Oskar Matzerath is a very unusual boy. Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes, Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up. Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him.
Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”
A husband and wife struggle to keep their marriage alive until they realize they are both secretly working as assassins. Now, their respective assignments require them to kill each other.
After an encounter with UFOs, an electricity linesman feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
In 1962 Hong Kong, neighbors Su Li-zhen (Mrs. Chan) and Chow Mo-wan (Mr. Chow) discover their spouses are having an affair. As they spend time together, they develop feelings for each other, but their relationship remains chaste and unspoken, reflecting societal constraints and their own moral compass.
A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.
A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.
Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.
When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.
Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.
Disappointed with humanity, God wants to revoke his contract with humanity and wants to take back the stone tablets containing the ten commandments. To this end an angel is sent out to affect the personal lives of three humans so an appropriate child may be conceived.
In the 1970s, a young transgender woman called “Kitten” leaves her small Irish town for London in search of love, acceptance, and her long-lost mother.
On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina. Madeleine's affluent lifestyle clashes with the family, but she befriends George's wide-eyed and pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley, who is nearing her due date. Through the family, Madeleine gains greater insight into George's character.
The young girl Zahra lives a double life with her Muslim family on one side and her Danish boyfriend on the other. When Zahra gets pregnant her cover is blown. Her father disowns her, and she is torn between her love and her family.
Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the seismic effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.
Rosa, the self-serving wife of a small-town doctor, gets a better offer when a wealthy big-city man insists she get a divorce and marry him instead. Soon she demonstrates she is capable of rather deplorable acts -- including murder.
As novelist Jovana Fey attempts to check into the first hotel of her 3-week European book tour, she learns that her publisher has gone bankrupt. Penniless and stranded, she decides to continue the tour regardless.
A young unemployed man fends off accusations of laziness and makes a home for his pregnant girlfriend who has been rejected by her family.
A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship to a little girl they have reanimated from the dead.