The Cool World

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.

After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Talking about his father’s loneliness soon leads to a meeting with a young female journalist, who has flown to Seattle to write a story about the boy and his father.

A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.

An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.

Looking for a safe place to live after being harassed by her husband, a depressive and violent man, Juli stays at a women's shelter run by Mária.

With her life crashing down around her, Linda attempts to navigate her child's mysterious illness, her absent husband, a missing person, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist.

The Viennese cab driver Maggy has all kinds of problems, not least monetary ones. But suddenly Maggy's financial problems could solve all by themselves when Juliette Koons, who has been reported missing, gets into her cab with a heavy suitcase.

In the days leading up to a possibly career-changing exhibition, a sculptor navigates her relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.

Tired of poverty, Jane finally accepts the advances of Ambrose, the wealthy owner of the factory in which she works, and becomes his mistress. Years later, long after she has left Ambrose, Jane falls in love with Richard Newton, whose own past, like hers, hardly stands out as scrupulous. They get married and have a child, but then Richard finds out that Jane had been a kept woman, and insists on a separation.

Sick of life in the city after his fiancée deserts him, Merrill Day goes to the country for a rest with his sister and niece. There he meets Joan, who has lived in the hills for her whole life, and they quickly begin a romance. Grekko, however, a hunchback who has loved Joan for years, convinces her that Merrill's sister is really Merrill's wife.

Instead of enjoying her vacations in a peaceful peninsula of Turkey, Anna feels stuck in a strange torpor, while her boyfriend, Thomas, doesn't seem to notice it at all. Later in the afternoon, when a little girl suddenly disappears on the beach, Anna awakens and decides to go and find her, despite the unknown and the nightfall.

Pierre has been happily married for fifteen years and a good father. Still in love with his wife, he enjoys his wife and family and is content. One evening, he meets Elsa at a party and are immediately attracted to each other. Fifteen days later, they happen to meet again and the mutual attraction turns into infatuation. But his love for his wife and Elsa's rule about not dating married men prevents them from taking the next step. Instead, they fantasize about each other, and soon the fantasies mingle with the reality.

Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of her life, she meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her life.

Mokichi is the widowed father of three daughters, with whom he lives on the premises of a temple since the war. All three daughters become involved in some sort of complicated relationships.

Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko the daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war.

The Chemos and the Pachecos are two gangs whose adventures are witnessed by the doctor, the assistant and the social worker of a clinic where they know of the young men's problems.

Ruby Franke's rise as a "momfluencer" with millions of followers hid a nightmare; when her son fled and alerted a neighbor about the abuse, police raided her home, rescuing her children.

Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.