A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.
A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.
Selma, a Czech immigrant on the verge of blindness, struggles to make ends meet for herself and her son, who has inherited the same genetic disorder and will suffer the same fate without an expensive operation. When life gets too difficult, Selma learns to cope through her love of musicals, escaping life's troubles – even if just for a moment – by dreaming up little numbers to the rhythmic beats of her surroundings.
An enterprising youngster in a slum wants his people to lead a life of dignity, but has to take on an ambitious capitalist, who only wants to dominate his field.
Wallace is an efficiency expert, managing the high-profile downsizing of a major auto parts factory. But when he is hired to evaluate a small moccasin factory which seems from another era, Wallace has to reconsider the rapid modernization he advocates, as he is confronted by the human faces such plans hurt.
Taxi driver Sang-gu is an ordinary father who has made a happy family. Due to their unfortunate financial circumstances, he is sorry that he cannot afford to send his daughter Yoon-mi to university like other parents. Yet, with a bright smile on her face, Yoon-mi tells her father that she will one day buy him a new car and pay college tuition fees for her younger sibling. However, less than two years after Yoon-mi begins her job at a large corporate company, she gets seriously ill and returns home. Sang-gu is heartbroken to see his young daughter in such a condition.
Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.
Jeong-sun as her name lives an uncluttered life with modest behavior even though working at a food factory. Young-soo, a factory colleague, approaches her. As they get closer, they enjoy their secret relationship, and he takes candid shots in beds with his mobile camera. One day, she gets inappropriate stares from others.
Sean Odkin loves to dance—much to his fathers distain. When the woman he loves cannot return his love, he goes in search of the only thing that can make him whole again—dancing.
A French-to-Spanish interpreter working for a food processing plant that hires seasonal workers from Guatemala is, at first determined to obey the sometimes excessive directives of the young boss, but she befriends the workers and tries to defend them against the exploitation they suffer.
Simon, a well-known French filmmaker, starts shooting his next film. A story about workers fighting to protect their factory from being relocated. But nothing goes as planned... His producer Viviane wants to rewrite the ending and is threatening to cut the budget; his own crew goes on strike; his personal life is in shambles; and to make things worse, his lead actor Alain is an egocentric jerk. Joseph, an extra who wants to get into the film industry, agrees to direct the making of and shoot the behind-the-scenes. He takes his role very seriously and starts following around the crew, capturing all this mess... What follows is proof that the making of can sometimes be far better than the film itself!
A 22-year-old factory worker lets loose on the weekends: drinking, brawling, and dating two women, one of whom is older and married.
When a western Pennsylvania auto plant is acquired by a Japanese company, brokering auto worker Hunt Stevenson faces the tricky challenge of mediating the assimilation of two clashing corporate cultures. At one end is the Japanese plant manager and the sycophant who is angling for his position. At the other, a number of disgruntled long-time union members struggle with the new exigencies of Japanese quality control.
Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.
Isa and Marie bond while working in a French sweatshop and soon begin sharing an apartment that Marie is watching for a hospitalized mother and daughter. Marie, hoping to avoid a life of struggle and poverty, takes up with Chriss, a nightclub owner whose most attractive asset is his money. Isa recognizes the ultimate futility of the relationship and tries to keep Marie away from him, but her interference puts their friendship at risk.
In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
Pasi returns to his childhood town, asked to reconfigure the local plywood factory. With a child on the way with his upper-class wife, Pasi sees an opportunity – this is his ticket to climb the professional ladder in the company. On arrival, he bumps into his childhood friend Janne, who works in the factory he is about to downsize. Pasi begins to struggle with the fact that he is supposed to care for the profits – not for the people.
Charles Price may have grown up with his father in the family shoe business in Northampton, central England, but he never thought that he would take his father's place. Charles has a chance encounter with the flamboyant drag queen cabaret singer Lola and everything changes.
Kate's boyfriend dies in a fire after a fight over the couple's unborn child. After Kate is involved in a near-drowning accident a few years later, she wakes up on-shore to find that she's living two days before her boyfriend's fatal fire.
Marion is a factory worker who hopes to trade the assembly line, for a beautiful penthouse apartment. Mark Whitney, a wealthy and influential lawyer can make her dreams come true, but there is only one problem, he will give her everything but a marriage proposal. Will this affair ever lead to marriage?