In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.
Martha Beck, an obese nurse who is desperately lonely, joins a "correspondence club" and finds a romantic pen pal in Ray Fernandez. Martha falls hard for Ray, and is intent on sticking with him even when she discovers he's a con man who seduces lonely single women, kills them and then takes their money. She poses as Ray's sister and joins Ray on a wild killing spree, fueled by her lingering concern that Ray will leave her for one of his marks.
Magali, forty-something, is a winemaker and a widow: she loves her work but feels lonely. Her friends Rosine and Isabelle both want secretly to find a husband for Magali.
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to an English émigré; Christina Peck, an upper-middle-class suburban housewife and mother of two girls; and Jack Jordan, a born-again ex-con, are brought together by a terrible accident that changes their lives.
After World War II, Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, go back to their Dutch hometown, where Antonia's late mother has bestowed a small farm upon her. There, Antonia settles down and joins a tightly-knit but unusual community. Those around her include quirky friend Crooked Finger, would-be suitor Bas and, eventually for Antonia, a granddaughter and great-granddaughter who help create a strong family of empowered women.
Dorante, an impoverished young man, is taken on as a secretary by Araminte, a rich widow with whom he is secretly in love. The valet Dubois does all he can to get Araminte to fall in love with Dorante. Following his staging of Marivaux’s comedy at the Odéon theater, Luc Bondy turns the whole theater building into a film studio, placing his actors in the foyer, under the stage, in the kitchens, using the most unusual and unexpected spots to invent a new dynamic between theater and film.
Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.
During WWII, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.
Eccentric 70-year-old widow purchases the Windmill Theatre in London as a post-widowhood hobby. After starting an innovative continuous variety review, which is copied by other theaters, they begin to lose money. Mrs. Henderson suggests they add female nudity similar to the Moulin Rouge in Paris.
Nancy Stokes, a retired schoolteacher, is pretty sure she has never had good sex. Now that her husband has died, she is determined to take a tour of sexual vistas that until now she has only imagined. She even has a plan; it involves an anonymous hotel room, and a sex worker who calls himself Leo Grande.
A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.
An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.
When an alien takes the form of a young widow's husband and asks her to drive him from Wisconsin to Arizona, the government tries to stop them.
When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.
A young brahmin boy studying in a village away from home and a young widow isolated by her condition form a bond.
Nineteen year old pioneer woman Marty has recently married. She goes west with her husband Clem, hoping to start a new life. But Clem unexpectedly dies, and Marty finds herself alone, two months pregnant. Widower Clark offers her a marriage of convenience: she needs food and money, and he needs someone to take care of his daughter Missie. She accepts his proposal as a temporary solution.
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.
Annie Wilson, young widow and mother of three, makes her living foretelling others' futures—though her own has become cloudier than even she can see. Threatened by a client's violent husband and plagued by visions of a missing local woman, Annie finds herself pulled into a thicket of lies and deception in which her extraordinary gift may ultimately get her killed.