A young woman hanging clothes on a line happily points out the arrival of "manine" or puffballs floating on the wind. The old man pottering beside her replies, "When puffballs come, cold winter’s done." In the village square, schoolboys jump around trying to pluck puffballs out of the air. Giudizio (Aristide Caporale), the town idiot, looks into the camera and recites a poem to spring and the swirling, drifting "manine."
An ex-prostitute, Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), tries to start a new life selling vegetables with her 16-year-old son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo). When he later finds out that she was a prostitute, he succumbs to the dark side with the petty theft of a radio in a hospital and goes to prison.
Nana (Anna Karina), a beautiful Parisian in her early twenties, leaves her husband and infant son hoping to become an actress. Without money, beyond what she earns as a shopgirl, and unable to enter acting, she elects to earn better money as a prostitute. Soon she has a pimp, Raoul, who after an unspecified period agrees to sell Nana to another pimp. During the exchange the pimps argue and in a gun battle Nana is killed. Nana's short life on film is told in 12 brief episodes each preceded by a written resume. Godard introduces other idiosyncrasies to focus the viewer's attention.
On Saturday, March 24, 1984, five students report at 7:00 a.m. for all-day detention at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois. While not complete strangers, each of them comes from a different clique, and they seem to have nothing in common: the beautiful and pampered Claire Standish, the state champion wrestler Andrew Clarke, the bookish Brian Johnson, the reclusive outcast Allison Reynolds, and the rebellious John Bender.
The film starts with a figure running desperately towards a motorway bridge, with a factory belching smoke in the background, to a soundtrack of Mein Herz brennt by Rammstein. When the figure turns around the film introduces the audience to Lilja, who has recently been brutally beaten. The film reveals her past.
As the film opens, Joe Buck (Jon Voight), a young Texan working as a dishwasher, dresses in new cowboy clothing, packs a suitcase, and quits his job. He heads to New York City hoping to succeed as a male prostitute for women. Initially unsuccessful, he succeeds in bedding a well-to-do middle-aged New Yorker (Sylvia Miles), but Joe ends up giving her money.
In December 2002, Mikael Blomkvist, publisher of Millennium magazine, loses a libel case involving allegations he published about billionaire financier Hans-Erik Wennerström. He is sentenced to three months in prison and a hefty fine. Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant but damaged surveillance agent and hacker, is hired by Henrik Vanger, the patriarch of the wealthy Vanger family, to investigate Blomkvist. Vanger then hires Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet, who vanished on Children's Day in 1966. Vanger believes that Harriet was murdered by a family member.
A dysfunctional and sometimes violent romance happens between Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a middle-aged, wealthy Frenchman, and a young, impoverished and beautiful flamenco dancer from Seville, Conchita, played by Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina. The two actresses each appear unpredictably in separate scenes, and differ not only physically, but temperamentally as well.
Lulu (Louise Brooks) is the mistress of a respected, middle-aged newspaper publisher, Dr. Ludwig Schön (Fritz Kortner). One day, she is delighted when an old man, her "first patron," Schigolch (Carl Goetz), shows up at the door to her apartment. However, when Schön also arrives, she has Schigolch hide on the terrace. Schön breaks the news to Lulu that he is going to marry Charlotte von Zarnikow (Daisy D'ora), the daughter of the Minister of the Interior. Lulu tries to get him to change his mind, but when he discovers the disreputable-looking Schigolch, he leaves. Schigolch introduces Lulu to Rodrigo Quast (Krafft-Raschig), who wants her to join his new trapeze act.
Five female sex workers are employed at Dreamland, a licensed brothel near the Sensōji(浅草寺)Temple in Tokyo's Yoshiwara district. As the Diet considers a ban on prostitution, the women's daily dramas play out. Each has dreams and motivations. Hanae is married, her husband unemployed; they have a young child. Yumeko, a widow, uses her earnings to raise and support her son, who's now old enough to work and care for her. The aging Yorie has a man who wants to marry her. Yasumi saves money diligently to pay her debt and get out; she also has a suitor who wants to marry her, but she has other plans for him. Mickey seems the most devil-may-care, until her father comes from Kobe to bring her news of her family and ask her to come home.
Thymian Henning (Louise Brooks), the innocent, naive daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning (Josef Rovenský), is puzzled when their housekeeper, Elisabeth (Sybille Schmitz), leaves suddenly on the day of Thymian's confirmation. It turns out that her father got Elisabeth pregnant. Elisabeth's body is brought to the pharmacy later that day, an apparent suicide by drowning, upsetting Thymian.