In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.
In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.
In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.
A waitress, desperate to fulfill her dreams as a restaurant owner, is set on a journey to turn a frog prince back into a human being, but she has to face the same problem after she kisses him.
A woman resorts to prostitution out of hunger and commits suicide shortly after, leaving her daughter to embark on an equally cruel path.
A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.
A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.
On a tour of Britain in 1926, Harry Houdini enters into a passionate affair with a psychic out to con the famous magician.
Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.
In 1928, Amelia Earhart gains fame by undertaking a transatlantic flight as a passenger. In 1937, she and her navigator Fred Noonan undertake her longest flight: a round-the-world attempt. However, the plane disappears in the process.
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.
New York, 1929, a war rages between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan. Dan is in possession of a new and deadly weapon, the dreaded "splurge gun". As the custard pies fly, Bugsy Malone, an all-round nice guy, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy. His designs on her are disrupted by the seductive songstress Tallulah who wants Bugsy for herself.
Dr. Sadik Ahmet fights for the democratic rights of the Western Thrace Turkish minority living in Greece. After graduating from Athens University Faculty of Medicine, Ahmet started working as a doctor in Komotini. Ahmet entered the political struggle to defend the rights of the Western Thrace Turkish minority. He became the founding chairman of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority Advisory Board (BTTDK), which was established in 1989. Ahmet was also known internationally for his work on minority rights in Greece. Ahmet, who died in 1995, became a symbol for the Turkish minority in Western Thrace.
'Sugar' Ray is the owner of an illegal casino and must contend with the pressure of vicious gangsters and corrupt police who want to see him go out of business. In the world of organised crime and police corruption in the 1920s, any dastardly trick is fair.
Petrograd, Soviet Union, 1920s. Boris Letush, devastated by a personal tragedy, feels the need to put his conscience and his principles before the demands of the cruel system he serves, where law and justice are systematically ignored.
Befriended by aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, Oxford student Charles Ryder finds that the power and privilege experienced by the family is seductive. On a visit to the ancestral home, Brideshead, he falls in love with his friend's sister, Julia. However, as his ties to the Flytes deepen, Ryder finds himself at odds with their strong Roman Catholicism.
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.