African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
Two carefree pals traveling through rural Alabama on their way back to college are mistakenly arrested and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who's a lawyer - Vincent Gambini, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who has just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. When he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!
In the small town of Rockwell, Maine in October 1957, a giant metal machine befriends a nine-year-old boy and ultimately finds its humanity by unselfishly saving people from their own fears and prejudices.
Upon receiving a mysterious letter that her mother's grave has been vandalized, Marie travels to the desolate island town where she's buried. Just as she arrives, the island closes for the season, leaving Marie trapped in a nightmare.
A mysterious new shop opens in a small town which always seems to stock the deepest desires of each shopper, with a price far heavier than expected.
Thrown together under tragic circumstances, three generations of women from the same family are forced to learn to live together on a small rural chicken farm in New Jersey, which generates moving and amusing situations.
Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.
Tashi is a lonely single man living on the edge of a small town in Arunachal Pradesh. The town is slowly being inundated by water from a nearby dam reservoir. One day he meets Eshna, who has come to town with her husband who is overseeing the dam's construction.
In small-town Texas, high school football is a religion, 17-year-old schoolboys carry the hopes of an entire community onto the gridiron every Friday night. When star quarterback Lance Harbor suffers an injury, the Coyotes are forced to regroup under the questionable leadership of John Moxon, a second-string quarterback with a slightly irreverent approach to the game.
Timothy (Dickie Moore), an orphan, is sent with his sister, Gay (Sally Martin), to a farm run by Vilda Cummins (Elizabeth Patterson, an old maid with a dislike for children. Timothy eventually wins her over, and also pushes along the romance for her niece, Martha (Eleanore Whitney), with David Masters (Tom Keene).
After clearing brush for the government, a group of men return to town claiming their friend was abducted. Despite no apparent motive or evidence of foul play, no-one believes their story and his disappearance is treated as murder.
Ann Martin is serving time as a jewel thief. Paroled and determined to stay clean, she quickly finds out that her freedom was bought by an old, vicious boss that has picked her for a job.
Robert Hansen, 34, a young police officer from Copenhagen, is transferred against his will to the small town of Skarrild in Southern Jutland as a substitute Marshall. The transfer is Robert’s chance to start over. Whether he is allowed to return to his job in Copenhagen, all depends on how well he performs in this frontier town.
Jacob's farm is in trouble from a severe drought. Jacob and Sarah begin to wonder if Sarah can stay, and what will happen to Jacob if she and the children have to leave the farm.
Texan Charles Farmer left the Air Force as a young man to save the family ranch when his dad died. Like most American ranchers, he owes his bank. Unlike most, he's an astrophysicist with a rocket in his barn - one he's built and wants to take into space. It's his dream. The FBI puts him under surveillance when he tries to buy rocket fuel, and the FAA stalls him when he files a flight plan – but Charles is undeterred.
A grandfather is fed up with his stubborn son, who doesn't want to accept a penny from him to develop his farm. So the old man decides to bring his 18 year-old granddaughter Martie to live with him in the city.
In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.
Something terrible is about to happen in a small town in Germany. Nobody knows the reason why, except one person: Rico Bartsch. The 15-year old grammar school pupil, an absolute outsider, is in love with the most beautiful girl at his school. What in the beginning is a longing that can never be fulfilled will come true at the end of the story. Beautiful Regine will beg for Rico’s love. Until then several inhabitants of the town will die an unnatural death...
The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.