In 1947, widow Lora Meredith (Lana Turner) dreams of becoming a famous Broadway actress. Losing track of her young daughter Susie at the beach (portrayed as a child by Terry Burnham), she asks a stranger named Steve Archer (John Gavin) to help her find the girl. Susie is found and looked after by Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore), a black single mother who also has a daughter, Sarah Jane (portrayed as a child by Karin Dicker), who is about Susie's age. Sarah Jane inherited her father's fair skin and can pass for white. She does this with fierce zeal and fervor, taking advantage of her European heritage and features. In return for Annie's kindness, Lora temporarily takes in Annie and her daughter. Annie persuades Lora to let her stay and look after the household, so that the widow can pursue an acting career.
Laura Reynolds (Taylor) is a free-spirited, unwed single mother living with her young son Danny (Morgan Mason) in an isolated California beach house. She makes a modest living as an artist and home-schools her son out of concern that he will be compelled to follow stifling conventional social norms in a regular school. Danny has gotten into some trouble with the law through two minor incidents, which are in his mother's eyes innocent expressions of his natural curiosity and conscience rather than delinquency. Now with a third incident a judge (Torin Thatcher) orders her to send the boy to an Episcopal boarding school where Dr. Edward Hewitt (Burton) is headmaster, and his wife Claire (Eva Marie Saint) teaches. Edward and Claire are happily married with two young sons, but their life has become routine and their youthful idealism has been tamed by the need to raise funds for the school and please wealthy benefactors.
Spoiled playboy Bob Merrick's (Rock Hudson) reckless behavior causes him to lose control of his speed boat. Rescuers send for the nearest resuscitator, located in Dr. Phillips's house across the lake. While the resuscitator is being used to save Merrick, Dr. Phillips suffers a heart attack and dies. Merrick ends up a patient at Dr. Phillips's clinic, where most of the doctors and nurses resent the fact that Merrick inadvertently caused Dr. Phillips's death.
The film begins in 1644 during the English Civil War, as we see a group of Roundheads pursuing a Cavalier's carriage. The carriage drives into the country where its passengers abandon a baby, named Amber, on the doorstep of a farming cottage. The roundheads soon catch up with the carriage and kill all the passengers while the farmers discover and decide to adopt Amber.
Self-destructive, alcoholic nymphomaniac Marylee (Dorothy Malone) and her insecure, alcoholic playboy brother Kyle (Robert Stack) are the children of Texas oil baron Jasper Hadley (Robert Keith). Spoiled by their inherited wealth and crippled by their personal demons, neither is able to sustain a personal relationship.
In 1875, Clio Dulaine (Ingrid Bergman), the illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic New Orleans Creole father and a light-skinned Creole woman of color who was his placée, returns from Paris to her birthplace in Rampart Street to avenge her mother's mistreatment at the hands of her father's family, the Dulaines. Years ago, Clio's mother accidentally killed Dulaine when he tried to prevent her from committing suicide, and the scandalized Dulaines then exiled Clio and her mother to Paris. Clio is accompanied by her Haitian maid, Angelique (Flora Robson), and her dwarf manservant, Cupidon (Jerry Austin).
Don Rodrigo, Count of Albrit, an old Spanish aristocrat, returns to turn-of-the-20th-century Spain after losing his fortune in America. The death of his only son has made him come back to his family estate, now in possession of his daughter-in-law Lucrecia. Upon his return, Don Rodrigo is pleased to meet his granddaughters, Dolly and Nelly, both of whom are adorable and attentive towards him. However, there is something nagging Don Rodrigo.
In 1931, China is embroiled in a civil war. Friends of British Captain Donald "Doc" Harvey (Clive Brook) envy him because the fabulously notorious Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich) is a fellow passenger on the express train from Beiping to Shanghai. Since the name means nothing to him, they inform him that she is a "coaster" or "woman who lives by her wits along the China coast" – in other words, a courtesan. On the journey, Harvey encounters Lily, who turns out to be his former lover, Magdalen. Five years earlier, she had played a trick on Harvey to gauge his love for her, but it backfired and he left her. She frankly informs him that, in the interim, "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." When Lily makes it clear that she still cares deeply for him, it becomes apparent that his feelings also have not changed, and he shows her the watch she gave him with her photograph still in it.
K and Cream first meet each other in high school & both are orphans; K was abandoned by his mother after his father died of cancer who nevertheless left him a sizable sum of money, while Cream lost her entire family in a traffic accident. The two become soulmates and come to share a home, though K watches Cream switch from boyfriend to boyfriend as he keeps his own feelings for her to himself. Knowing that Cream's biggest fear is to be left alone, K keeps the fact that he has terminal cancer a secret, and instead he urges her to marry a kind and healthy man. When Cream announces that she is in love with affluent doctor Joo-hwan, K is left heartbroken, but is satisfied that she has met her ideal partner.
In New York City, a performance by noted violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield) is cancelled. At his apartment, Boray is at rock bottom emotionally. His manager Frederic Bauer (Richard Gaines) is angry with him for misunderstanding what a performing career would be like, and for thinking that music is no longer part of his life. To the more sympathetic Sid Jeffers (Oscar Levant), Boray says he has always wanted to do the right thing, but has always been "on the outside, looking in," and cannot "get back to that happy kid" he once was.
The movie tells the story of Elizabeth (Colbert) and John (Welles), a married couple recently separated when John goes off to fight in World War I. When Elizabeth receives notice of John's death, she marries another man (George Brent). John, however, is still alive, and later returns, but after being disfigured in the war he has undergone plastic surgery, making him almost unrecognizable. He has also adopted an eight-year old daughter (Wood). When he finds out that he has a son with Elizabeth, he is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to reveal his true identity.
Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is an affluent widow in suburban New England, whose social life involves her country club peers, college-age children, and a few men vying for her affection.
During World War II an American war correspondent, Bill Wainwright (played by Crosby), was stationed in Paris. He met and fell in love with a French singer, Lisa Garret (played by Maurey). They married and had a son, Jean.
The film tells of Marguerite Gautier (Greta Garbo). She's born into a lower-class family, but in time becomes the well known Dame Camille living in high society in Paris.
Doctor Otternschlag (Lewis Stone), a disfigured veteran of World War I and a permanent resident of the Grand Hotel in Berlin, wryly observes, "People come and go. Nothing ever happens", after which a great deal transpires. Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore), who squandered his fortune and supports himself as a card player and occasional jewel thief, befriends Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), a meek accountant who, having discovered he is dying, has decided to spend his remaining days in the lap of luxury. Kringelein's former employer, industrialist General Director Preysing (Wallace Beery), is at the hotel to close an important deal, and he hires stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) to assist him. She aspires to be an actress and shows Preysing some magazine photos for which she posed, implying she is willing to offer him more than typing if he is willing to help advance her career.