Rolf Köster has been working as a cashier in a small bank branch for years. Every day passes like the day before. He has a thirteen-year-old daughter who would rather write in a diary than speak and a six-year-old son who has to wear a bicycle helmet because he is constantly banging his head against walls. His wife organizes the whole family life, and Rolf stays in the background. But he has doubts as to whether he, who has "everything", is really happy. Then Rolf is unexpectedly given a week's vacation. He decides not to tell his family and to leave the house as usual. Rolf Köster begins to lead a double life.
A mouthy and feisty taxicab driver has hot tips for a green and inept cop set on solving a string of New York City bank robberies committed by a quartet of female Brazilian bank robbers.
37-year-old Italian-American widow Loretta Castorini believes she is unlucky in love, and so accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Johnny, even though she doesn't love him. When she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, an emotional and passionate man, she finds herself drawn to him. She tries to resist, but Ronny, who blames his brother for the loss of his hand, has no scruples about aggressively pursuing her while Johnny is out of the country. As Loretta falls for Ronny, she learns that she's not the only one in her family with a secret romance.
Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.
Quirky and rebellious April Burns lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites the clan to her place for Thanksgiving. While her father struggles to drive her family into the city, April -- an inexperienced cook -- runs into kitchen trouble and must ask a neighbor for help.
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.
A con artist finds herself torn between a no-strings relationship with her partner in crime and a new romantic spark with a potential target.
After a particularly embarrassing performance, a struggling Polish actor chooses to quit his acting troupe. In desperation, he returns home, only to find his dying mother has replaced him with a farm hand from a nearby mental institution. Alienated and depressed, he attempts to find his place in the world by driving out his replacement as completely as possible.
A widower and his daughter witness the retirement of a colleague of his and the closing of her department at her university.
When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.
In Marseilles a skilled pizza delivery boy Daniel who drives a scooter finally has his dreams come true. He gets a taxi license. Caught by the police for a huge speed infraction, he will help Emilien, a loser inspector who can't drive, on the track of German bank robbers, so he doesn't lose his license and his dream job.
After his mother's death, 17-year-old Sven moves in with his dad Achim, a taxi driver, who had divorced his mother several years earlier. It is not easy for Achim to get used to an adolescent around the house, especially since Sven hardly speaks to him. But Sven does well in school, and Achim hopes that time will bring them closer together. It is Achim's girlfriend Julia who first senses that something is wrong with Sven. Why, she wonders, does he always hang around with young boys? Why does not he have any friends his own age? She suspects that he is gay. The truth, however, is somewhat more nuanced - and chilling: Sven has pedophile tendencies. Proof is soon found on videos that shock and sicken Achim. Sven himself is shattered and regrets his actions. Julia suggests therapy, but Achim is convinced that he and Sven can handle this together. But he is wrong. Though Sven practically begs his father to lock him up in his room, Achim has confidence in his son.
A desperate husband chases a bus full of beautiful women headed for Paris, France.
A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.
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.
It's about a serial killer with terminal cancer who leaves numbered cards on his victim's bodies, a girl who falls in love with him, a loser cabbie who becomes the prime suspect, an old asshole police sergeant, and a radio reporter who takes the law into his own hands.
When widowed cabbie Ray and retired teacher Jim meet by chance, they discover they long for the same things from life: adventure, challenge and love. Together Ray and Jim discover that being 64 means a new beginning: it's time to try the things they never dared in their youth.
Lincoln Rhyme was the department's top homicide detective and leading expert in criminal forensics until an injury left him paralyzed, depressed, and incapable of working. But when a gruesome murder in Manhattan leaves detectives baffled, they call on Rhyme to help solve the mystery. Amelia Donaghy, a rookie cop whose quick thinking preserved a gruesome murder scene, is enlisted by Rhyme to be his on-the-scene forensics expert. With Amelia reluctantly acting as Rhyme's able-bodied go-between, the pair piece together cryptic clues the killer leaves behind at the scene of the crime, hoping to catch the grisly serial killer.
A henpecked housewife ekes out a meager existence, surrounded by a host of colorful characters: her ungrateful husband, her delinquent sons, her headstrong mother-in-law, and her sex worker neighbor, among others.