A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving through a series of jobs and romances that gradually shape his future.
In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.
In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.
A Polish-Jewish family comes to the U.S. at the beginning of the twentieth century. There, the family and their children try to make themselves a better future in the so-called promised land.
Every night while the city sleeps, Ahmad, a former Pakistani rock star turned immigrant, drags his heavy cart along the streets of New York. And every morning, he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. One day, however, the pattern of this harsh existence is broken by a glimmer of hope for a better life.
A boy, obsessed with comparing himself with those less fortunate, experiences a different life at the home of his aunt and uncle in 1959 Sweden.
Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.
After his beloved daughter leaves for the city to pay off his debt, an old farmer goes mad when her letters become less frequent and it is suspected she may be using her body to get the money.
Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.
In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.
Naureen Shah's life is turned upside down when her best friend, Yousef Ahmed, tries to die by suicide, a Cardinal sin in Islam. The fallout that ensues with their friendship, his family, and the greater community traps and alienates Yousef, when all he needs is the understanding and support of the people he loves.
As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.
Tobias is the new, idealistic priest in a suburb but he soon learns that his flock is quite uninterested in Christianity. However, he befriends Carolina, a chain smoking woman his age, wheelchair-bound since birth. It is opposites attract although their backgrounds are different.
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.
Chronicling one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes.
When the police reveal a narcotic smuggling the driver is shot dead. It appears that the driver is Superintendent Martin Beck's son. Beck breaks down and moves out of the way. But on his colleagues request he returns.
In this film Beck and his team are trying to find a serial killer, whose victims are spread all over Sweden. An obvious connection is that all the victims are women, and they were all in the same class, and Beck thinks that a scandal back in the past has something to do with the murders. But no one wants to talk about the past and it becomes a struggle to find the perpetrator before the final murder - only one woman is still alive.
Arn has served his term in the Holy land and returns home to be reunited with his beloved Cecilia. When he returns home, he discovers that political forces tries to separate him and Cecilia - but thanks to queen Blanka they can finally get married. Arn knows that war is looming and with his martial knowledge he starts to build an army at his new home at Forsvik.
In California, a Mexican-American laborer is falsely accused of shooting the racist farmer he was working for after the farmer stiffed him with a bad check.
Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.