As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
Libby Parsons, wrongly convicted for her husband Nick's murder, thinks he is still alive and wants to settle the score and find their son. As she has been tried for the crime, she cannot be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills Nick.
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.
Anna Zaccheo is a beautiful young woman from a working class Neapolitan family. Her main concern is to find herself a suitable husband. She meets a young sailor Andrea one day and gets engaged to him. But while she is waiting for Andrea to return from the navy she gets raped by her boss. Her life suddenly takes a downward spiral.
A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison for committing a crime of passion.
Simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet; he uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.
Inspector “Flatfoot” Rizzo investigates crime and corruption in Naples.
The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.
After her release from prison Alex, who has lost her faith in love, tries to reclaim her psychic balance through a retreat into loneliness. A man and a child interrupt her plan and force her to reengage. Alex dares to emerge from her shell and learns again how thin the ice is and how fragile happiness is, small though it may be.
A portrait of Rita, who claims that her mother was never a mother for her. Rita gives birth to her own five children and forces her mother to take the role of a mother.
In an Edo-era women's prison, Ochiyo manages to escape execution during a fire and becomes determined to seek revenge against her harsh jailers.
Demetrio Perez is a tough prosecutor torn between the corruption inherent in his job and the desire to do right by his family. But when opportunity presents itself and his daughter Thea falls in love with a Mafioso’s son, Perez has to cut through the morality of his law-abiding roots and become as dirty as the dangerous criminals he represents.
Linda Blair plays Carol, a young woman who must serve 18 months in prison after driving drunk and killing a man. The prison turns out to be brimming with decadence, corruption and sleaze, where the other female inmates are sadistic crack-selling lesbian rapists and the guards and warden are no better.
A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.
Female prisoners endure the horrors of drug abuse, prostitution and rampant sadism at an island prison. When an escape attempt goes awry, the fugitives discover that escaping can be as dangerous as remaining in the prison.
In this made-for-television movie, a woman (Ann Jillian) is sent to prison for assisting her good-for-nothing boyfriend in an embezzling scheme.
A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.