A young boy on a mission to collect what he believes to be his father’s remains gets sucked into the underbelly of the migrant industry in Mexico.
Two drifters, one a gentle but slow giant, try to make money working the fields during the Depression so they can fulfill their dreams.
Young farmer Mikajlo while on youth labour action falls in love with a student Nada and infatuated with her, he leaves the peasant brigade and Malena, a girl who as if she were overabundant, followed him to work the labour action. Mikajlo's courtship of Nada provokes laughter and ridicule, so ambitious 'Don Juan' returns to his brigade and the girl.
Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.
In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.
In the early years of the 20th century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, a British-trained lawyer, forsakes all worldly possessions to take up the cause of Indian independence. Faced with armed resistance from the British government, Gandhi adopts a policy of 'passive resistance', endeavouring to win freedom for his people without resorting to bloodshed.
A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.
A teacher is handing out examination results to his students in an industrial school and he points out to them that work is the most important thing in a person's life. Karel is pleased with his results but Vláďa's are bad. During the holidays Karel goes off to a factory to get work experience. Vláďa prefers to laze about and read poetry. In the end, however, he decides to follow Karel's example. At first the work doesn't agree with him, but after a few days, he gets used to it and finally he is glad to be able to work in the factory. One day he is injured at work and in hospital he has time to think about his future. He tells Karel, who visits him in hospital, that he has decided not to carry on with studies which don't interest him. He feels he will be more useful if he stays on at the factory.
After a colleague is murdered, insurance worker Kafka gets embroiled in an underground group who are attempting to thwart a secret organization that controls the major events in society.
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.
At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.
After the funeral of one of their own, a criminal family decides to embark on an emotionally unnerving journey in an attempt to exact bloody revenge.
The workers in a small plough factory take over the firm, but when a large order falls through, the old management come back to help out.
Young women at a precision optics factory in wartime Japan push to exceed production quotas, enduring illness, injury, and personal hardship to “serve the country.” Led by Tsuru Watanabe, they fight fatigue and setbacks to keep their line moving—even when duty collides with grief.
Two beautiful and different girls, Alice and Lisette are 17 years old, when forcibly removed from their Alsatian family to cooperate in the war effort in Germany. After spending six months in a indoctrination camp, they are both sent to a munitions factory where they are tasked to perform inhuman works. An explosion erupts, they are suspected of sabotage and threatened with being sent to a boot camp. Alice and Lisette believe they saved when transferred to a maternity where they continue living the hell of war.
Charles Price may have grown up with his father in the family shoe business in Northampton, central England, but he never thought that he would take his father's place. Charles has a chance encounter with the flamboyant drag queen cabaret singer Lola and everything changes.
Angie is a working class woman. After being fired, she decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend, Rose. Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie builds a successful business extremely quickly.
After the war, the country is plagued by famine. The secretary party committee, Martin Kreka, leads a campaign to gather the grain that is sold in the black market.
A strike at a French sausage factory contributes to the estrangement of a married filmmaker and his reporter wife.