Prague, Bohemia, 1820. Balduin, a penniless student, falls in love with Countess Margit, a wealthy noblewoman whom he has saved from drowning.
In 1840s New York, the uneventful and boring days of the daughter of a wealthy doctor come to an end when she meets a dashing poorer man — who may or may not be after her inheritance.
In 19th century Paris, a maniac abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship but constantly meets failure as the abducted women die.
William Walker and his mercenary corps enter Nicaragua in the middle of the 19th century in order to install a new government by a coup d'etat.
A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.
Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?
Two orphans set out to claim their inheritance - a 400 acre plot of land in Salem Oregon. To Do so they must cross the rugged snow covered Rocky Mountains in the year 1876.
A gambler and a prostitute become thriving business partners in a remote Old West mining town until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
In late XIX century, rich and bored Maria (Paola Senatore) is after a more sexually interesting life and gets involved with Alessio who shows her other kinds of love. She soon becomes his sex slave but some unexpected consequences will arise from her desperate search for sexual fulfillment.
India. Smita is an untouchable. She dreams of seeing her daughter escape her miserable condition and enter school. Italy. Giulia works in her father’s workshop. When he has an accident, she discovers that the family business is ruined. Canada. Sarah, a successful lawyer, is about to be promoted to the head of her firm when she learns that she is ill. Three lives, three women, three continents. Three battles to fight. Although they don’t know each other, Smita, Giulia and Sarah are unknowingly linked by their most intimate and singular bond.
Walter Lee Younger is a young man struggling with his station in life. Sharing a tiny apartment with his wife, son, sister and mother, he seems like an imprisoned man. Until, that is, the family gets an unexpected financial windfall.
An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.
In Italy, a woman fears her sister has been kidnapped; Inspector Enzo Avolfi fears it's worse. They team up to rescue her from a sadistic killer known only as Yellow.
In 19th-century Louisiana's Cajun country, Belizaire is the informal spokesman for his citizens, who don't see eye to eye with local racists who wish to eradicate all Cajuns. Complicating matters is that Belizaire's former flame is now married to his biggest rival, an affluent landowner's son. Before he knows it, Belizaire is caught up in a web of murder, lies, and prejudice.
After a lavish dinner party, the guests find themselves unable to depart... and, over the next few days, all of their elaborate societal pretenses and façades deteriorate as they are reduced to living like animals.
The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.
A fading music hall comedian tries to help a despondent ballet dancer learn to walk and to again feel confident about life.
In 1858 Charles Darwin struggles to publish one of the most controversial scientific theories ever conceived, while he and his wife Emma confront family tragedy.
A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.