In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien abductions that occur as one surreal day unfolds.
Kayla, an underprivileged Japanese American 16 year old, endangers her promising future as an aspiring artist when she becomes involved with a drug dealer.
Marcy Meyers is down on her luck. Faced with piling bills, the remnants of a failed marriage, and now an imminent home foreclosure, she has nowhere to turn but to the hope of a miracle. That miracle she finds in Shoot the Moon, a national game show that promises a one in a lifetime chance to win it all. But Marcy's faith in the show comes with a price. As her relationship with her daughter Alice is put to the test, the clock ticks towards a seemingly inescapable fate. Shoot the Moon tells the story of miracles and the extraordinary place they are found.
At 13 years old and the eldest of three kids, Lane struggles to keep her family together as her iconoclast mother moves without warning through the communes and dusty back woods of Northern California.
On this lonesome birthday, Johan tries to celebrate it as if his late mother is still here. Succumbing to his past, though in reality, there is only Paran, his best friend.
A teenager fails to find (and keep) jobs which makes his father doubt the reason might be the boy's lack of sexual experience. As all his efforts prove to be unsuccessful, the father gives up, but not the boy's aunt.
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.
Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.
A coming-of-age story set across the lush wine country of both Australia and Spain, a young man explores the nature of father-son relationships and the pathway toward understanding and forgiveness.
Ten-year-old Johnny stands out from his family and his tough neighborhood in Eastern France. He's sensitive, intelligent and interested in all kinds of things way beyond his years. With curiosity, he observes the ups and downs of his young single mother's turbulent love life. Things change when a new teacher, fresh from the big city, takes over Johnny's class. Mr. Adamski believes in Johnny and wants to open a new world to him. The sophisticated young teacher also intrigues the boy.
After the loss of his mother, a boy uses his imagination to escape reality, creating and playing characters. As a result, despite their grief, his family needs to do everything they can to deal with the boy's fantasies.
Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.
8 years has passed since first arriving in Korea but in all that time it is as if not a second has gone passed for De Fu. In unfortunate cirucumstances he finds that his Mother has terminal cancer, and from that moment on he then comes realizes all that his Mother had done for him which he believed a Father should have. From then on to escape his reality, he though his dreams lived a fantasy. Because of his decisions he had made, his brother not being able to cope with his hardships turned to the comfort of drugs, his family at this point in ruins. De Fu then decides to go back to his hometown but not realizing that his home had become so foreign. Because of China’s extordinarly fast devolpment had booming economy many of China’s youth are falling through the cracks of society and are now so unsure about what life has instore for them.
Gilbert Grape is a small-town young man with a lot of responsibility. Chief among his concerns are his mother, who is so overweight that she can't leave the house, and his mentally impaired younger brother, Arnie, who has a knack for finding trouble. Settled into a job at a grocery store and an ongoing affair with local woman Betty Carver, Gilbert finally has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky.
A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.
Cairn is a dark film on adolescence in which the main character Johan (11) faces a moral dilemma after having started playing a seemingly innocent prank. The story unfolds on a l level in the turbulent transition between childhood and adulthood.
Second-hand car sales man Willenbrock has everything that he could ever wish for. He is married, has two lovers, a cottage in the German city Grünen, and a BMW. Yet one day while at his cottage he gets mugged and his life is drastically changed. Little by little the world he once felt safe in falls apart around him.