Fired from his band and hard up for cash, guitarist and vocalist Dewey Finn finagles his way into a job as a fifth-grade substitute teacher at a private school, where he secretly begins teaching his students the finer points of rock 'n' roll. The school's hard-nosed principal is rightly suspicious of Finn's activities. But Finn's roommate remains in the dark about what he's doing.
A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.
Smoke was the Czech Rolling Stones. However, under unclear circumstances, they broke up in 1972, and each of the four former musicians came to terms with their fate as retired rockers in their own way. Each of them now has their own life and their own story. And their motives for reviving the band Smoke are also different—money, a desire for lost fame, a desire to help a friend, or to really let loose one more time. Their worlds collide and they begin to enjoy music, friendship, and life on and off stage. Not only the band members, but everyone around them is in for a lot of fun and often very surprising and comical situations. And finally, one big mystery is solved - why the band broke up in the first place.
It's no accident when wealthy Charles falls for Jean. Jean is a con artist with her sights set on Charles' fortune. Matters complicate when Jean starts falling for her mark. When Charles suspects Jean is a gold digger, he dumps her. Jean, fixated on revenge and still pining for the millionaire, devises a plan to get back in Charles' life. With love and payback on her mind, she re-introduces herself to Charles, this time as an aristocrat named Lady Eve Sidwich.
Matti and Niila, growing up in the mid-sixties in the harsh and conservative environment of a Finnish-speaking part of Tornedalen in Swedish Laponia, close to the Finnish border. Their big dream is to become rock stars. In the present the now grown-up Matti feels guilt for the death of his drug-addicted rock star friend Niila.
Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts his old band back together to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.
Everyone has 'moved on', except for Sherman and Jim Levenstein's still understanding father. Little Matt Stiffler wants to join his older brother Steve's business and, after everything Matt has heard from Jim's band-geek wife, he plans to go back to band camp and make a video of his own.
Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
A con artist escapes a deal gone wrong in New York and winds up in the Aussie outback in a strange town whose inhabitants are an oddball collection of misfits.
Mark and Mary's meet-cute happens at a neighborhood drug store, where she is busy buying a pregnancy test, and he has to make an effort to remind her they met in college. After asking her out, he accompanies her as she takes the test, and upon it showing negative, she agrees to a date. One year later, they have fallen deeply, passionately, head over heels in love, and their whirlwind romance leads to marriage. So when Mary suddenly requests they open their relationship to “ethical non-monogamy”, Mark is taken by surprise, but agrees to try it. And that's where this story really begins.
Manhattanite Ashley is known to many as the luckiest woman around. After a chance encounter with a down-and-out young man, however, she realizes that she's swapped her fortune for his.
Stowing away after a failed con, a pair of swindlers end up on El Dorado, the fabled "city of gold", where they quickly get in over their heads when they are mistaken as gods by the inhabitants.
Two twin brothers are living on a different sides of Berlin Wall after being separated after birth.
Finally released from prison, Elwood Blues is once again enlisted by Sister Mary Stigmata in her latest crusade to raise funds for a children's hospital. Hitting the road to re-unite the band and win the big prize at the New Orleans Battle of the Bands, Elwood is pursued cross-country by the cops.
Trying to get his act together, a con artist gets a job in a credit card company. He falls in love with a fellow employee, he steals a couple of cards, everything is going great. But soon, the chief of security drags him into the big leagues of criminals...
"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.
Needing a new partner capable of intricate cons, Richard Gaddis, recruits Rodrigo, a crook with a perfect poker face. The two plan a big-time scam: selling a fake Silver Certificate to currency collector William Hannigan. Rodrigo distrusts his new associate, but needs money to help out his ill father. The situation becomes more complicated when Rodrigo falls for Gaddis' sister, Valerie, drawing another player into the game.
The Leningrad Cowboys, a group of Siberian musicians, and their manager, travel to America seeking fame and fortune. As they cross the country, trying to get to a wedding in Mexico, they are followed by the village idiot, who wishes to join the band.
"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.