Le film a été tourné à la frontière franco-belge dans Le Courtil, un Institut Médico-Pédagogique pour enfants souffrant de troubles psychiques. Mariana Otero décrit l'ambition de son film en ces termes :
Le romancier Harlan Thrombey convie dans son manoir sa famille, aussi excentrique que dysfonctionnelle, pour célébrer son 85e anniversaire. Mais le lendemain matin, le riche patriarche est retrouvé mort la gorge tranchée. Alors que tout indique un suicide, le détective privé Benoit Blanc s'invite dans l'enquête de l'inspecteur Elliott et commence à suspecter un meurtre.
Sabina Spielrein arrives at the Burghölzli, the pre-eminent psychiatric hospital in Zurich, with a typical case of hysteria and begins a new course of treatment with the young Swiss doctor, Carl Jung. He is using word association and dream interpretation as part of his approach to Freud's radical new science of psychoanalysis, and finds that Sabina Spielrein's condition was triggered by the humiliation and sexual arousal she felt as a child due to her short-tempered father's habit of spanking her naked. These conflicting feelings were compounded by her instinctive knowledge (imparted by an angel's voice that speaks in German) that she had done nothing to deserve such a punishment and in fact that she may have been a stand-in for her mother in her father's abuse (since her mother was unfaithful). Also, her affluent Russian Jewish family afforded her an exceptional education in preparation for university study, although not on the subject of sex, and she was a virgin.
Thornton Melon's is a rags-to-riches story. The son of an Italian immigrant tailor, he is shown as a boy (Jason Hervey) in his father's shop, bearing a report card with poor grades. His ambition is to go into his father's line of work, but his father reprimands Thornton for his poor schoolwork, and tells him no matter how hardworking, skilled or wealthy one may be, "if a man has got no education, he has got nothing".
Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is a restaurant owner in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, with a loving wife Edie (Maria Bello), teenage son Jack (Ashton Holmes), and young daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes). One night two men (Stephen McHattie and Greg Bryk) attempt to rob the restaurant. When a waitress is threatened, Tom deftly kills both robbers with surprising skill and precision. He is hailed as a hero by his family and the townspeople, and the incident makes him a local celebrity.
Archie Moses (Adam Sandler) is a small time crook and a thief who lives in Los Angeles, and he is working for a local drug lord Frank Colton (James Caan). He is unaware that his best friend Rock Keats (Damon Wayans) is actually an LAPD undercover cop, with a real name being Jack Carter, who is seeking evidence against Colton, and he befriended Moses only to infiltrate Colton's gang.
While serving in the Gulf War, Lt Col Serling (Denzel Washington) accidentally destroys one of his own tanks during a confusing night-time battle, killing his friend Cpt Boylar. The US Army covers up the details and transfers Serling to a desk job.
The story is set during 1917 and 1918, leading into American involvement in World War I, in the central California coastal towns of Monterey and Salinas. Cal (James Dean) and Aron (Richard Davalos) are the sons of a modestly successful farmer and wartime draft board chairman, Adam Trask (Raymond Massey). Cal is moody and embittered by his belief that his father favors Aron. Although both Cal and Aron had long been led to believe that their mother had died "and gone to heaven," the opening scene reveals Cal has apparently learned that his mother is still alive, owning and running a successful brothel in nearby Monterey.
Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a widower, and his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), are corrections officers in a local state prison. They reside in Georgia with Hank's ailing father, Buck (Peter Boyle), a racist whose wife committed suicide.
Professor Kantorek gives an impassioned speech about the glory of serving in the Army and "saving the Fatherland". On the brink of becoming men, the boys in his class, led by Paul Baumer, are moved to join the army as the new 2nd Company. Their romantic delusions are quickly broken during their brief but rigorous training under the abusive Corporal Himmelstoss, who bluntly informs them, "You're going to be soldiers—and that's all."
At the beginning of the film, we learn that the story takes place in one of many alternate worlds, in which a person's soul is contained within an animal companion called a dæmon (pronounced demon). The Magisterium, represented as a unified religious power, exercises power in the secular world. Lyra Belacqua, an orphan that resides in Jordan College, in a city that resembles Oxford, with her dæmon Pantalaimon (Pan), accidentally witnesses a Magisterium member poison her uncle's bottle of Tokay. Lyra then warns her uncle, Lord Asriel, who instructs her to remain in hiding. Lyra watches Asriel give a presentation regarding Dust, a particle that the Magisterium has forbidden the mention of. The college gives Asriel a grant to fund a northern expedition.
Miles Raymond is an aspiring – but unsuccessful – writer, a wine aficionado and a divorced, depressed, borderline alcoholic middle-aged English teacher living in San Diego, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and college roommate Jack Cole, on a road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Though still recognized on occasion, Jack's acting career appears to have peaked years ago, when he co-starred in a popular TV soap but now does commercial voice-overs and plans to enter his future father-in-law's successful real estate business after he's married. Miles wants to spend the week relaxing, golfing, enjoying good food and wine; however, much to Miles' consternation, Jack is on the prowl and wants one last sexual fling before settling into domestic life.
Manoel Martinez, planteur de la Jamaïque en vacances à Paris, tombe amoureux de la superbe Olivia de Montana. Il se bat pour sa bien aimée afin de faire triompher sa passion.
In 1984, Soviet submarine Captain First Rank Marko Ramius (Connery) commands Red October, a new Typhoon-class nuclear sub featuring a caterpillar drive, rendering it undetectable to passive sonar. Ramius leaves port on orders to conduct exercises with the V.K. Konovalov, commanded by his former student Captain Tupolev (Skarsgård). Once at sea, Ramius kills political officer Ivan Putin (Firth), and commands the crew to head toward America's east coast to conduct missile drills.
The story begins with an adult Frank Walker telling an off-screen audience about his attendance at the 1964 New York World's Fair as a child. In the flashback, he meets David Nix, an official who is unimpressed with Frank's limited jet pack. Frank does draw the attention of a young girl named Athena. Seeing his potential, Athena gives Frank a pin embossed with a "T" symbol and tells him to follow her aboard the fair's "It's a Small World" attraction. Frank sneaks onto the ride, where his pin is scanned and he is transported into a futuristic cityscape known as Tomorrowland. He falls from a ledge, but straps on his jet pack and lands safely before Nix and Athena.