In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners.
In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.
Leo is a middle-aged writer of popular romantic novels who writes under a pseudonym, since she despises her own work. At home, her husband, who works overseas, is distant both physically and emotionally. As she reevaluates her life and writing, Leo is led to an unexpected relationship with Ángel, a sensitive newspaper editor.
Melvin Udall, a cranky, bigoted, obsessive-compulsive writer of romantic fiction, is rude to everyone he meets, including his gay neighbor, Simon. After Simon is brutally attacked and hospitalized, Melvin finds his life turned upside down when he has to look after Simon's dog. In addition, Carol, the only waitress at the local diner who will tolerate him, leaves work to care for her chronically ill son, making it impossible for Melvin to eat breakfast.
Apu, now a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer, is invited to join an old college friend on a trip up-country to a village wedding.
Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.
A graphic portrayal of the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth's life.
New York in the 1920s. Max Perkins, a literary editor is the first to sign such subsequent literary greats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When a sprawling, chaotic 1,000-page manuscript by an unknown writer falls into his hands, Perkins is convinced he has discovered a literary genius.
This comical love story follows the story of A.J. Fikry, whose life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history and now his prized possession, a rare edition of Poe poems, has been stolen. He’s given up on people and even the books in his store offer another reminder that the world is changing too rapidly. But when a mysterious package arrives at the store, it gives Fikry the chance to make his life over and see things anew.
Amélie, a young Belgian woman, having spent her childhood in Japan, decides to return to live there and tries to integrate in the Japanese society. She is determined to be a "real Japanese" before her year contract runs out, though it precisely this determination that is incompatable with Japanese humility. Though she is hired for a choice position as a translator at an import/export firm, her inability to understand Japanese cultural norms results in increasingly humiliating demotions. Though Amelie secretly adulates her, her immediate supervisor takes sadistic pleasure in belittling her all along. She finally manages to break Amelie's will by making her the bathroom attendant, and is delighted when Amelie tells her the she will not renew her contract. Amelie realizes that she is finally a real Japanese when she enters the company president's office "with fear and trembling," which could only be possible because her determination was broken by Miss Fubuki's systematic torture.
There's a film subtitler. There's a film she must urgently subtitle. There's the plot of that film, with which she relates on a level that will remain enigmatic to us. And in that film within the film there's a main character, whose dreams are being devoured, and other characters, interested in dreams as well, but far more practical. And there¹s music, and a promise of music. Timelessly wandering through the world.
A multi-awarded 23 minute short film about pansexual punk rockers in a toxic relationship in London’s underground music scene
France, 1950s. From the Quartier Latin to Saint-Tropez via New York, a young Parisienne becomes the icon of a whole generation. In 1954, 19-year-old Francoise Sagan shot to fame with her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse. Flamboyant, scandalous and underrated, Sagan lived her life at the furthest edge of excess. She won and lost fortunes at the roulette table, bought and crashed superb sports cars, drank, danced and partied, leaving a trail of lovers in her wake.
Because of the power of love, the last year of Franz Kafka's life becomes his happiest. The well-known writer has never before been able to allow himself to experience intimacy, he suffers from tuberculosis and is dependent on his overbearing family. In the summer of 1923, he met Dora Diamant in the seaside resort Graal-Müritz on the Baltic Sea coast, where he is convalescing and she is working in a Jewish Volksheim. He is a man of world, the 14 years younger woman is from the deep East, he can write, she can dance. She has both feet firmly on the ground, he is always hovering a little above it. She embraces the indicative, he gets tangled up in the conjunctive. But the worldly wise Dora accepts him as he is. And he accepts her. Together they go to Berlin and when Franz's health deteriorates rapidly, to a sanatorium in Austria. They are granted a single year together until Franz Kafka's health deteriorates incurable. However their year together allows them to feel the glory of life.
Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Donya, a lonely Afghan refugee and former translator, spends her twenties drifting through a meager existence in Fremont, California. Shuttling between her job writing fortunes for a fortune cookie factory and sessions with her eccentric therapist, Donya suffers from insomnia and survivor's guilt over those still left behind in Kabul as she desperately searches for love.
Roman emperor Caligula leaves the last days of glory amidst orgies of food and sex. During a show by two nude slaves, the emperor is particularly attracted to one of them, Lysia, ignoring that she had been planted close to him with orders to murder him. Only, the young man makes her feel for him, passion and motherly love, and she'll protect him rather then fulfill her mission. Drama ensues.
David, a waiter, finds an unpublished manuscript in a dresser drawer. To impress a girl, he claims to be the author. When the novel becomes a best-seller, the real author introduces himself and begins to take over David's life.
A neurotic, twice-divorced sci-fi writer moves back in with his mother to solve his personal problems.