In 1920s Bagheria, Giuseppe 'Peppino' Torrenuova works as a shepherd to financially help his poor family. Over the next fifty years, Giuseppe's life, as well as the life of the village, is observed. Giuseppe grows up, joins the Communist Party, marries a local girl, has children, and forges a political career for himself.
While searching for a condo in Berlin for his father, Nick meets Philipp, a young talented photographer and a gorgeous actress named Lilli. There is instant chemistry and both are easily seduced by Nick's charms. Lilli and Philipp begin to explore their relationship with the sexy visitor, succumbing to their passionate affections for him which intensifies their volatile emotional and physical bonds. But what Philipp and Lilli don't realize is that they are being lured into Nick's manipulative..and deadly, love game.
Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she's left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside, and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. Eventually, some eccentric but kindly strangers 'adopt' Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.
Successful surgeon Tomas leaves Prague for an operation, meets a young photographer named Tereza, and brings her back with him. Tereza is surprised to learn that Tomas is already having an affair with the bohemian Sabina, but when the Soviet invasion occurs, all three flee to Switzerland. Sabina begins an affair, Tom continues womanizing, and Tereza, disgusted, returns to Czechoslovakia. Realizing his mistake, Tomas decides to chase after her.
Mark, a cameraman who aspires to work on serious Hollywood films but can only find work making porno loops, turns to murder when his personal and professional frustrations reach their breaking point.
Photographer Charles Castle is numbed with grief following the death of his beautiful bride. He goes off to war, working in the trenches as a photographer. Following the war and still in grief Charles is given some photographs purporting to be of fairies. His search for the truth leads him to Burkinwell, a seemingly peaceful village seething with secrets
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.
Photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson for four days in the 1960s.
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.
After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”
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 Polish filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who became a propaganda hero in the 1950s but later fell out of favor and disappeared.
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.
A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.
Set in 18th-century Eastern Europe, the film concerns the star-crossed romance between a Polish military officer and a gorgeous Slavic princess. The princess' vengeful lover cuts a path of death and destruction throughout the land.
After the war, in Bucharest, a young Romanian poet arrested for having written an article denouncing Stalinist crimes, will save his life by accepting to become a hostage of the regime.