Le film documentaire retrace l'affaire du viol collectif ainsi que sur les témoignages des proches de la victime et de ses parents y sont présentés, ainsi que ceux des agresseurs qui ont été interviewés sur leur lieu d'incarcération.
En 1888, à Whitstable dans le Kent, une jeune écaillère d'huîtres de dix-huit ans, Nancy, va régulièrement avec sa sœur Alice au Palace, un établissement de music-hall. Elle y découvre un jour une nouvelle artiste, Kitty Butler, qui fait un numéro de travesti. Nancy s'éprend de l'artiste, et parvient à entrer à son service comme habilleuse, tout en cachant ses sentiments.
Long-time friends and small-time criminals Eddy, Tom, Soap and Bacon put together £100,000 so that Eddy, a genius card shark, can buy into one of "Hatchet" Harry Lonsdale's weekly high-stakes three card brag games. The game is rigged however, and the friends end up massively indebted to Harry, who fully expects them not to be able to come up with the money before the deadline he gives them. He has his sights set on Eddy's father's bar as repayment, and sets his debt collector Big Chris (who is often accompanied by his beloved son, Little Chris) to work in order to ensure that some form of payment is coming up.
Après des mois sans que l'enquête sur la mort de sa fille ait avancé, Mildred Hayes prend les choses en main, affichant un message controversé visant le très respecté chef de la police sur trois grands panneaux à l'entrée de leur ville.
Heroin addicts Mark Renton and Daniel "Spud" Murphy are running down Edinburgh's Princes Street pursued by store security guards. Renton's circle of friends are introduced: amoral con artist Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson (also an addict), simple-minded, good-natured Daniel "Spud" Murphy, clean-cut athlete Tommy MacKenzie, and psychopath Francis "Franco" Begbie, who picks extremely violent fights with people who get in his way.
Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) is shown in Belfast stripping lead from roofs of houses when security forces home in on the district with armoured cars, and a riot breaks out. Gerry's father, Giuseppe Conlon (Pete Postlethwaite), later saves him from IRA punishment, and he is sent off to London to stay with his aunt, for his own good. Instead, he finds a squat, to explore, as he puts it, "free love and dope". One evening by chance he gains entry to a prostitute's flat and he steals the £700 he finds stashed inside; on that evening in Guildford there is an explosion at a pub that kills four off-duty soldiers and a civilian, and wounds sixty-five others.
American pulp Western writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives in Allied-occupied Vienna seeking his childhood friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), who has offered him a job. Upon arrival he discovers that Lime was killed just days earlier by a speeding truck while crossing the street. Martins attends Lime's funeral, where he meets two British Army Police: Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), a fan of Martins' pulp fiction; and his superior, Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), who says Lime was a criminal and suggests Martins leave town.