In a small village, young Mert is about to get traditionally circumcised, but the family does not have the money to follow up with the circumcision celebration. The family wants to be able to serve lamb meat to the guests at the celebration. Mert’s older sister scares him that if they cannot afford a lamb the father will slaughter him instead.
Viridiana is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridiana resembles his dead wife. Viridiana has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridiana becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.
José Luis has a cushy corporate job at the lingerie factory his mom owns. After he falls in love and proposes to Silvia, a beautiful laborer on the underwear assembly line, his mom enlists Raul, a potential underwear model and would-be bullfighter, to seduce Silvia.
Village of Artigat, southern France, summer 1542, during the reign of Francis I. Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols marry. A few years later, accused of having committed a robbery, Martin suddenly disappears. When, almost a decade later, a man arrives in Artigat claiming to be Martin, the Guerre family recognizes him as such; but doubts soon arise about his true identity.
In this ensemble drama set in rural France, the women of the Paridier farm are left to run it by themselves while their men are off fighting in World War I. But things become complicated with the arrival of American troops.
Five unmarried sisters make the most of their simple existence in rural Ireland in the 1930s.
In August 1966, the Cultural Revolution in full swing, 13-year-old Tian Ben is arrested for playing a pop record; he's sent to a remote mountain camp in Niu-Peng. There he's called "Four Eyes" and, with about 16 other older boys and men, he's made to carry muck up a mountainside, make bricks, saw logs, and sing daily to Chairman Mao of his faults. There's camaraderie among the five youths, especially with a young pickpocket named Baimao, and Tian is also drawn to a silent monk who cares for him when he falls ill and the others expect him to die. The camp is remote, so there are no fences or walls. Tian longs to escape.
After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.
Pauline, a devoted and generous home help nurse, raises her two children alone, while also looking after her father, a former steelworker. Taking advantage of her popularity, the directors of an extremist political party suggest she become their candidate at the mayoral elections.
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.
When a willful young man tries to venture beyond his sequestered Pennsylvania hamlet, his actions set off a chain of chilling incidents that will alter the community forever.
A boy, obsessed with comparing himself with those less fortunate, experiences a different life at the home of his aunt and uncle in 1959 Sweden.
In the 1970's a young idealistic teacher arrives in a remote impoverished North East Issan village to teach in a school. He must first reform the womanizing, gambling addicted, wife beating headmaster. He helps poor families get school uniforms and books for their children.
David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate.
A young farmer in rural Yorkshire numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker.
Set in 1920, Inge travels from Germany to rural Minnesota in order to meet the man destined to be her husband.
A mother and daughter returning from their vacation experience car trouble forcing them to pull over and seek help. Luckily near by is a farm where the inhabitants offer them assistance. Unfortunately repair to the car takes longer then expected and the mother and her daughter remain as guests. As a result the peace and tranquility of the household becomes tested as the farmers traditions and principles come under question almost ending in tragedy.
A whisper among the sprawling forests and mill towns of central Newfoundland. A body found on the side of a river brings together a reclusive fur trapper and a heartsick mother-to-be. Scott is lonely and desperate to give himself meaning. Mona is strong-willed, but frustrated by her fragility. As a reluctant dependence blossoms the pair find themselves wading into violence, answering for the debts of a dead man. Stalked by outlaws, they plan an exit.
When an injured wife-murderer takes refuge on a remote Lancashire farm, the farmer’s three children mistakenly believe him to be the Second Coming of Christ.
Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.