Zirkus des Lebens
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
João is a lonely boy living in the outback. No friends, no mother, and no bond with his father, he finds a chance to overcome his fears and a possibility to fit in when a small circus arrives in town.
Stuck in a car with his mother, Loïc opens up a sensitive conversation : he no longer wants to walk on the footsteps of his clown parents. As he's asking her to remove his makeup, his mother Marianne must then accept her son's new start.
Father-and-son lion tamers, Rabbas and Léo share a mistress - Rosita, the " lovely bitch " of the film's title. She is as wild as their lionesses and, in a single night the father is injured and the son attempts suicide. Only when Rosita leaves the circus can things get back to normal.
Melrose's circus is being threatened by his competitor, who's angry that Melrose has outmanuevered him in bookings; what he doesn't know is that the competitor has also planted a saboteur who creates accidents in hopes of reducing the value of the circus. Meanwhile, he's also hired a beautiful young woman as the magician's assistant, with eyes toward more - but he realizes that, as a midget, she won't have him.
A devout Muslim who writes, composes, and even records hymns praising the Prophet, Muhammad Rahat Khawaja is a respected elderly man who works in real estate and takes care of his bedridden wife. One day, he attends the wedding of a friend's son, where he inadvertently shows off a dance in front of his friends and family. His dance gets recorded and then uploaded to all social media platforms, which then also gets broadcasted on television. And chaos begins to ensue in his quiet life. Other than his wife, no one else in the world understands Rahat's circumstances. His daughters and neighbors criticize him, his friends turn their backs on him
A pair of men try to perform the dangerous "triple" in their trapeze act. Problems arise when the duo is made into a trio following the addition of a sexy female performer.
The story of the famous high-wire patriarch Karl Wallenda and how he gets his first circus job in 1920's Germany performing handstands on the high-wire with the Louis Weitzmann Troupe.
A young woman, Tara Maguire (Robin Wright) scandalizes her provincial Irish village in the 1950s by having a baby out of a wedlock, and refusing to name the father. She has a rare beauty and every man in town desires her, especially Sergeant Hegarty (Albert Finney). The arrival of a dramatic troupe stirs things up even more, especially when she falls in love with one f the "Playboys", Tom Casey (Aidan Quinn).
A foundling, raised in the circus, Sam Lion becomes a businessman after a trapeze accident. However, when he reaches fifty and becomes tired of his responsibilities and of his son Jean-Philippe, he decides to disappear at sea. However, he runs into Albert Duvivier, one of his former employees. He comes to realise that he has ignored the important things in his life.
Brazilian badlands, April 1910. Tonho is ordered by his father to avenge the death of his older brother. The young man knows that if he commits this crime, his life will be divided in two: the twenty years he has already lived and the few days he has left to live, before the other family avenges their son's death. He is torn between fulfilling his ancestral duty and rebelling against it, urged by his younger brother Pacu. That's when a tiny travelling circus passes through the vast badlands where Tonho's family lives.
A lady ringmaster milks the publicity from a string of murders.
In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
Benny Berdino, the owner of Europe's biggest circus, has a dream. To make sure that his dynasty will carry on, he hopes that his grandson, Patrick Berdino, and the award winning circus artist Merrylu Casselly will marry and one day carry on Circus Arena. With their looks and skills they would be the perfect match. Everything seems to be going according to plan, as Patrick and Merrylu has moved into their own Caravan. But his dream is threatened, because mixing love and business is difficult and the Casselly Family is offered a lucrative contract from the biggest circus in the world, Ringling Brothers, in USA.
A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.
When a circus trio have a particularly disastrous show, Mandy the Acrobat must decide whether to run away from the circus, or to stay and help her friends.
A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.
Lola Montes, previously a great adventuress, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.
A young boy tries to make living out of a puppet show when his mother abandons him and his father.