Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
Nathan Algren is an American hired to instruct the Japanese army in the ways of modern warfare, which finds him learning to respect the samurai and the honorable principles that rule them. Pressed to destroy the samurai's way of life in the name of modernization and open trade, Algren decides to become an ultimate warrior himself and to fight for their right to exist.
Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.
After amusements working in a restaurant, a waiter uses his lunch break to go roller skating.
A pawnbroker's assistant deals with his grumpy boss, his annoying co-worker and some eccentric customers as he flirts with the pawnbroker's daughter, until a perfidious crook with bad intentions arrives at the pawnshop.
When a calendar notification pops up, a frantic character tries to find the perfect date outfit.
Two young men serving at the front. One comes from a good family, the other's family is poor. But the sister of the middle-class son falls in love with his poor comrade when he returns home for Christmas.
Attracted by his wealth, avaricious Germaine marries D'Artois, then leaves him for a more sophisticated man. D'Artois retaliates by moving to the city and learning the proper social graces. His new life style proves to be too expensive for him, and at the end he is left with nothing but one suit of evening clothes and his now contrite wife.
In times of World War I, a group of boisterous young ladies occurs to them that they could help the boys of the front writing letters to them and, thus, becoming their godmothers of war. Madeleine writes to the soldier Jacques Bertin, but, out of prudence, instead of giving her true identity, she impersonates her late grandmother. When the soldier comes on leave and wants to see her, the mistake will bring humorous consequences.
Denise lives with her grandparents on a farm and secretly meets Robert. When she tells her grandparents that she wants to marry Robert, they refuse outright, so the two lovers will have no choice but to elope and marry in the nearby town. On the eve of having a child, war breaks out and Robert is mobilized.
Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.
The Tramp interferes with the celebration of several kid auto races in Venice, California (Junior Vanderbilt Cup Race, January 10 and 11, 1914), standing himself in the way of the cameraman who is filming the event.
Although only a dental assistant, Charlie pretends to be the dentist. After receiving too much anesthesia, a patient can't stop laughing, so Charlie knocks him out with a club.
Mabel tries to sell hot dogs at a car race, but isn't doing a very good job at it. She sets down the box of hot dogs and leaves them for a moment. Charlie finds them and gives them away to the hungry spectators at the track as Mabel frantically tries to find her lost box of hot dogs. Mabel finds out that Charlie has stolen them and sends the police after him. Chaos ensues.
Newlyweds receive a build-it-yourself house as a wedding gift—and the house can, supposedly, be built in "one week". A rejected suitor secretly re-numbers packing crates, and the husband struggles to assemble the house according to this new 'arrangement' of its parts.
An oil heir and the daughter of a social climbing family are set to marry.
A tramp gets drunk in a hotel lobby and, upstairs, causes some misunderstandings between Mabel, two hotel guests across the hall from her room, and Mabel's visiting sweetheart.
Three men compete for the attentions of a pretty girl. One of them, a little tramp, plays dirty.
Charlie plays an actor who bungles several scenes and is kicked out. He returns convincingly dressed as a lady and charms the director, but Charlie never makes it into the film.
The hero, a janitor played by Chaplin, is fired from work for accidentally knocking his bucket of water out the window and onto his boss the chief banker (Tandy). Meanwhile, one of the junior managers (Dillon) is being threatened with exposure by his bookie for gambling debts unpaid. Thus the manager decides to steal from the company.