Eugenie, a beautiful but shy young girl, lives with her stepfather, a famous writer specializing in stories of erotica. One day she happens to read one of his "erotic" books and its power so affects her that begins to find herself sexually attracted to her stepfather. He notices this, and eventually brings her into his dark world of sexual perversion and murder.
Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living, receives an unexpected visit from an old friend asking for help.
Khaila Richards, a crack-addicted single mother, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while high and returns the next day in a panic to find he is missing. In reality, the baby has been adopted by a warm-hearted social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, Khaila has gone through rehab and holds a steady job. After learning that her child is still alive, she challenges Margaret for the custody.
Maggie Yearwood moves to a new town to be near her son, Peter, who has gone deaf as the result of an accident and is now attending a special school. She moves into a small house next door to Owen Whister and soon falls in love with the cowboy, who harbors a dark secret...
Newspaper reporters compete with London police to solve a murder.
In the midst of the Great Depression, manipulative emcee Rocky enlists contestants for a dance marathon offering a $1,500 cash prize. Among them are a failed actress, a middle-aged sailor, a delusional blonde and a pregnant girl.
A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.
In post-Katrina New Orleans, a Syrian-born painting contractor assisting in the rescue effort finds he's suspected of being a terrorist.
An illiterate village girl defies the customs of her tribe, discriminatory to women, only to become the spark of a Literary Revolution.
When Ernest Shackleton is given the ship Endurance to reclaim the record for the furthest south expedition, his journey is cut short when his ship becomes trapped in the ice pack and begins to sink.
Based on the revolutionary novel by Jose Rizal, the story follows Crisostomo Ibarra, a young Filipino man who returned from his studies in Europe, who discovered that his father was falsely imprisoned and abused by the Spanish friars, including Padre Damaso. While he is making plans to uplift the lives of his fellow countrymen, he faced resistance from the Spanish colonial government.
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Dai grows up in a small town, interpreting for his loving deaf parents, until he moves to Tokyo in search of his own independent life.
Wada, a salary man, is enlisted to venture off to China to investigate a potential Jade mine. After his arrival, Wada encounters a violent, yet sentimental, yakuza, who takes the liberty of joining his adventure through China. Led on their long and disastrous journey to the mine by Shen, the three men come across something even more magical and enticing.
The devious general Cethegus plays the Byzantine and Gothic forces against each other for his own gain.
In 1943, a childless couple, the Čížeks, decide to hide a Jewish refugee, David Wiener, the son of Čížek's former employer, in the secret pantry of their apartment. Čížek is aware of the danger into which he has brought his household and his neighbours, but he takes helping his fellow man in need for granted. But at the same time, as a largely unheroic hero, he is dying of fear. His personal situation is greatly complicated by the approaching end of the war, when he faces danger from both the Germans and his "honest" fellow Czechs...
The young Katelijne grows up in a strict Protestant peasant family. As the only girl between six brothers, she is hardly involved in farm work and is excluded from daily conversations. Hereby she lets her imagination run free by surrendering to Biblical stories, gossip and even fairy tales, although she is not allowed to read them. During her brother's wedding, however, she overwhelms her family with literature, saying goodbye to her childhood.
Gloucester's illegitimate son Edmund frames his legitimate son Edgar, who is then declared wanted. To avoid arrest, Edgar pretends to be insane and joins Lear in exile.
The story of Raimundo, an illiterate man who in his youth had his secret love brutally interrupted and who for fifty years kept a letter from him that he was never able to read.
Two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, struggle to survive in the countryside after escaping from an animal research laboratory. They're pursued by search parties and then the military after rumours spread that they could be carrying the bubonic plague.