trapped in their New York brownstone's panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman and her young daughter Sarah play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders - Burnham, Raoul and Junior - during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
In order to stop the annual flooding, a dam is to be built in the mountain valley; a life-threatening undertaking for the inhabitants.
Camille arrives in Ouessant, the island of her birth off the Brittany coast, to sell the family home. She spends a last night in the house during which she discovers a secret. In 1963 a man came to work with her father, who was the Jument lighthouse operator. He only stayed two months, but his presence proved to be a disturbing catalyst.
A mysterious exterminator falls in love with two women who live in a distinctive wine-producing region in Spain.
Offbeat fashion student Betsy Hopper and her straight-laced investment-banker fiancé Jake Lovell just want an intimate little wedding reception, but Betsy's father Eddie, a Long Island construction contractor, feels so threatened by Jake's rich WASP parents that he blows the ceremony up into a bank-breaking showpiece, sending his wife Lola into a financial panic.
When the great potato famine hits Ireland, the diaspora begins as thousands emigrate. Among those leaving the Emerald Isle is Katie O'Neill and her husband, who decide that the promised land is South Africa and make their way there. Once there, they discover the hardships that are the reality of the homesteader experience.
A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
Ben Holmes, a professional book-jacket blurbologist, is trying to get to Savannah for his wedding. He just barely catches the last plane, but a seagull flies into the engine as the plane is taking off. All later flights are cancelled because of an approaching hurricane, so he is forced to hitch a ride in a Geo Metro with an attractive but eccentric woman named Sara.
On a distant island a man waits. Robbed of his position, power and wealth, his enemies have left him in isolation. But this is no ordinary man, and this no ordinary island. Prospero is a magician, able to control the very elements and bend nature to his will. When a sail appears on the horizon, he reaches out across the ocean to the ship that carries the men who wronged him. Creating a vast magical storm he wrecks the ship and washes his enemies up on the shore. When they wake they find themselves lost on a fantastical island where nothing is as it seems.
Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
In the beginning of the 19th century, Johannes Elias Alder is born in a small village in the Austrian mountains. While growing up he is considered strange by the other villagers and discovers his love of music, especially rebuilding and playing the organ at the village church. After experiencing an "acoustic wonder", his eye color changes and he can hear even the most subtle sounds.
Josephine Spiggins is thinking of marrying John Spear, the stuffed-shirt son of a department store owner. When John's free-spirit brother Tony returns from touring the South Seas in his boat, the "Vagabond Lady," Jo is attracted to him instead.
Tov Matheson is a war veteran with PTSD who perceives that the apocalypse is coming. After starting a relationship with a dubious Messiah, he leaves his normal life and begins the construction of a shelter underground, training himself, in an extreme way, at the cost of losing everything and making people believe he is insane. When he also believes it, something extraordinary happens.
In 1870, a Jamaican colonial family sends its children to Britain for proper schooling, but their ship is taken over by pirates, who become fond of the kids.
Peter Miles stars as Tom Tiflin, the little boy at the heart of this John Steinbeck story set in Salinas Valley. With his incompatible parents -- the city-loving Fred and country-happy Alice -- constantly bickering, Tom looks to cowboy Billy Buck for companionship and paternal love.