This is the story of teenage girl Steph, who is brought up by her fiery aunt Jude after her pregnant mother Jass and Vietnamese father are killed in a car crash. The arrival of her late mother's diary reveals the colorful, sexy secrets of Jude and the foreman Alan that allow Steph to reinvent her vision of the world.
An American newspaperman and his wife, end up in London after several retreats in the opening days of WWII. After a shrapnel wound and loss of her baby she returns to America. War weary, he is forced to do a story about war orphans, where he meets Margaret.
A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.
Anne Shirley, an orphan, is fostered by farmer Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla, who were expecting a boy to be sent them to help with their farm work. They accept Anne, who quickly endears herself to them and to the local villagers.
A teenage orphan spends ten years traveling to experience life.
A tough young man, who helps to kick poor people out of their houses, falls in love with a girl. She lives with her father in the building about to be demolished.
Mickey, an orphan who has been brought up in a mining settlement, is sent to New York to live with her aunt.
Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.
In 1918, Elizabeth MacDonald learns that her husband, John Andrew, has been killed in the war. Elizabeth bears John's son and eventually marries her kindly boss. Unknown to her, John has survived but is horribly disfigured and remains in Europe. Years later, on the eve of World War II, Elizabeth refuses to agree to her son's request to enlist and is stunned when an eerily familiar stranger named Kessler arrives from abroad and becomes involved.
An orphaned child's dreams—and nightmares—manifest physically as he sleeps.
An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.
The tragic story of a young orphan girl who is befriended by an innocent but emotionally disabled veteran of the French Indochina War.
Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.
In 1950, amidst the ravages of the Korean War, Sergeant Süleyman stumbles upon a a half-frozen little girl, with no parents and no help in sight and he risks his own life to save her, smuggling her into his army base and out of harm’s way.
Orphaned in Africa as a child, Lilly escapes to England as a refugee, fleeing civil war in Ethiopia. Lost in this cold new world, Lilly embraces the immigrant community in London, attempting to reunite people with their scattered families. But as her friend Amina discovers, Lilly's mission isn't purely selfless: a passionate lost love affair is revealed.
In postwar Germany, a displaced Czech boy, separated from his family during wartime, is befriended by an American GI while the boy's mother desperately searches for him.
Tanti Adjo has been an orphan since teenage years. Now the owner of a ready-made clothes shop, she lives withdrawn into herself. Someday she meets by chance Sabi Kazan, a young university professor. Attracted to Adjo, Sabi decides to find her, which he does. One date leads to another and a formal engagement ensues. But happiness is short-lived as one day Adjo is found by the body of her dead beloved, with an arm in her hand. Did she really kill the man she was in love with. And for what reason?