The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
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 pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
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.
A young man discovers the reason his new bride killed herself.
The wanderer Rascal embarks on a psychotic and contradictory journey to break out of the ego bubble in which his self-loathing and isolation have inserted him in. After his metamorphosis, his soulmate, Paloma, makes him realize that life is as complicated as it is simple - and that all that's left to do is to live.
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.
After struggling with years of severe depression, Mark has decided that today is the day to end his misery. There seems to be no moral or spiritual philosophy that can bring about Mark's salvation and convince him that suicide is not the most pragmatic choice to make. Driven by this cold, hard logic he decides to cut himself off from those around him and end his life, but no matter how he tries to accomplish his task, life frustratingly impedes his goal. Throughout his journey, many would-be saviors attempt to convince him that life does in fact have meaning and is worth living. Can any of them get through to Mark and change his mind?
A lesbian stripper lives with her lover, a novelist with writer's block who cheats on her with another woman.
"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
A businessman who lives from blackmailing begins to be blackmailed by his own wife who hates him.
Will Graham is a former London crime boss who has left his former life to live as a recluse in the forest. Haunted by the blood of those he has murdered, Will wishes never to return. But when his brother commits suicide following a sexual assault at the hands of a volatile car dealer, Will returns to London to discover the cause of his brother's death and administer justice to those responsible.
Ken, a WWII GI, returns home after he's paralyzed in battle. Residing in the paraplegic ward of a veteran's hospital and embittered by his condition, he refuses to see his fiancée and sinks into a solitary world of hatred and hostility. Head physician, Dr. Brock cajoles the withdrawn Ken into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Norm, Leo and Angel begin to pull him out of his spiritual dilemma.
Frustrated, because he is forced to produce bad TV-shows, a manager of a TV-station, enters the station and manipulates the ratings, to initiate a TV-revolution.
A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex.
Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.
Second Screen follows David, a fitness influencer who begins to develop an addiction to social media. As this takes a drastic turn in order to keep his online persona intact, will he able to deal with the reality he faces in front of him?
Philippe, Didier, Georges and Edina were born on the same day. The three boys have always been in love with Edina, but she's always put them off. They set off in search of her and find her posing for a photographer. Seeing them, she flees and dies in the process. By mutual agreement, the three boys commit suicide to join her.
The story about the relationship between a manic depressive man, Mr. Jones, and the female doctor who takes more than a professional interest in his treatment.