It is the night of March 25, 1949. A full moon hangs over Estonia. Endless rows of cattle cars are waiting to transport thousands of Estonian families, asleep in their homes, to Siberia. The Stalinist regime is ready to treat people like animals.
Gabby Denton, a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck drifter, seems to get a chance at redemption when his brother-in-law helps get him a job as a mechanic. Not realizing the garage he works for is actually a front for a stolen car ring, Gabby soon finds himself mixed up in both murder and a liaison with the boss's girl.
Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family.
A bank teller's love life falls apart when he's accused of embezzling.
Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey. The Turkish courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".
Jim Hutton and Mary Archer are two liberals who are content to remain faithful to each other in spirit only. They are married with all the ritual of a church wedding, the bride believing that each should be allowed perfect freedom in personal contacts. Complications arise when these ideals are put into practice.
Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.
A young Russian woman marries a wealthy Englishman, and has a daughter with him. After she has an affair with one of his friends, she is forced to leave Britain and moves to Paris. Many years later, her daughter approaches her, needing her help.
Tom Masterick, a dock worker, is wrongfully convicted of a murder charge. His death sentence is commuted to a long prison term. When released as an old man, he vows to find the real killer.
On the wharfs of San Francisco, saloon girl Toy, also known as Mary, lives over Mother Bright's bar. When Como Murphy, a fugitive from the law, hides in her room, she falls in love with him. He explains that after he spoke out about the rights of man to a crowd, a riot ensued, during which a policeman was killed. Como took the gun from the killer, but is thought to be guilty of the crime himself. Como, who reciprocates Mary's love, spends the night with her, but leaves to keep her out of danger. He joins the crew of a ship sailing to China after he is befriended by Turk, a big lumbering sailor who is also in love with Mary. Each man is unaware that they love the same woman.
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.
Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.
During the late 1980s, two detectives in a South Korean province attempt to solve the nation's first series of rape-and-murder cases.
Chen Chen returns to his former school in Shanghai when he learns that his beloved instructor has been murdered. While investigating the man's death, Chen discovers that a rival Japanese school is operating a drug smuggling ring. To avenge his master’s death, Chen takes on both Chinese and Japanese assassins… and even a towering Russian.
A soldier returns to his small town and exacts a deadly revenge on the thugs who tormented his disabled brother while he was away.
A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
A Puerto-Rican ex-con, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him, and lead a better life outside NYC.
A bandleader tries to romance a dancer by sending her boyfriend, a musician, out of town. However, things get complicated when he finds out that a gangster has designs on her too.
A society gigolo goes after a rich mother and her daughter, but tries to find true happiness with his girlfriend, who is neither rich nor in "society."
A professor tires of the direction his life is going and wants to move west, but his girlfriend doesn't understand why he is so dissatisfied.