Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
A beautiful, wealthy widow leaves New York to find herself a husband in the Italian village in which she was born. After many tries she...chooses the village blacksmith.
A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta's shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.
The pert Tina is sick of school and the muff in her Bavarian village. She wants to go with Tino - attendant of a visiting auto-scooter - who has to leave the place for dubious reasons. However he lets her down and leaves alone. Now Tina persuades fellow student Robby, who has a crush on her, to take her on a random trip with his motor-scooter. It seems only to be a matter of time until he realizes that she's just using him to follow her boyfriend - or will the shy Robby manage to win her heart on their chaotic journey?
Billie and Hella, an unlikely female couple, travel to Apulia in Italy: while Billie sacrifices herself in selfless aid, Hella is mainly looking for fun.
Childhood friends Jacques and Enzo share a passion for the danger of free diving. Jacques, following in the footsteps of his father, who died at sea when Jacques was a boy, harbors a remarkable ability to adjust his heart rate and breathing patterns in the water, with his vital signs more closely resembling those of dolphins than men.
Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov journeys through Italy with his interpreter Eugenia to research the life of an 18th-century Russian composer who once lived abroad. Isolated and consumed by an unrelenting longing for his homeland, Andrei becomes drawn to Domenico, a radical mystic obsessed with spiritual redemption. Through austere imagery and extended temporal rhythms, Tarkovsky examines exile, memory, and the profound melancholy of being unable to belong fully to either place or language.
Two young strangers meet in Naples and begin to flirt and dance in the street.
Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
Manuela, Lizzie and Sabine are annoyed by their husbands. So they decide to go to Italy where they hope to meet some nice men.
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.
Vlada Koza sells her house in the Carpathians and flies to sunny Sicily to live with her daughter and help take care of her grandson. But no one expected her mother to arrive. After a quarrel with her daughter, Vlada accidentally finds herself at the villa of the once powerful Italian mafioso Don Fredo, now a widower who is experiencing deep crises - personal, family and financial. Vlada gets a job as a cleaner, but becomes the salvation of this house.
AP’s got a curse and it’s really fucking up her vibe.
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
Two HIV-positive young men — a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler — tear off on a cross-country crime spree.
In July 1953, at a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote in Portofino, Italy, Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet Anja Blomgren, a mysteriously taciturn young Swedish beauty and aspiring actress. Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives.
It's May 1943, and two Italian American soldiers, Joe and Frank, are searching the North African desert for a Nazi general called Von Kassler. Von Kassler's aide captures them, and arranges for them to escape with fake war plans. But, things don't go exactly as planned for either side.
A successful businessman travels to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon father's body, only to learn that dear old dad died with his longtime mistress.
An aspiring young writer tracks a literary titan suffering from writers block to his refuge in rural Italy and learns about life and love from the irascible genius and his daughters.