An earthquake shatters a peaceful Los Angeles morning and opens a fissure deep into the earth, causing lava to start bubbling up. As a volcano begins forming in the La Brea Tar Pits, the director of the city's emergency management service, working with a geologist, must then use every resource in the city to try and stop the volcano from consuming LA.
Years of working in the food industry have made Juana, a working-class Latina, a chef of speed and skill. Searching for financial stability, she stumbles into a high-energy, male-dominated Japanese cuisine kitchen. The new atmosphere re-ignites her passions for food and life and makes her hungry to get mixed up in the flavors of this new world.
When Gabriel and Emilie meet by chance, he offers her a ride, and they spend the evening talking, laughing and getting along famously. At the end of the night, Emilie declines Gabriel's offer of "a kiss without consequences". Emilie admonishes him that the kiss could have unexpected consequences, and tells him a story, unfolding in flashbacks, about the impossibility of indulging your desires without affecting someone else's life.
Terry is a small-time car dealer trying to leave his shady past behind and start a family. Martine is a beautiful model from Terry's old neighbourhood who knows that Terry is no angel. When Martine proposes a foolproof plan to rob a bank, Terry recognises the danger but realises this may be the opportunity of a lifetime. As the resourceful band of thieves burrows its way into a safe-deposit vault at a Lloyds Bank, they quickly realise that, besides millions in riches, the boxes also contain secrets that implicate everyone from London's most notorious underworld gangsters to powerful government figures, and even the Royal Family. Although the heist makes headlines throughout Britain for several days, a government gag order eventually brings all reporting of the case to an immediate halt.
After her father's sudden passing, Christine is faced with the complicated past she left behind. With familial obligation and pressure from her mourning mother, Christine must decide to either save the family restaurant or pursue her own dreams.
Like millions of kids around the world, Santiago harbors the dream of being a professional footballer... However, living in the Barrios section of Los Angeles, he thinks it is only that—a dream. Until one day an extraordinary turn of events has him trying out for Premiership club Newcastle United.
Loving but irresponsible dad Daniel Hillard, estranged from his exasperated spouse, is crushed by a court order allowing only weekly visits with his kids. When Daniel learns his ex needs a housekeeper, he gets the job -- disguised as a British nanny. Soon he becomes not only his children's best pal but the kind of parent he should have been from the start.
Coffee And Cigarettes is a collection of eleven films from cult director Jim Jarmusch. Each film hosts star studded cast of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.
A transit worker pulls commuter Peter off railway tracks after he's mugged, but—while he's in a coma—his family mistakenly thinks she's Peter's fiancée, and she doesn't correct them. Things get more complicated when she falls for his brother, who's not quite sure that she's who she claims to be.
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.
Huo Yuan Jia became the most famous martial arts fighter in all of China at the turn of the 20th Century. Huo faced personal tragedy but ultimately fought his way out of darkness, defining the true spirit of martial arts and also inspiring his nation. The son of a great fighter who didn't wish for his child to follow in his footsteps, Huo resolves to teach himself how to fight - and win.
After losing the woman of his dreams, Anderson is convinced he'll never fall in love again. But at the urging of his best friend, he spontaneously proposes to a dissatisfied waitress named Katie and an innocent dare evolves into the kind of love that both have been looking for all along.
When a prostitute is found dead in a Los Angeles skyscraper occupied by a large Japanese corporation, detectives John Connor and Web Smith are called in to investigate. Although Connor has previous experience working in Japan, cultural differences make their progress difficult until a security disc showing the murder turns up. Close scrutiny proves the disc has been doctored, and the detectives realize they're dealing with a cover-up as well.
A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.
In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.
After getting kicked out of college, Arlo decides to visit his friend Alice for Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner is over, Arlo volunteers to take the trash to the dump but finds it closed for the holiday, so he dumps the trash in the bottom of a ravine. This act of littering gets him arrested and sends him on a bizarre journey.
Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.
Jules, a young Parisian postman, secretly records a concert performance given by the opera singer Cynthia Hawkins, whom he idolises. The following day, Jules runs into a woman who is being pursued by armed thugs. Before she is killed, the woman slips an audio cassette into his mail bag...
Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.