A ship carrying a touring circus troupe sinks at sea, and Lorraine, a young girl, is washed up on a deserted island. Her only companion is a gorilla from the circus, Bimi, who raises her as its own. Several years later Lorraine's wealthy grandfather, who has hired a psychic to help find her, is led by the psychic to Lorraine's island, and she and Bimi are taken back to "civiliation" in San Francisco, but things don't work out exactly as planned.
On her way to the theater, Vera, star of a Russian vaudeville troupe, is rescued from a falling girder by Eugene Foster, a wealthy broker who persists in his efforts to win the girl. Foster engages the troupe to perform at his home, and Vera, stunned by a fall, awakens to find Foster pleading his love, while Norodin, her partner who loves her, sees them embrace. Norodin, who performs an underwater stunt, asks Vera not to be present for his act and causes her to believe him dead; heartbroken, Vera tells Foster of her mistake; and enraged, he attempts to seize her. The magician appears, pins Foster to the wall with knives, and advises him to leave before the last blade is thrown.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.
A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.
At the height of the Great Depression, the showman of a renowned circus leads his troupe through the devastated American landscape, lifting the spirits of audiences along the way. During their travels, they discover a man without limbs at a carnival sideshow. However, after an intriguing encounter with the showman, he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.
The Tiger of the Farini Circus
A tiger escapes from a circus truck as it passes by a small town, and hides itself in the surrounding woods. This throws the town into a panic and everyone wants the animal killed immediately, except for the daughter of the sheriff. She wants to capture the tiger and put it in a zoo, thereby saving the tiger's life. Her determination starts a nationwide campaign among children to raise the money to buy the tiger from the circus, but first, she, her father and an Indian tiger trainer must find the tiger before the National Guard do, who have orders to kill it on sight.
Two amateur circus kids from a poor Ukrainian village, ten-year-old Barbu and his older sister Mimma, are sold to a circus artist called Caruso who promises them a career in the West.
Mati, a 70-year-old bibliophile, cannot cope with his wife's death. As loneliness and indifference overrun his thoughts, he contemplates suicide until he meets a younger man who sparks his interest in life.
A Serbian engineer falls for a younger woman, but he is inept at courtship.
During the course of one summer, a young Irish lad named Chris befriends an American boy named Joe. The two couldn't be more different, yet they become inseparable. Things turn horribly wrong however, when Chris discovers his new best friend isn't a he, but a she. The sadness only begins as Chris learns why Joe's gender must be kept a secret.
Three episodes. Faith: a woman is attacked. Hope: a fakir is crucified. Charity: a woman faces bureaucracy.
Two brothers - one a priest, one a career criminal - find bloody salvation in a mysterious underground carnival.
Jacky is a lion tamer in a traveling circus. He was born there, he has lived there, and he intends to die there. But today, he received a letter. The government is going to ban the breeding of wild animals. Soon, only animals considered domestic will be allowed in the ring. With his back against the wall, Jacky searches for a solution, but the threat looms large.
Gino finds the circus.
In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
A gorilla named Ivan who’s living in a suburban shopping mall tries to piece together his past, with the help of other animals, as they hatch a plan to escape from captivity.
A young wrestler’s only way out of his dead end town and the trauma tied to it is to fight his way onto the Australian team. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes, his fight to escape turns inward, trapping him alongside the very trauma he cannot outrun.