The film starts with art supplies and dramatic music. The art supplies draw an EC Comics knockoff that the camera zooms into, showing a family on vacation. The family sees a "No Hunting" sign that seemingly says you can only hunt monsters called "tropopkins", and the kid of the family, Todd (Billy Corben), just happens to have a comic detailing what a tropopkin is.
Tony, a disaffected London office clerk, catches the train to Waterloo Station every morning. Each commuter wears a bowler hat and carries an umbrella. In the City, Tony is one of many identical clerks in a dull office, but he 'rebels' by hanging his umbrella the opposite way to those of his colleagues.
While researching his latest novel I Conquered the Desert in North Africa, Reggie Blake finds himself lost in the desert. Rescued by a Bedouin tribe, and finally shipped home, Reggie enthusiastically adopts Bedouin dress and customs, much to the frustration of his wife, Fran. She declares herself unable to live with him, so they split their home down the middle.
Ray Lloyd runs a successful Cypress Gardens water show, but star attraction Julie Hallerton is overworked and unappreciated by Ray who doesn't know she is in love with him. She fibs about pretending to marry her aquatic partner Hank (John Bromfield) to try make Ray jealous but is persuaded by Ray to accompany him to New York instead. Julie is hired to pose for a magazine lipstick ad, when handsome singer Barry Gordon takes the place of a male model and kisses her instead.
Life is going along smoothly for Jeff and Mari Thompson but not for any other couple they know, or so it seems. Everyone they know is getting divorced. Their life is disrupted when Mari's old college friend, Barbara, comes into it and begins a fling with Jeff, which causes Mari to contemplate an affair of her own.
Since her twin brother Billy died, Anna is stuck, approaching 30 whilst living like a hermit in her mum, Marion's, garden shed. She spends her days making videos, using her thumbs as actors, but shows them to no one. A week before her birthday, her mum gives her an ultimatum: she must move out of the shed, get a haircut, and stop dressing like a homeless teenager.
Aura is gifted with magical abilities; she and her friends have many exciting adventures at the academy, but soon Aura learns that the school hatches many dark secrets that she must uncover. Will she be able to unveil the truth?
Kenny, a psychotic killer with mommy issues, Monte, a charming crooked cowboy, and Maureen, Monte's beautiful oversexed wife-to-be, steal some jewels and smuggle them across the border surgically implanted inside a horse. Monte turns out to be not a sharing or marrying type of person. He saddles up, steals the horse and the jewels, and heads for his brother's ranch in Montana, where his brother and sister-in-law do not fully trust him.
Victor is a teenager who grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City. He is a cocky young man who is very sure of himself in his love life. He lives in a small apartment with his strict grandmother, bratty sister Vicki, and his younger brother Nino, who is just coming into his own sexuality and looks up to his girl-crazy brother.
After he messes up his job as wheeltapper, inept railway worker William Porter is, through family connections, given the job of station master at a remote and ramshackle Northern Irish railway station on the border with the then Irish Free State. Porter's co-workers are the elderly deputy station master, Harbottle, and the insolent young porter, Albert, who make a living by stealing goods in transit and swapping railway tickets for food. They regale Porter with tales of the deaths and disappearances of previous station masters – each apparently the victim of the ghost of One-Eyed Joe the Miller.
A young street urchin named Wheeler, half-starved, homeless and an orphan, finds a cameo containing the likeness of Queen Victoria. Not recognising the queen, he is told that she is the "mother of all England". Taking the remark literally, he journeys to Windsor Castle to see her.
While at a rooftop gathering for their twin musician friends, roommates Allie and Harper meet two guys, Russ and Sam. After the boys announce that they will be spending the day at Fort Tilden the girls make plans to meet them and bring them ecstasy. The following day, after realizing that the ferries are closed, the girls decide to bike to Fort Tilden and borrow a bike from their upstairs neighbor, Ebb.
It's All Hallow's Eve. Anson enters a convenience store where he buys sorbet and flirts with the cashier, Bethany. Nearby the employees of a Mexican Cantina & Bar, waitress Cricket, bartender Kerry, cook Yannick, busboy Hector, manager Chuy, and security guard Winketta close up the Cantina and have a small party celebrating Kerry, who is leaving to become a paramedic.
Clive, Jonesey and Nick form an aging supergroup built of refugees from other bands. They and their producer Burt seek backing from Jane, a rich investor who will only help if the lead singer will sleep with her. Liz is a neurotic film production designer who has just hired a conniving young housekeeper and would-be singer named Gwen.
Theodora Lynn is a Sunday school teacher and former church organist in Lynnfield, Connecticut, raised by two spinster aunts, Mary and Elsie Lynn. She also happens to be, under the pen name Caroline Adams, the secret author of a sensational, bestselling book replete with sexual innuendo that has the straight-laced all-female Lynnfield Literary Circle in an uproar. The book is serialized in the local newspaper, and the Literary Circle, led by outraged busybody Rebecca Perry, forces the newspaper's owner Jed Waterbury to stop printing the salacious installments.
Will Henry is a graphic novelist and art instructor, adjusting decorations for the birthday party of his five-year-old twin daughters, Clio and Colette. As he searches for his longtime partner, Charlie, he walks in on her and Gary, a monologist she's having an affair with. Charlie tells him that she's not happy and is leaving him for Gary.
Arthur, due for release from prison in four days' time, escapes to join his accomplice Anatole in robbing a night train carrying millions in cash from Paris to Brussels. The money belongs to NATO and in charge of its transit is Colonel Matthews, nicknamed 'The Brain' and the unknown mastermind behind the Great Train Robbery. In his plans for a repeat exploit, Matthews recruits a mafioso called Scannapieco to launder the money for a small percentage.
Adventure, Comedy, Family Comedy, Pirate Film, Treasure hunt
Davie (Adam Wylie), a cabin boy who was betrayed and marooned by the nasty Captain Lucky (Leslie Nielsen) on Pirate Island, escapes the captain's trap and sets up booby traps with the help of a monkey named Chester to catch Lucky and his crew when he returns to the island to recover a treasure he buried there. The captain, with a French pirate named Pierre (Eric Idle) as his first mate, returns soon after, along with his new crew. Two of the pirates are caught in a trap involving crabs.