In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.
Flighty Emily "Jacks" Jackson works for the British edition of Vogue magazine. Rather than pursue a relationship, Jacks regularly hooks up with her devoted ex-boyfriend, James Wildstone, and lives with Peter Simon, a gay screenwriter. When Jacks meets Argentinian photographer's assistant Paolo Sarmiento, she assumes he is gay and tries to bring him and Peter together, unaware that Paolo is straight and in love with her.
A beautiful young gold-digger mistakes a lowly hotel clerk as a rich and therefore worthwhile catch.
A growing number of onlookers disrupt an archeologist as she tries to work.
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
In 1671, with war brewing with Holland, a penniless prince invites Louis XIV to three days of festivities at a chateau in Chantilly. The prince wants a commission as a general, so the extravagances are to impress the king. In charge of all is the steward, Vatel, a man of honor, talent, and low birth. The prince is craven in his longing for stature: no task is too menial or dishonorable for him to give Vatel. While Vatel tries to sustain dignity, he finds himself attracted to Anne de Montausier, the king's newest mistress. In Vatel, she finds someone who's authentic, living out his principles within the casual cruelties of court politics. Can the two of them escape unscathed?
A curmudgeonly biologist and his stoner graduate students encounter a group of mysterious backpackers who disrupt their lives in surprising ways.
Mai and Cañas, a couple of small-time criminals, see their luck change dramatically when a winning lottery ticket lands in their laps.
The mood is heated. Demonstrations are taking place across France, also in front of the Paris hotel where an Italian named Giorgio is booking the bridal suite for him and his boyfriend Antonio. Hotel manager Diana doesn’t trust them and calls the police to get rid of the odd couple. Italians? Homosexuals? Criminals? In the charged atmosphere of the Hotel Occidental, little is needed for initial suspicions to be aroused.
Deep in the lush river jungles of Argentina, Alvaro lives a solitary existence fishing and harvesting reeds. What sets him apart from the rest of his village is that he is gay. There are no other gay men in his world, his only means of expression is with the occasional outsider who passes through. Most of these men come via the river taxi El León, whose captain El Turu is a mean man with a homophobic streak and a secret. When illegal loggers appear in the jungle El Turu accuses Alvaro of aiding them, a dispute which leads both men towards confrontation.
Entering a seamy underground world of peep shows, nude clubs, and live Internet sex is David Huxley, an aspiring politician who has everything to lose. Secretly filmed in a steamy three-way with his fiancée Tish and a gorgeous young model, David is desperate to find the extortionist who's demanding an exorbitant amount of money for the negatives. But when the blackmail trail ends in murder and David is kidnapped, Tish must come up with $5 million ransom or her fiancé's once-promising career, and life, may come to a dead end.
A young father, separated from his wife, takes drastic measures to see his newborn son, who he feels is being unfairly kept from him. However, alliances shift and feelings change as accusations fly in the course of a phone conversation.
A woman wanders in a big and empty parking lots following a man who she seems to want to ambush. From her gestures something furious and menacing emerges. Everything seems to draw back to a woods beyond her abandoned home, a place that hides the true nature of her actions.
A young man prostitutes himself in the parks of Madrid while he is looking for his father, who abandoned him when he was just a child.
Fame driven Ken Dean becomes the subject of a documentary when he attempts to start a pornography company. Following the failure of the company, Ken uses his father's religious music to start a Christian rock band but finds himself trapped in a gay conversion cult.
A newly arrived guest of a Hollywood hotel charms and amazes the regulars, and they decide to invite him to their Christmas dinner.
A very old woman wants to have dinner with her friends. As they are all dead, the butler has to play the role of every guest.
Bimbo becomes a long distance accordion champ and comes through with a load of credit.
Thomas, the son of a prison warden, falls for Martin, one of the prison inmates. After Martin is released, they try to build a relationship and a life together but, no one will leave them alone.
Anna, a young mother, lives alone with her son in the suburbs. But when her son is placed in a home, her life falls apart and her feelings become confused.