A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
David, a robotic boy—the first of his kind programmed to love—is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee and his wife. Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David.
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.
Maggie, a quiet retiring grandmother, finds herself helpless as her grandson’s health deteriorates. When one last chance appears, but money is desperately short, Maggie acts to raise the cash in a fashion that surprises everyone but her.
The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.
Young Prince Nechljudov is summoned as a judge in a murder trial. A rich merchant was found dead in the room of the inn where he was staying and the prostitute Maslova was accused of the crime. Nechljudov recognizes in the woman the maid of the aunts he had seduced and abandoned years before and tries to convince the authorities of her of his innocence but to no avail. Convinced that he is responsible for her moral fall, he follows her to Siberia where she must serve her sentence.
An undocumented immigrant finds a human heart in one of the toilets of the west London hotel where he works with other undocumented immigrants.
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
Aliya, a 36 year old Kazakh lesbian, has, for the first time in her life, tried to play the Green Card Lottery and won. Now she cannot decide whether to leave Kazakhstan or stay. On one hand, Aliya is tired of the stagnation, corruption, and dictatorship of the Kazakh society, she wants changes in her life. But on the other, she is afraid of uncertainty and to start all over again in a foreign country.
The clues to a young woman's death come together as the lives of seemingly unrelated women begin to intersect.
A gallery of characters in Brooklyn in the 1950s are crushed by their surroundings and selves: a union strike leader discovers he is gay; a prostitute falls in love with one of her clients; a family cannot cope with the fact that their daughter is illegitimately pregnant.
A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.
Bud Clay races motorcycles in the 250cc Formula II class of road racing. After a race in New Hampshire, he has five days to get to his next race in California. During his road trip, he is haunted by memories of the last time he saw Daisy, his true love.
A smooth-talking ad executive attributes his remarkable success with women to his ability to manipulate their emotions from the moment he first meets them. When his teenage nephew drops in for a visit, he soon learns that his approach isn't as foolproof as he thought when he attempts to teach the boy how to pick up women.
Concerned about the future of her three children, a widow takes them to the city with the purpose of getting them married.
An ex-prostitute, feeling an emptiness in her life, decides to fill it by buying a car.
While the district administration prepares for the arrival of high-ranking guests, local alcoholic Sadyq Ospanovich solves intergalactic problems. Two large-scale events, developing simultaneously, lead to an inevitable conflict. The life-weary saleswoman Nadezhda and the naive policeman Baur find themselves between two fires.
General arrives in Baden-Baden with his stepdaughter Polina and his mother, seeking social standing and respite. Secretly, they chase casino fortunes alongside a French businessman and beauty. Alexej, Polina’s tutor, struggles with his own gambling past while falling for her. When the wealthy “Babushka” dies, the family’s financial woes vanish, freeing Alexej to court Polina. Yet he loses everything in a sudden winning streak that upends loyalties and reveals the world’s true stakes: love, money, and chance.