A writer leaves his upper-class life and journeys with a woman claiming to be his sister, and her two friends.
Successful middle-aged farmer Samuel Sweetland becomes widowed, then his daughter marries and leaves home. Deciding he wishes to remarry, Sweetland pursues some local women he considers prospects.
Estridor
A Hong Kong pastor faces an impossible test of faith when the young man responsible for his daughter's death arrives at his church seeking both salvation and shelter.
Although Mary has little income, she still finds ways to spend her nights at clubs. After being arrested for throwing an illegal rave, she asks her aunt Judy for bail money. Judy then finds Mary a job at her library so that Mary can repay her. Initially, Mary finds the job as a clerk boring and stifling, and prefers to get to know a street food vendor whom she likes. However, Mary must refocus her life once she loses her job and apartment.
Longing to experience more of life, twentysomething preacher's daughter Angie strikes out on her own for the very first time and joins a traveling gospel show.
A 30-something man living in his van, desperate to buy a home, gets pulled back into a life of crime by his best friend and must confront Mormon gangsters while struggling with the cost of pursuing the American dream.
In the midst of a challenging season, Cody Miller learns that he's not the best pitcher—or the best teammate. Meanwhile, Cody's father John is losing to an unscrupulous lobbyist scheming to take over the family business. Both Cody and John think their only option is to fight on their own. It's not until they learn to rely on friends, teammates, and—most importantly—their faith and family that they discover that their battles can truly be won.
From her childhood, Nadia felt responsible for her mentally disturbed and recently homeless mother, Irene. For a while Nadia had cut off all contact with Irene and tried to live her life, until Irene suddenly appears drunk at the wedding of her son, Mickey. Nadia sinks back into this quagmire of love and hate, responsibility, guilt and shame. She gathers her strength to find a home for her mother while at the same time she hides from her partner, Ian, the fact that the drunk woman at her brother's wedding was her mother. But no one can oppress Irene, let alone her daughter.
The story of the two unnamed men who were crucified alongside Jesus and how they came to be beside him on the cross that fateful day. Dismas and his brother Jotham, along with Gestas, another young man who will share their fate, suffer tragedy and injustice at the hands of a band of thieves and a ruthless Roman centurion. Theirs is a story of survival against the odds, but they cannot outrun their destiny.
Two paramedics are awoken on the overnight shift for a 911 call unlike any other.
A teenage skateboarder becomes suspected of being connected with a security guard who suffered a brutal death in a skate park called "Paranoid Park".
A young half-breed boy, the son of a hockey player and an Indian woman, is adopted by a Jewish shopkeeper, but finds himself torn between the different cultures with which he comes into contact.
Two teenage pseudo-intellectual hipsters spend the day driving around their hometown in search of culture and adventure
Marvin, a heavy-drinking widower meets Tige, an 11-year-old orphan. With nowhere else to go, Tige moves in with Marvin and they develop a close friendship. Marvin wants to adopt Tige but knows that he is too poor to give him a good home. Then he discovers who Tige's father is a rich suburbanite who doesn't even know Tige exists. Should Marvin, and can he, give up the boy he loves, and who loves him, in favor of a stranger with the right genes and bank balance?
A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.
Sarah Rector, a Black girl born in early 20th-century Oklahoma Indian Territory, believes there is oil beneath the barren land she’s allotted, and her faith proves right. As greedy oil sharks close in, Sarah turns to family, friends, and some Texas wildcatters to maintain control of her oil-rich land, eventually becoming among the nation's first Black female millionaires—at eleven years old.
Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she's left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside, and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. Eventually, some eccentric but kindly strangers 'adopt' Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.