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.
At the end of an extraordinary situation in the village, when the people of the village cannot reach the government, they try to break a curse by organizing various rituals under the leadership of the Mukhtar and Kadir. After a while, the government official who comes to the village will confront the villagers with another reality in an authoritarian manner.
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.
Trapped within an eerie mist, the residents of Antonio Bay have become the unwitting victims of a horrifying vengeance. One hundred years earlier, a ship carrying lepers was purposely lured onto the rocky coastline and sank, drowning all aboard. Now they're back – long-dead mariners who've waited a century for their revenge.
Two tigers are separated as cubs and taken into captivity, only to be reunited years later as enemies by an explorer (Pearce) who inadvertently forces them to fight each other.
During the War of 1812 against Britain: General Andrew Jackson has only 1,200 men left to defend New Orleans when he learns that a British fleet will arrive with 60 ships and 16,000 men to take the city. In this situation an island near the city becomes strategically important to both parties, but it's inhabited by the last big buccaneer: Jean Lafitte. Although Lafitte never attacks American ships, the governor hates him for selling merchandise without taxes - and is loved by the citizens for the same reason. When the big fight gets nearer, Lafitte is drawn between the fronts. His heart belongs to America, but his people urge him to join the party that's more likely to win.
A man of humble beginnings and honest intentions rises to power by nefarious means. Along for the wild ride are an earnest reporter, a heretofore classy society girl, and a too-clever-for-her-own-good political flack.
Michel wants to go home.
The wealthy plantation owner Pinaud is brutally murdered in Ceylon. His attractive German wife Anne is suspected of the crime and arrested by Inspector Cerdan. He is ordered to take her to Colombo. But the plane on the way there gets caught in a heavy storm and crashes shortly afterwards. Anne Pinaud and Cerdan are the only survivors of the crew and save themselves on a desert island. There they come across Werner Becker, who has been shipwrecked with his yacht and is also stranded here. While Cerdan continues to believe Anne is guilty of the crime, Werner believes she is innocent. Soon the tension between the two men builds up and they become rivals for Anne's favor.
Set on a tropical island in Thailand, the strange plight of a beleaguered chef who, while romancing a mysterious woman, discovers the diabolical Zen of cooking. Following a near death escape, he returns to Montreal and falls hard for the woman of his life who unfortunately craves only his cooking but not his loving. Worse still, strange things surfacing around him indicate that his journey to the Far East has deep, divine implications. The stage is set for him to take the 1st bite of true love and end the cycle of suffering for all involved.
The south sea island Tonga is full of plantations and scoundrels. Ellen Bradford arrives expecting marriage to respectable and successful plantation owner only to find he is a drunk and gambler. Being the only white woman she is the desire of scoundrels and cut-throats.
A young man who arrives at a remote island finds himself trapped in a battle for his life.
A sinister fortress on an island where the sun never seems to shine. An officer whose values have long gone a thing of the past.
A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...
A middle-aged Louisiana governor falls in love with a young stripper, which jeopardizes his political career and the radical policies which have made him a controversial figure.
A young wizard accidentally conjures a spell that puts her family in jeopardy.
A young American woman returns to her Greek roots in search of her real father. Accompanied by her stepfather, she shatters the very myths designed to protect her. She uncovers an unlikely relationship between those who raised her, a globe-trotting photojournalist and Athanasia. Athanasia, a girl with no right in life. A choice of nature, but not of her community. Angela finds her father and discovers her mother.
A young man befriends the last surviving Civil War veteran, intending to rob him of $50,000.
Three years into their loving marriage, with two infant daughters at home in Los Angeles, Nicholas Arden and Ellen Wagstaff Arden are on a plane that goes down in the South Pacific. Although most passengers manage to survive the incident, Ellen presumably perishes when swept off her lifeboat, her body never recovered. Fast forward five years. Nicholas, wanting to move on with his life, has Ellen declared legally dead. Part of that moving on includes getting remarried, this time to a young woman named Bianca Steele, who, for their honeymoon, he plans to take to the same Monterrey resort where he and Ellen spent their honeymoon. On that very same day, Ellen is dropped off in Los Angeles by the Navy, who rescued her from the South Pacific island where she was stranded for the past five years. She asks the Navy not to publicize her rescue nor notify Nicholas as she wants to do so herself.
During World War II, South Sea beachcomber Walter Eckland is persuaded to spy on planes passing over his island. He gets more than he bargained for as schoolteacher Catherine Frenau arrives on the run from the Japanese with her pupils in tow!