Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.
In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.
Muggsy Mulane, a waif who wears boy's clothing, jumps a freight train to the country after Jimmy "the Eel," the leader of the gang of crooks with whom she works, is arrested. In the village of Cottonville, Muggsy befriends Aunt Sarah, whom she later discovers is Jimmy's mother. When Muggsy learns that the greedy Judge Cotton, who holds the mortgage on Aunt Sarah's property, is planning to foreclose, she threatens to blackmail him, and he relents.
The relationships among two pre-pubescent brothers and their estranged father are tested on a trip into the Russian wilderness.
A bible salesman finds himself saddled with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, and the two forge an unlikely partnership as a money-making con team in Depression-era Kansas.
While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono. There she meets the wealthy Arai Takada, who is taken by the mysterious woman. Alan has dishonored and betrayed O'Mitsu, and her brother Arai plans a terrible revenge.
Joe Dirt is a janitor with a mullet hairdo, acid-washed jeans and a dream to find the parents that he lost at the Grand Canyon when he was a belligerent, trailer park-raised eight-year-old. Now, blasting Van Halen in his jacked-up economy car, the irrepressibly optimistic Joe hits the road alone in search of his folks.
Charles and Meg, a young couple whose relationship is currently experiencing some distress, go on vacation in Paestum hoping to mend their problems. But along the way they pick up an aggressive and unscrupulous hitchhiker.
At a party thrown by millionaire Max Goldberg, Charles Howard, an aristocratic young artist, succumbs to the charms of chorus girl Lita O'Farrell, Goldberg's erstwhile girl friend. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry and then their incompatibilities begin to surface.
Chasing a memory, Alex is determined to drive cross-country to Melbourne. Planning on having just the highway for company, he reluctantly picks up a hitchhiker running from something with as much determination as Alex is running to something.
Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck and they join his neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin.
Glory Moore, a young girl, finds herself left unprovided for after her father's death, as the farm has to be sold to pay his debts.
The story of two feuding Irish immigrant families living in a tenement.
After several years of sexual dysfunction, Ada and her boyfriend, Calvin travel to her hometown in rural Oklahoma in hopes of piecing together her fragmented childhood memories. They find their answers, but can they find their way back home?
As a reporter, Dick Farrington is sent to cover an assignment that promises a big story. A lawyer has advertised for an ex-Marine who is a boxer. He makes good beating up a gang of roughnecks picked for the purpose, and secures the mysterious job that is filled with danger. It is to guard the heiress Lady Chatfield, but the hero is told nothing as to the secret in back of it all. Dick poses as Lord Grantmore, wears a monocle, and otherwise acts like a titled Englishman. They proceed to the mining town of Goldbrook, where the heiress is to occupy a mysterious mansion on the occupancy of which hinges a great fortune. The engineer of the mines is deeply interested in thwarting the plans of Lady Chatfield, and with his gang of roughneck miners makes things lively for the pugilist star in a series of fights that are hair raisers.
Robert Brent and Dick Morgan, the former wealthy, the latter poor, are chums at one of the big colleges until they both fall in love with Viola Scott, a college girl.
In 1999, Star Wars fanatics take a cross-country trip to George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch so their dying friend can see a screening of The Phantom Menace before its release.
A young woman of humble origins hides her family's lack of wealth and prestige from her boarding school friends.
Bessie Barriscale and Nigel Barrie play Ellen and Gibbs Josselyn, a young married couple who have spent several years in Europe while Gibbs, an artist, developed his talent. When they return to the States, they stay with Gibbs' father (Tom Guise) and stepmother (Kathleen Kirkham). Gibbs had never cared much for his stepmother, Lillian, but now he warms up to her -- a lot. Lillian is much younger than her husband and begins spending a suspicious amount of time with her stepson.
When her boyfriend is arrested for marijuana possession, Joleen Reedy and her 11-year-old daughter, Tara, take refuge with Joleen's aimless brother, James. Joleen soon runs off with a truck driver, and James is unable to meet his responsibilities. After Child Protective Services takes possession of Tara, James abducts her from a foster home, and the two travel from California to Utah, where his abusive father lives.