The film portrays the aspirations, daily lives, and tragedies experienced by several people in the fictional 100-story Dwight Building in New York City, home to the Manhattan Seacoast National Bank. Among them is David Dwight, the womanizing building owner who keeps his estranged wife, Ella, happy by paying her bills. Sarah Dennet, the manager of the building's administrative office and Dwight's lover of 12 years, wants Dwight to obtain a divorce so they can marry.
The film starts with a recreation of an overly glamorized 'Hollywood' vision of a girl losing her virginity. This is juxtaposed with high schooler Mary Jane losing her virginity to Steve which is shown to be uncomfortable and not at all glamorous. Mid-coitus, Jane requests that Steve stop, and she leaves to attend a party at the local cinema at which she works.
The lives of Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman are set against the golden era of Hollywood, HUAC and the issue of McCarthyism of the 1950s. This intimate look at the lives of two of this century's literary titans follows their tumultuous affair, drinking bouts, career highs and lows, and activities in support of left-wing causes, including Hammett's public avowal of Communism and his membership in the Communist Party and Hellman's sympathies for the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union before World War II.
A sheikh from Dubai wants to buy the Flemish homing pigeon Wittekop, which is owned by Jos Pauwels, and uses an American middleman named Colin to make the deal. Although Jos is not interested in selling the pigeon, his granddaughter Isabelle is clearly interested in Colin.
Tommy, a gifted teenage composer, dreams of being accepted into the famous Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Unfortunately, a good band is hard to find in the middle of the Australian Outback—until an incident involving flying watermelons leads him to a group of talented prison inmates. He meets Kat, his love interest, as part of the story.
Brooks Mason, a top movie star, is tired of being in the public eye. He discovers that Hawaii-based businessman George Smith looks enough like him to be his twin. He arranges to switch places with Smith temporarily.
New York magazine editor Margot Sherwood "Merrick" invents a husband (who is conveniently away in remote corners of the world) mainly to safeguard her job; the magazine publisher's jealous wife has had the last two women in her position fired after mere months. It also comes in handy keeping aggressive men at bay, as Margot is determined to succeed in her career. Magazine photographer August Winkel helps by writing letters supposedly from "Tony Merrick".
Paolo, an Italian who drives a Paris tour bus, has just proposed to his true love, German stewardess, Greta, when a young French beauty, Cécile pulls up beside his bus on her bicycle – and, in short order, Paolo, following some very bad advice from his friend, Derek, finds himself with a German fiancée, a French "wife", two Australian children who call him "Papa", and his life upside-down.
The film begins with the narrator telling the audience that they used to believe that all human beings start out as seeds floating in outer space, waiting to be born. The narrator also states that every person's chance of being born depends on their parents meeting. The narrator says that their own parents met due to a chain of events that began in an apartment in 1940s Copenhagen, Denmark.
In suburban Ontario, Cliff is a young gay man who lives with his mother, Madge, an unconventional woman who owns her own chocolate delivery company, and his savvy adolescent sister, Cookie. On his 18th birthday, Cookie encourages Cliff to take a trip into Toronto, celebrate, and lose his virginity. Cookie gives him a skateboard and a joint.
Harry Lewis grew up in the Bronx, New York with grand ambitions. He married the most beautiful girl in school, Sue, and planned to become an architect. Years later, Harry and Sue, unhappy now and nostalgic for their past, are living in Los Angeles and running a garment business.
In 1850 San Francisco, Russian Countess Marina Selanova flees from an arranged marriage to Prince Semyon. She books passage with "Portugee" to Sitka, where her uncle Governor Ivan Vorashilov can protect her. When Portugee's bitter rival, Captain Jonathan Clark, "the Boston-man", frees his shanghaied crew, she sends a man to negotiate with him instead.
thumb|left|Harold Lloyd as Harold Meadows thumb|thumbtime=2|Girl Shy (1924) Harold Meadows is a tailor's apprentice for his uncle in Little Bend, California. He is so shy around women that he can barely speak to them (to stop his stuttering, his uncle has to blow a whistle). Despite this, Harold writes a "how to" book for young men entitled The Secret of Making Love, detailing how to woo different types of young women, such as "the vampire" and "the flapper" (in scenes that parodied two other popular films of the time, Trifling Women and Flaming Youth), and takes a train to see a publisher in Los Angeles.
In County Leitrim in the 1950s, Bridie has been attending the local dance hall for years in the hope of finding a good husband who can help work her family's farm. Now surrounded by younger, prettier women at the dances, she comes to the realisation that all the good men of her generation have emigrated or have been spoken for, and her only remaining hope for marriage is with the alcoholic and unreliable Bowser Egan.
Olivia Riley, a very successful New York City nightclub dancer, tires of the fast life and consents to marry Henry Linden, a wealthy farmer from Wisconsin. However, Henry's brother David is sent to New York by their domineering sister Hannah to dissuade him from marrying Olivia. In private, Olivia slaps David when he questions her integrity.
Jane is a young woman diagnosed with Asperger syndrome who is living with her parents in Queens, New York. She works as a costume designer at the theatre that Bianca (her extremely protective older sister) is acting in, playing Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Now moving into Brooklyn with her fiancé, Rob (a field journalist), Bianca learns on Jane's birthday that their parents are now moving to New Jersey and they want Jane to move in with Bianca.
Drama, LGBTQ-related film, romance film, thriller film
Mark (Matthew Montgomery) falls while rock climbing. Drew (Aaron Orr) a forest ranger saves him and watches over him at the hospital. Drew, seeing Mark suffering from amnesia, offers Mark to move in with him to try to help him out until he regains his memory.
A mother tells her daughter a real life fairy tale of a "Princess Charming" and her Sleeping Beauty. Heather (Lassez) is in love with her girlfriend Cindy (Mitchell) until one day Cindy "wakes up" and breaks up with Heather, saying she wants a "real prince". Heather works as a make up artist at Rolling Headstones Funeral Home in Los Angeles, "making dead rock-stars look good" for their next album covers.
At Roseland, an older lady, May (Wright), with a light step, looks for the memory of her husband in the ballroom's mirrors. Stan (Jacobi), a cheerful older man steers May to brandy alexanders and away from her past. Pauline (Copeland) is a middle-aged widow with the means to pay for the services of a younger gigolo, Russell (Walken) and share champagne with her Roseland friends, the dance teacher Cleo (Helen Gallagher) and the shy divorcee, Marilyn (Chaplin).
Veterinarian Elizabeth questions the relationship, after her projectionist boyfriend Max declines the marriage. Max's beautiful co-worker, Lena who is in love with him, takes advantage of his romantic troubles and wants to have him for herself, playing on his fear that Elizabeth is having an affair with her friend Jack. Depressed by Max's increasing jealousy, Elizabeth considers breaking up with him after she meets Henry.
In the film, George Lucas (Martin Hynes) is a 1967 USC college student, suffering from writer's block as he attempts to write a movie about a young space farmer with a bad crop of "space wheat". Taking a break from his work, George goes on to encounter classmates and teachers who resemble and will influence the eventual creation of, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Jabba the Hutt, R2-D2, and C-3PO. Lucas is surrounded by inspiration, but he sees nothing.
