Though young Jane Austen's financially strapped parents expect her to marry the nephew of wealthy Lady Gresham, Jane herself knows that such a union will destroy her creativity and sense of self-worth. Instead, she becomes involved with Tom Lefroy, a charming but penniless apprentice lawyer who gives her the knowledge of the heart she needs for her future career as a novelist.
A young East German woman leaves her controlling husband/business partner and relocates to a West German city to start anew as an accountant, but he soon catches up with her.
A scientist discovers that there's gold on the moon. He builds a rocket to fly there, but there's too much rivalry among the crew to have a successful expedition.
The story of a century: a decades-long second World War leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel.
Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.
Four young adults who try to commit suicide on the same day become friends.
Jimi, a computer game designer, finds that his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game, Solo. Tormented by the memory of his fled girlfriend Lisa and begged by Solo to end its useless "life", Jimi begins a search for people who can help him both to discover what happened to Lisa and to delete his game before it is released.
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.
Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.
In the near future, a police officer specializes in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he begins to uncover a homicidal plot to create killer robots... and his son becomes a target.
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
In the last days of 1999, ex-cop turned street hustler Lenny Nero receives a disc which contains the memories of the murder of a prostitute. With the help of bodyguard Mace, he starts to investigate and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of murder, blackmail and intrigue.
A teenage girl gets diagnosed with a reproductive condition that upends her plans to have sex and propels her into exploring unusual methods to have a sex life, challenging her relationships with everyone in her life, but most importantly, herself.
In a totalitarian future society, a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.
It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers band together to defend their town—and their country—from invading Soviet forces.
TV cameraman Harry Hinkle is injured while filming a football game. Seeing big dollar signs, his unscrupulous ambulance-chasing lawyer brother-in-law Willie Gingrich enters the picture, and convinces Harry to overstate his injuries and claim $1 million in pain and suffering. Harry's similarly-minded ex-wife suddenly reappears in an attempt to rekindle their relationship.
In a dystopian future, insurance fraud investigator William Gold arrives in Shanghai to investigate a forgery ring for "papelles", futuristic passports that record people's identities and genetics. Gold falls for Maria Gonzalez, the woman in charge of the forgeries. After a passionate affair, Gold returns home, having named a coworker as the culprit. But when one of Gonzalez's customers is found dead, Gold is sent back to Shanghai to complete the investigation.
Time-traveling bounty hunters find a doomed race-car driver in the past and bring him to 2009 New York, where his mind will be replaced with that of a terminally ill billionaire.
In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.
The perfect killing machine is reprogrammed to think and feel.