An alcoholic man and his two young children barely survive in Taipei. They cross paths with a lonely grocery clerk who might help them make a better life.
Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.
The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.
Lilja lives in poverty and dreams of a better life. Her mother moves to the United States and abandons her to her aunt, who neglects her. Lilja hangs out with her friends, Natasha and Volodya, who is suicidal. Desperate for money, she starts working as a prostitute, and later meets Andrei. He offers her a good job in Sweden, but when Lilja arrives her life quickly enters a downward spiral.
A poor construction worker, who struggles to keep his son in private school, mistakes an orb he finds in a junkjard for a toy which proves to be much, much more once the young boy starts to play with it.
Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby union team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.
After running away from his negligent parents, committing a violent crime and being sentenced to five years in jail, a hardened, streetwise 12-year-old Lebanese boy sues his parents in protest of the life they have given him.
After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.
Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.
Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the sport is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes.
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
Sex, politics and American culture are mixed into a combustible combination in Now & Later. Angela is an illegal Latina immigrant living in Los Angeles who stumbles across Bill, a disgraced banker on the run. She takes him in. Through passionate sex, soul-searching conversations ranging from politics to philosophy, and other worldly pleasures, Angela introduces Bill to another worldview. As their affair heats up, the course of Bill's life begins to take an abrupt and unexpected turn.
An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.
Bill Dancer and his young companion Curly Sue are the classic homeless folks with hearts of gold. Their scams are aimed not at turning a profit, but at getting enough to eat. When they scam the rich and beautiful Grey Ellison into believing she backed her Mercedes into Bill, they're only hoping for a free meal. But Grey is touched, and over the objections of her snotty fiancé.
After discovering her father put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared, 17-year-old Ree Dolly must confront the local criminal underworld and the harsh Ozark wilderness in order to to track down her father and save her family.
In 1916, a Chicago steel worker accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend and little sister to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer.
Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.
In 1847, when Ireland is in the grip of the Great Famine that has ravaged the country for two long years, Feeney, a hardened Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, returns home to reunite with his estranged family, only to discover the cruelest reality, a black land where death reigns.
Fashion icon Coco Chanel, steeped in wealth and fame, still issues game-changing designs and collections. The audience is taken backwards in time to the woman's upbringing in an orphanage, and traces her path to ubiquity as it winds through poverty, wars, doomed romances, and rather glamorous betrayals.
This incredibly disturbing story follows the exploitation of an apprentice butcher, Hermógenes, and his trial after he murders his boss in broad daylight. Hermógenes, a farmhand from northern Argentina, relocates to Buenos Aires in search of a better life for himself and his young wife, but soon finds himself at the mercy of a corrupt boss. The film is based on a thorough investigation of a real event that happened in Buenos Aires 10 years ago. Almost every scene in the film is inspired by real facts or based on well documented daily practices of the “meat business” and its environment. Both a shocking exposé of unscrupulous practices in the meat industry and a heart-wrenching personal story, El Patrón became one of the most successful Argentine films of 2014.
In the French harbor city of Le Havre, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa into the path of Marcel Marx, a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoe-shiner. With innate optimism and the tireless support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials pursuing the boy for deportation.
In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.
A fast-talking lawyer transforms his body and takes a vow of silence, not to be broken until he finds out who killed his wife and daughter and has his revenge.
A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random.
Oona, a recent graduate in anthropology, has returned to her dead mother’s seaside cottage in southern England to prepare it for sale. Her arrival disturbs Mani, a wary vagrant who has been squatting on the property.
For all his life, wealthy businessman Wesley Deeds has done what's expected of him and has settled into a predictable routine. His scripted life begins to change, however, when he meets Lindsey Wakefield, a struggling single mother who works as a night janitor for his corporation and has just been evicted. He offers to help Lindsey get back on her feet and, though he's already engaged, romantic sparks begin to fly. Suddenly, he finds himself torn between what is expected of him and what he really wants.
Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.
Inspired by a true story, “Beyond the Blackboard” is about a 24-year-old first-time teacher who makes a difference in the lives of the homeless children she teaches in a shelter’s makeshift classroom. Set in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this movie tells the story a brand-new teacher and Mom who is given a tougher than expected teaching job and winds up teaching homeless children in a school that is housed in a room and called, literally, The School with No Name. She has some personal prejudicial hurdles to cross before she is able to be a true teacher for these children and of course there are hurdles like the lack of books and supplies.
Miso lives from day to day by housekeeping. Cigarettes and whiskey are the two things that get her through the day. As cigarette prices and rent start to rise, Miso decides to give up her house for cigarettes and whiskey, leading her to couch surf with old friends while reconsidering her place in life.
Desperate to be rid of her toddler, a dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to babysit and ends up getting much more than she bargained for.
15-year-old Rocks fears that she and her little brother Emmanuel will be taken into care and forced apart if anyone finds out that their mother has left them. Against all odds, and with the help of her loyal friends, she evades the authorities and navigates the most defining days of her young life.
A journalist from an Eastern European country arrives in Paris to start a tour of European capitals. His intention is to make a documentary about the European dream. Between fascination and difficulty of adaptation, Sorgoï struggles to complete his project and his expedition drives him to a devastating state of madness.
Billy is the self-designated leader of a group of teenagers living in a shelter. Jacob and Rae, Billy's oldest childhood friends, live there as well as part of "the family". Billy has an AIDs-like virus, which he has passed on to his blood brother Jacob. Billy and Rae are boyfriend and girlfriend, much to the dismay of Jacob who has always loved Rae from afar. Billy's philosophy of life, and how that interfaces with having a deadly virus, comes to a head when Billy and Jacob compete in a very unique game of "Tag", with the future of Rae and "the family" dependent upon the outcome.
Two misfit best friends incapable of growing up, whose direction is tested by an abandoned child, worn beyond his years; together they invent the family they've always needed.
Melody, 28 years old, a confused child born under the name X, decides to rent out her body in order to get the money she needs to realize her dream: opening a hair-dressing salon. To do so, she accepts to carry the child of Emily, a rich English woman 48 years old who can no longer have children. To make sure everything goes well and keep an eye on her future child, Emily decides to welcome Melody into her home and stay by her side throughout the pregnancy. Although they first appear to come from completely different worlds, the two women end up adopting each other: Melody finds in Emily the mother she never had, and Emily sees in Melody the daughter she always wanted to have. Evidently, the bonds that emerge during this double maternity create all sorts of doubts and questions.
In this verité-style drama, Anthony, a newcomer to San Francisco, attempts to come to terms with his abusive ex-lover when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a street hustler.
EKAJ is a love story between two drifters, a naive teenager and a hustler. Ekaj meets Mecca who takes him under his care. Mecca has AIDS and multiple problems of his own. He is high all day but still manages to be the only voice of reason in Ekaj’s hopeless world. They cruise the city together looking for money and places to stay. Although Ekaj makes some money as a prostitute, he finds himself discarded, and lacking what it takes to survive in the city. Their mutual loneliness leads to genuine friendship.
Join Jason on a chemically enhanced trip through the streets of Dublin as he stumbles from one misguided adventure to another. Somewhere between the DJs, decks, drug busts and hilltop raves, he stumbles across a familiar face from the past, his brother Daniel. Daniel is an educated homeless heroin addict living on the streets of Dublin. The brothers haven’t seen or spoken to each other in years but over a lost weekend they reconnect and reminisce over tunes, trips, their history and their city. Two brothers living on the edge but perhaps they have more in common than they think.