A drifter lives in people's houses while they are away and repays them by doing chores for them. His life changes when he meets a beautiful woman who wants to escape her unhappy marriage.
When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
When former Green Beret John Rambo is harassed by local law enforcement and arrested for vagrancy, he is forced to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipulating him for her criminal boyfriend.
Hear from the prosecutors who handled Susan Smith's case and why authorities doubted her story from the beginning. The boys' father, David Smith, talks about why he believes 30 years in prison isn't long enough for Susan and what he's prepared to tell a SC Board of Pardons and Paroles to keep her behind bars.
Rosario Inzulìa, a young man involved with the Mafia, was sentenced to labor camp, forced to pay also for crimes he didn't commit. After eight long years of imprisonment he's finally released. Rosario goes back to Sicily, where he learns that his wife died in an accident. He tries to rebuild his life, but when he finds out that his wife was murdered, he decides that it's time to take action: alone against the Mafia!
A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.
A rush-hour fender-bender on New York City's crowded FDR Drive, under most circumstances, wouldn't set off a chain reaction that could decimate two people's lives. But on this day, at this time, a minor collision will turn two complete strangers into vicious adversaries. Their means of destroying each other might be different, but their goals, ultimately, will be the same: Each will systematically try to dismantle the other's life in a reckless effort to reclaim something he has lost.
A disc jockey, a pimp and an Italian tourist escape from jail in New Orleans.
A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.
After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.
The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.
After assuming his dead cellmate's identity to get with his girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself the reluctant participant in a casino heist.
Ramón Sampedro is a ship mechanic and part-time poet left a quadriplegic following a diving accident. Ramón fought for 30 years for the legal right to end his own life. He develops close relationships with his long-term lawyer Julia and his friend Rosa, who tries to convince him that his life is worth living. Despite his situation, Ramón manages to inspire those around him to live life to the fullest.
Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.
Emel works at Osman's club. There she meets Kemal and they fall in love. They decide to get married. Kemal's man Mahmut, gets Kemal into a pretended drugs business and causes Kemal to go to Tehran. Kemal writes letters to Emel but they are kept by Mahmut and Emel never sees them. Mahmut calls Kemal to Istanbul.
Jess Koster is a young attorney in Los Angeles, who is being stalked by the serial killer she is prosecuting.