Convinced he'll graduate with honors because of his thesis paper, a stuffy Harvard student finds his paper being held hostage by a homeless man, who might be the guy to school the young man in life.
Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach works dead-end jobs to support his sister and her son. Questioning his life, he paints, surfs and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe. When Gabe's older brother returns home for the summer, Zach suddenly finds himself drawn into a relationship he didn't expect.
Charley Davis, against the wishes of his mother, becomes a boxer. As he becomes more successful the fighter becomes surrounded by shady characters, including an unethical promoter named Roberts, who tempt the man with a number of vices. Charley finds himself faced with increasingly difficult choices.
Mick and Kev, teen Irish lads, are at the shore, throwing rocks at empty cans, drinking cider. Mick's the pushy one, engaging Kev in a game of mumbly peg, his hand on top of Kev's, fingers splayed. As Mick moves the knife between their fingers, a train is heard approaching. What's Mick's purpose?
A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.
Joe and Paul Fabrini are Wildcat, or independent, truck drivers who have their own small one-truck business. The Fabrini boys constantly battle distributors, rivals and loan collectors, while trying to make a success of their transport company.
Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.
Gabby, the waitress in an isolated Arizona diner, dreams of a bigger and better life. One day penniless intellectual Alan drifts into the joint and the two strike up a rapport. Soon enough, notorious killer Duke Mantee takes the diner's inhabitants hostage. Surrounded by miles of desert, the patrons and staff are forced to sit tight with Mantee and his gang overnight.
A screenwriter with a violent temper is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. However, she soon starts to have her doubts.
Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.
After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.
In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.
Bill is a penniless drifter who scams strangers out of just enough money to feed himself and his partner in crime, an orphan girl known as Curly Sue. Bill and Curly Sue target Grey, a yuppie lawyer, but their con takes an unexpected turn when the successful woman begins to like the ramshackle duo. But there's one problem—Grey's jealous, conniving boyfriend, Walker.
Along with his new friends, a teenager who was arrested by the US Secret Service and banned from using a computer for writing a computer virus discovers a plot by a nefarious hacker, but they must use their computer skills to find the evidence while being pursued by the Secret Service and the evil computer genius behind the virus.
Wayne Dobie is a shy cop whose low-key demeanor has earned him the affectionate nickname "Mad Dog." After Mad Dog saves the life of Frank Milo, a crime boss and aspiring stand-up comedian, he's offered the company of an attractive young waitress named Glory for a week. At first both are uneasy about the arrangement, but they eventually fall in love. However, the situation becomes complicated when Milo demands Glory back.
A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.
A young Abigale Archer is left friendless and alone in a brutal Montana winter during the 1870s—fighting for survival and to retrieve her one earthly possession, her family’s horse, from a gang of bloodthirsty bandits.
During World War II in the freezing winter of 1944-45 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can't wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.