At a fairground in rural Northern Ireland, IRA foot soldier Fergus (Stephen Rea) and a unit of other IRA fighters, including a woman named Jude (Miranda Richardson) and led by Maguire (Adrian Dunbar), kidnap Jody (Forest Whitaker), a black British soldier, after Jude lures him to a secluded area with the promise of sex. The IRA demands the release of jailed IRA members, threatening to execute Jody in three days if their demands are not met. Fergus is tasked to guard Jody and develops a bond with the prisoner, much to the chagrin of the other IRA men. During this time, Jody tells Fergus the story of the Scorpion and the Frog.
In the 1st century BC, the Roman Republic has slid into corruption, its menial work done by armies of slaves. One of these, a proud and gifted man named Spartacus, is so uncooperative in his servitude that he is sentenced to fight as a gladiator. He is trained at a school run by the unctuous Roman businessman Lentulus Batiatus, who instructs Spartacus's trainer Marcellus to bully the slave mercilessly and break his spirit. Amid the abuse, Spartacus forms a quiet relationship with a serving woman named Varinia, whom he refuses to rape when she is sent to "entertain" him in his cell.
Frida begins just before the traumatic accident Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) suffered at the age of 18 when a trolley bus collided with a motor bus she was riding. She is impaled by a metal pole and the injuries she sustained plague her for the rest of her life. To help her through convalescence, her father brings her a canvas upon which to start painting. Throughout the film, a scene starts as a painting, then slowly dissolves into a live-action scene with actors.
In Toronto, 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim, bass guitarist of floundering garage band Sex Bob-omb, is dating high schooler Knives Chau, to the disapproval of his friends. Scott meets an American Amazon.com delivery girl, Ramona Flowers, having first seen her in a dream, and loses interest in Knives. As Sex Bob-omb plays in a battle of the bands sponsored by one "G-Man Graves," Scott is attacked by Ramona's ex-boyfriend Matthew Patel. Scott defeats Patel and learns that, in order to date Ramona, he must defeat the remaining six evil exes. He had previously been made aware of this in an email that he received from Patel, warning him of the attack, but dismissed it as "boring.
First-time crook Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), his friend Salvatore "Sal" Naturale (John Cazale), and Stevie (Gary Springer) attempt to rob the First Brooklyn Savings Bank. The plan immediately goes awry when Stevie loses his nerve shortly after Sal pulls out his gun, and Sonny is forced to let him flee the scene. In the vault, Sonny discovers that he and Sal have arrived after the daily cash pickup, and only $1,100 in cash remains in the bank.
In 1931 Berlin, young American Sally Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives. A reserved academic and writer, Brian gives English lessons to earn a living while completing his doctorate. Sally tries seducing Brian and suspects he may be gay. Brian tells Sally that on three previous occasions he has tried to have physical relationships with women, all of which failed. They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's anarchic, bohemian life in the last days of the German Weimar Republic. Sally and Brian become lovers despite their earlier reservations; they conclude that his previous failures with women were because they were "the wrong three girls".
Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) is working in the toy department of a department store in New York during the Christmas season. She is approached by a woman, Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett), and she purchases a model train set for her daughter as a gift on her recommendation. She accidentally leaves her gloves on the counter, and Therese mails them back to her home in New Jersey. Meanwhile, Carol is going through a difficult divorce with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), and is struggling to maintain custody of their daughter Rindy. Out of loneliness and gratitude for her kind act, Carol invites Therese to lunch, and they strike up a friendship. Carol invites her to her home for the holiday. Therese, who is also an aspiring photographer, takes several pictures of her as she buys a Christmas tree. Harge, who is suspicious of his wife's relationship with Therese following a brief tryst that she had years earlier with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson), leaves on a trip to Florida and takes Rindy with her.
Three young women—Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers), and Petronella "Pet" Danforth (Marcia McBroom)—perform in a rock band, The Kelly Affair, managed by Harris Allsworth (David Gurian), Kelly's boyfriend. The four travel to Los Angeles to find Kelly's estranged aunt, Susan Lake (Phyllis Davis), heiress to a family fortune.
Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a married lesbian couple living in the Los Angeles area. Nic is an obstetrician, and Jules is a housewife who is starting up a landscape design business. Each has given birth to a child using the same sperm donor.
The film uses an omniscient narrator to provide information on the characters and their personal life, historical Mexican events, and the settings depicted in the film. These "footnotes" also reveal the economic and political issues in Mexico, particularly the impoverished lifestyle of people living in rural areas across the country.
On Christmas Eve, 1989, aspiring filmmaker Mark Cohen, and his roommate, Roger Davis, learn that the rent previously waived by their former friend and landlord, Benjamin “Benny” Coffin III, is due. At the same time, their former roommate Tom Collins shows up and gets mugged in an alleyway. Meanwhile, Mark and Roger meet with Benny, who tells them he plans to evict the homeless from the nearby lot and build a cyber studio in its place. He offers them free rent if they can get Maureen, Mark's ex-girlfriend, to cancel her protest against his plans, but they refuse.
Anita "Needy" Lesnicki, once an insecure and bookish teenager living near Devil's Kettle, Minnesota, is now a violent mental inmate who narrates the story as a flashback while in solitary confinement. She has been friends with a selfish and popular cheerleader, Jennifer Check, since childhood, despite having little in common. One night, Jennifer takes Needy to a local dive bar to attend a concert by indie rock band Low Shoulder. A suspicious fire engulfs the bar, killing several people, and Jennifer, who is in shock, agrees to leave with the band despite Needy's protests. Later that evening, Jennifer, covered in blood, appears in Needy's kitchen and proceeds to eat food from the refrigerator. Unable to digest the matter, she vomits a trail of black, spiny fluid and then leaves in a hurry as Needy calls after her.
The story takes place involving three different people who all work together in the same supermarket over the 24 hour period leading up to Christmas. Ronna (Sarah Polley) is broke and about to be evicted from her apartment. Despite having worked for 14 hours, she agrees to take her British co-worker Simon's (Desmond Askew) shift. While working, she's approached by two men, Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr), who ask if she can come up with 20 hits of ecstasy, which they were hoping to buy from Simon. Realizing she can make some money from the deal, she goes to Simon's dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant). Because she doesn't have enough money, Ronna has to leave her friend and co-worker Claire (Katie Holmes) with Todd until she makes her deal. Once she tries to make the deal, she grows suspicious when Burke (William Fichtner), a person she never met before and who is with Adam and Zack, presses her for the drugs. In a panic, she flushes the drugs down the toilet and manages to get out. Ronna then swaps the pills she flushed with aspirin pills she steals with the help of Mannie (Nathan Bexton), Ronna and Claire's friend (and also co-worker in the supermarket), who had swallowed two of the pills without knowing their strength. Ronna hands off the pills to Todd and she, Claire and Mannie make their way to a rave party. Todd soon realizes that he's been given fake pills and goes after Ronna. Mannie sees Todd coming and Ronna hides Mannie when he starts to become sick. In the parking lot of the party Todd confronts Ronna, but before he can shoot her a car runs her over and dumps her off the side of a small cliff, leaving her fate unknown.
Anthony "Tick" Belrose (Hugo Weaving), using the drag pseudonym of Mitzi Del Bra, is a Sydney-based drag queen who accepts an offer to perform his drag act at Lasseter's Hotel Casino Resort managed by a female friend named Marion in Alice Springs, a remote town in central Australia. After persuading his friends and fellow performers, Bernadette Bassinger (Terence Stamp), a recently bereaved transsexual woman, and Adam Whitely (Guy Pearce), a flamboyant and obnoxious younger drag queen who goes under the drag name Felicia Jollygoodfellow, to join him, the three set out in a large tour bus, which Adam christens "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" for a four-week run in the Australian Outback town.
Ned Rochlin (Paul Rudd) is a biodynamic farmer living with his girlfriend, Janet (Kathryn Hahn). While selling produce at a local market, Ned sells marijuana to a uniformed police officer due to the officer's claim that he had a stressful week, which made Ned feel sympathetic after initially being skeptical. Ned is then arrested on a charge of selling drugs.