A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver's license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.
Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
Marvin, a heavy-drinking widower meets Tige, an 11-year-old orphan. With nowhere else to go, Tige moves in with Marvin and they develop a close friendship. Marvin wants to adopt Tige but knows that he is too poor to give him a good home. Then he discovers who Tige's father is a rich suburbanite who doesn't even know Tige exists. Should Marvin, and can he, give up the boy he loves, and who loves him, in favor of a stranger with the right genes and bank balance?
It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.
Many years after a deadly terrorist siege in a Moscow theatre, survivor Natalya returns to the crime scene to hold a memorial evening, finally able to confront her survivor's guilt and her estranged daughter and husband.
After a whirlwind romance in Mexico, a beautiful heiress marries a man she barely knows with hardly a second thought. She finds his New York home full of his strange relations, and macabre rooms that are replicas of famous murder sites. One locked room contains the secret to her husband's obsession, and the truth about what happened to his first wife.
A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.
With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.
During a romantic wedding anniversary dinner, Laila is callously served with divorce papers. Her husband, Raoul, takes this opportunity to let her know that he has a new girlfriend, Nadene, whom he plans to marry. To help cope with her grief, Laila enters therapy, but as the sessions get more intense, she gradually remembers the long-buried secrets that have haunted her for decades. Meanwhile, young women are disappearing, and a police investigation is in full swing. The police don’t have any suspects, that is until a missing person’s report is filed, and a body is pulled from the dumpster. After a visit from the lead detective, Laila is overcome with empathy for Nadene, and she vows to help her in any way. The women then team up and help each other so that the first wife can overcome the horrors of her past, and for the second wife, to avoid the utter destruction of her future.
Rusty James, an absent-minded street thug, struggles to live up to his legendary older brother's reputation and longs for the days when gang warfare was going on.
A Marine officer reported as killed in Vietnam, but who was actually a POW, returns home. Instead of being welcomed home, however, he discovers that his father has died, his wife has remarried, his daughter has been adopted, his business has been sold, and his life has completely changed.
A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
By helping Doctor Proctor getting recognition for his amazing invention in a world quite different from ours, two lonely children gets help to stand on their own two feet.
Alex and Erica Boyer are a young couple in crisis. Alex, despite his loving wife, beautiful home and high-paying job, feels trapped. When Erica has an accident that leaves her temporarily confined to a wheelchair and requiring the services of a private nurse, the beautiful Lisa enters the Boyers' lives. A complicated situation develops as Alex sees Lisa as the cure for his own problems as well as his wife's.
Sophie Jacobs is going through the most difficult time of her life. Now, she just has to find out if it's real.
Ken, a WWII GI, returns home after he's paralyzed in battle. Residing in the paraplegic ward of a veteran's hospital and embittered by his condition, he refuses to see his fiancée and sinks into a solitary world of hatred and hostility. Head physician, Dr. Brock cajoles the withdrawn Ken into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Norm, Leo and Angel begin to pull him out of his spiritual dilemma.
The lives of Ted and Marion Cole are thrown into disarray when their two adolescent sons die in a car wreck. Marion withdraws from Ted and Ruth, the couple's daughter. Ted, a well-known writer, hires as his assistant a student named Eddie, who looks oddly similar to one of the Coles' dead sons. The couple separate, and Marion begins an affair with Eddie, while Ted has a dalliance with his neighbor Evelyn.
Kanchan, all of eight years old, is always up to pranks and mischief in his village home. He finds his father a cruel demon who keeps his mother oppressed and imprisoned. In his dreams, the big city is El Dorado, until he reaches there.
After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.
World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.