Richie Donovan (Stephen Dorff) works as a professional thief for Groznyi (Sean Pertwee), a wealthy businessman, to pay off his debt for being smuggled into the U.S. as a child. He pulls off an initially successful diamond heist, but it is botched when he is involved in two separate car accidents. He is given one last chance to pay off his debt by going to Russia to steal a priceless antique cross, locked in a safe in a Moscow penthouse apartment. Richie and his Russian accomplices, brothers Peter (Jamie Foreman) and Yuri (Russell Smith), recover the cross; but their elevator becomes stuck on the uncompleted 13th floor. Believing the police have stopped the elevator, the thieves take their fellow passengers hostage to negotiate an escape. They agree to send one hostage down; but, when the elevator doors open on the ground floor, the hostage has mysteriously been beheaded.
A thirty-something Dublin busker ("Guy", played by Glen Hansard) sings and plays guitar on Grafton Street, a Dublin shopping district. He struggles with the trials of performing on the street. Lured by his music, an unnamed young Czech immigrant flower seller ("Girl", played by Markéta Irglová) talks to him about his songs. Delighted to learn that he also repairs Hoovers (a brand name that became synonymous with vacuum cleaners in the United Kingdom and Ireland), she insists that he fix her broken vacuum cleaner.
County Cork, Ireland, 1920. Dr. Damien O'Donovan is about to leave his native village to practise medicine in a London hospital. Meanwhile, his brother Teddy commands the local flying column of the Irish Republican Army. After a hurling match, Damien witnesses the summary execution of his friend, Micheál Ó Súilleabháin, by British Black and Tans. Although shaken, Damien rebuffs his friends' entreaties to stay in Ireland and join the IRA, saying that the war is unwinnable. As he is leaving town, Damien witnesses the British Army vainly trying to intimidate a railway guard and the train driver for refusing to permit the troops to board. In response, Damien decides to stay and is sworn into Teddy's IRA brigade.
In the film, the Taliban are ruling Afghanistan. Their regime is especially repressive for women, who, among other things, are not allowed to work. This situation becomes difficult for one family consisting solely of three women, representing three successive generations: a young girl, her mother, and her grandmother. With the mother's husband and uncle dead, having been killed in battle during the Soviet invasion and their civil wars, there are no men left to support the family. The mother had been working as a nurse in a hospital, but the Taliban cut off funding to the hospital, leaving it completely dysfunctional with no medicines and very little equipment. One foreign woman working as a nurse in the hospital is arrested by the Taliban. The mother does some nursing outside the hospital and receives payment from the caretaker of a patient, but after the patient dies the mother cannot find any more work.
A mutated strain of mad cow disease infects the Irish countryside, turning people into ravenous, flesh-eating zombies. Caught amid this chaos are a young Spanish tourist and the local gravedigger. Together, this unlikely duo must fight for survival or become part of the Zombie Fest.
The movie is set around a small group of characters experiencing relationships which build and crumble before the viewers eyes. The title of the film refers to the belief, expressed by several of characters, that the goldfish retains a memory of something for only three seconds. Tom, one of the principal characters in the film, draws comparisons between this and the human tendency to jump from one relationship to the next, "forgetting" the pain that any previous one might have caused. The film shows complexities involved in straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships. Writer/director Liz Gill says the film was influenced by the work of directors Robert Altman and Richard Linklater, particularly Linklater's film Slacker.
In 1982, Johnny and Sarah Sullivan and their daughters Christy and Ariel enter the United States on a tourist visa via Canada, where Johnny was working as an actor. The family settles in New York City, in a rundown Hell's Kitchen tenement occupied by drug addicts, transvestites, and a reclusive Nigerian artist/photographer named Mateo Kuamey. Hanging over the family is the death of their five-year-old son Frankie, who died from a brain tumor. The devout Roman Catholic Johnny questions God and has lost any ability to feel true emotions, which has affected his relationship with his family. Christy believes she has been granted three wishes by her dead brother, which she only uses at times of near-dire consequences for the family as they try to survive in New York.
Ivan Cooper organise une marche pacifique pour l'égalité des droits entre catholiques et protestants, en Irlande du Nord. Mais la manifestation dégénère et des manifestants sont abattus par des soldats de l'armée britannique. Cette fusillade sanglante a fait 13 morts et 14 blessés par balles. Une 14e victime mourra quelques mois plus tard succombant à ses blessures.
The film revolves around the intense relationship of the two teenage protagonists, Darren (Cillian Murphy) and Sinéad (Elaine Cassidy), nicknamed "Pig" and "Runt". Pig and Runt were born at the same hospital at nearly the same time and grow up right next door to each other. This brings about a very close relationship between the two that borders on telepathic. They live in their own world and barely communicate with the world around them. However, up until their seventeenth year, their relationship remains one of friendship, albeit a very intense unhealthy one.
After his usual night of drinking at the local pub, Hubert Flynn (Pete Postlethwaite) returns home and transforms into a rat. Hubert's family each have different views on him now that he became a rodent. His wife Conchita (Imelda Staunton) thinks that this change is supposed to be a lesson to Hubert and that the reason he transformed is his own fault. Their son Pius (Andrew Lovern), destined for a religious life, feels that because his father is now an animal, his family should kill him. Their daughter Marietta (Kerry Condon) feels that the rat is still her father and that they should treat him with love and respect.
Adam is a young Dubliner who ingratiates himself into the Owens family after meeting Lucy at the restaurant where she waits tables and sings. While wooing her, he becomes involved with her more reserved older sister Laura, a romantic literary type who spends most of her time at the library, her oldest married sister Alice, a new mother who's unhappy with her boring husband Martin, and her brother David, who seeks Adam's advice on how to seduce his repressed girlfriend, only to find himself nearly succumbing to Adam's charms himself.
The story is based on the myth of King Arthur. A young, inexperienced squire Valiant, masquerading as Sir Gawain, is sent to accompany the Welsh princess Lady Ilene, a guest at Camelot, on her way back home. Little he knows that, meanwhile, the evil sorceress Morgan le Fay has convinced the Viking warlord Sligon, ruler of the kingdom of Thule, to steal the magical sword Excalibur during a joust tournament. Valiant and the princess become part of the struggle of "he who holds the sword rules the world" which leads them both to love and Valiant to his princely destiny, as it turns out he is the rightful heir to the throne of Thule. The usurper is eventually killed by his brother Thagnar, who also captures Ilene. In a final confrontation, the villains are killed and Valiant rescues the princess and recovers Excalibur.