A varied group of passengers boarding a ship bound for pre-WWII Germany represents a microcosm of early-1930s society.
A series of events unfold like a chain reaction, all stemming from a minor event that brings the film's five characters together. Set in Paris, France, Anne is an actress whose boyfriend Georges photographs the war in Kosovo. Georges' brother, Jean, is looking for the entry code to Georges' apartment. These characters' lives interconnect with a Romanian immigrant and a deaf teacher.
The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.
Three parallel love stories set in three different cities are set against some of the major international events of the last five years, in this ambitious.
"Bull" McCabe's family has farmed a field for generations, sacrificing much in the name of the land. When the widow who owns the field decides to sell it in a public auction, McCabe knows that he must own it. While no local dare bid against him, a wealthy American decides he requires the field to build a highway. "Bull" and his son decide they must try to convince the American to let go of his ambition and return home, but the consequences of their plot prove sinister.
Three criminals escape from prison and embark on a robbery spree across USA. Along the way, one of them falls in love while they plan a final heist before going their separate ways.
A young, once-great Hollywood film director refuses to accept changing times during the early 1930s, and confines himself to his decaying mansion to make silent porn flicks.
Martin Wide inherits a bus from his dying grandfather. He restores it from being a hen house into a tourist bus. He puts an ad in the newspaper about "travels to the sun" and also advertises for a stewardess at the same time. The female reporter Vera Boman signs up for the job, in order to expose the "tourist travel hoax". The two, together with passengers of various kinds set off from a snowy Sweden towards Paris. During the trip, Vera starts to realize that Martin is not a "tourist cheater" but a kind and thoughtful travel arranger, who tries to tend to all his passengers as best as he can, even when the situations become difficult to handle. In addition, a famous Swedish diamond has just been stolen and it turns out that both the thieves and the private detectives who are after them, are passengers on the bus.
In the Deep South of the 1930s, Rose is taken in by the Hillyer family to serve as housemaid so that she can avoid falling into a life of prostitution. Her appearence and personality is such that all men fall for her, and she knows it. She can't help herself from getting into trouble with men.
Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.
When four distant cousins inherit a 19th-century home in Normandy, they decide to visit and examine their family history. No one has lived there since the 1940s, and the cousins are intrigued by all of the items they find there, little things that help them to understand their ancestor, Adèle Vermillard. Jumping back and forth in time, they meet the mysterious Adèle, whose bohemian lifestyle, and her relationships with the leading artists of the time, changes their lives.
Nina is a young, carefree actress who arrives in Paris searching for her big break. There, she finds drama both on- and offstage as she becomes involved with three men: a mild-mannered real-estate agent who offers her stability, a bad-boy actor who lives dangerously on the edge, and an intense theater director who casts her in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” As opening night approaches, the emotional extremes of Nina’s love life fuel her art.
Italy in the early 1930s. To the elderly aristocrat Gerard, all that is left of Leonora, the love of his life, are a number of erotic tape recordings. She led a double life as respectable wife and mother of two, and as a whore at the local brothel. Now, after her death, her children Ursula and Edmund pass under the tutelage of Gerard. Having not seen them for many years, he is utterly bewildered by Ursula's uncanny likeness to her mother. While Gerard's mistress Fiorella takes care of Edmund's sexual needs, Ursula follows the last instructions of her mother. In the process, she uses the legacy of her mother's recordings to get into the mindset of her relationship with Gerard. Is Gerard ready to find his lost love Leonora again... in the likeness of her very daughter?
Jess Tyler lives a quiet life next to an abandoned mining factory by himself in the desert. His life is turned upside down when a sexually provocative young woman comes to visit him and tells him she's his daughter. Jess finds it hard to adapt to his newfound parenting role, as a mutual attraction grows between them.
October 1936: In the swamps north of New Orleans, sanity and reality itself are tested during the filmed interrogation of a kidnapper and murderer with ties to an ancient cult.
Horrified at the prospect of her beloved school being sold, a young French girl named Madeline uses her wit and craftiness to attempt to save it, making an unlikely new friend in the process.
Freddie is starting as a thug for Jazdec the Polish, a pimp and concealer of illicit goods. Freddy's love for Larna, whom he dreams to snatch from prostitution, drive them into jeopardy under the clutches of a Chinese Godfather. To see Larna alive, Freddie must kill the so-called Mr. Zhu, a strange Chinese Zorro who just arrived in Paris to retrieve a young runaway fellow countrywoman.
A mysterious tale set around a traditional British family on the eve of World War Two. Oblivious to the looming shadow of World War II, the wealthy Keyes maintain a confident façade in the British countryside until daughter Anne becomes an unexpected pawn. Her accidental discovery of secret recordings creates a rift in the family.
When a deadly mist engulfs Paris, people find refuge in the upper floors of the buildings. With no information, no electricity and hardly any supplies, Mathieu, Anna and their daughter Sarah try to survive the disaster.
Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.