Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir) works as a gardener with Blasco Martinez (Joaquín Cosio) in Los Angeles, California. Blasco wants to return to Mexico and continually tries to persuade Carlos to purchase his business from him, which includes the work truck and gardening tools. Carlos's son Luis (José Julián) is in high school and is dating Ruthie Valdez (Chelsea Rendon), the niece of a local gang leader. Luis regularly goes to her house after school where gang members congregate. Luis is embarrassed by his father and, although he does not wish to follow in his footsteps, has a hard time committing himself to his education. However, his relationship with Ruthie and his friendship with Facundo (Bobby Soto) pushes him toward becoming a gang member.
An organized crime war breaks out between two rival gangs in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties. The leader of the Southside Mob is the notorious Al Capone, who resents his nemesis George "Bugs" Moran's activity in the city. Moran, too, wants control of the town's bootlegging and gambling operations. His lieutenants Peter and Frank Gusenberg use threats and intimidation to make tavern owners do business with them in exchange for "protection." Moran gives the order to have a crony of Capone's eliminated as the Chicago body count escalates. Inclusive are flashbacks to a lunchtime attack on Capone at a restaurant outside of Chicago by Hymie Weiss and Moran in September 1926 and the murders of Weiss in October 1926 and Dion O'Banion in November 1924 by Capone's gang.
It is a dramatization of the career of crusading New York City police officer Joseph Petrosino, a pioneer in the fight against organized crime in America. The film deals primarily with Petrosino and his Italian Squad's opposition to the extortion rackets of the Black Hand in lower Manhattan's Little Italy.
At home in his New York City apartment, John Shaft is drugged with a tranquilizer dart, then kidnapped and persuaded by threats of physical force, the promise of money, and the lure of a pretty tutor to travel to Africa (much of the movie was filmed in Ethiopia), assuming the identity of a native-speaking itinerant worker. His job is to help break a criminal ring that is smuggling immigrants into Europe then exploiting them. But the villains have heard that he is on his way.
After opening with a brief, seemingly irrelevant scene of a suitcase on an airport carousel, the story quickly focuses on a Paris divorce court where Karol Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski) is pleading with the judge — the same legal proceedings that Juliette Binoche's character briefly stumbled upon in Blue. The immigrant Karol, despite his difficulty in understanding French, is made to understand that his wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) does not love him. The grounds for divorce are humiliating: Karol was unable to consummate the marriage. Along with his wife, he loses his means of support (a beauty salon they jointly owned), his legal residency in France, and the rest of his cash in a series of mishaps, and is soon a beggar. He only retains a 2 franc coin.
Julie (Juliette Binoche), wife of the famous composer Patrice de Courcy, must cope with the death of her husband and daughter in an automobile accident she herself survives. While recovering in the hospital, Julie attempts suicide by overdose, but cannot swallow the pills. After being released from the hospital, Julie, who it is suggested wrote (or helped to write) much of her husband's famous pieces, destroys what is left behind of them, finishes an affair she has been having during her marriage, and closes up the house she lived in with her family. She takes an apartment in Paris without telling anyone, leaving behind all her clothes and possessions, and taking only a chandelier of blue beads that the viewer assumes belonged to her daughter.
The film opens in 1900 as Roberto Colombo, an Italian-American attorney living in the Little Italy section of New York City, is killed by gangsters as he meets with a police officer to give information about an attempt to extort money from him. His widow and son return to Italy where his widow dies. In 1908, his son Giovanni Colombo (Gene Kelly) returns to New York City, determined to conduct a vendetta against the men who killed his father. He meets up with childhood friend Isabella Gomboli (Teresa Celli) and police detective Louis Lorelli (J. Carrol Naish), both of whom try to dissuade him.
In 1960, Danny Greene is a union worker at the Cleveland docks. Despite union rules, the workers are exploited by their boss, Jerry. As a result of gambling, Art owes a large amount of money to John Nardi. He asks Greene for help, so Greene visits Nardi and makes him an offer to deal with the debt. Nardi accepts the deal. Jerry warns Greene not to oppose him in the union's upcoming election, and demands half of what Greene has earned from his deal with Nardi. After failing to kill Greene, Jerry loses the union's election. As the new president, Greene improves the working conditions at the docks. He also marries his girlfriend Joan.
(Note: There are several stories interwoven throughout the movie. For simplicity, they are separated out in this description, each with its own paragraph.)
Murielle et Mounir, un couple heureux, va se marier et avoir des enfants sous le toit du bienveillant Docteur Pinget. Petit à petit, les relations deviennent complexes, étouffent le couple et la famille, qui ne se doutent pas de la fin tragique vers laquelle ils tendent.
Eddie Coyle (a.k.a. "Eddie Fingers") is an aging delivery truck driver for a bakery. He is also a low-level gunrunner for a crime organization in Boston, Massachusetts. He is facing several years in prison for a truck hijacking in New Hampshire set up by Dillon, who owns a local bar. Coyle's last chance is securing a sentencing recommendation through the help of an ATF agent, Dave Foley, who demands that Coyle become an informer in return. Unbeknownst to Coyle, Dillon is an informer for Foley.
In 1950, a Hungarian couple, Peter and Margit, are forced to flee from their oppressive Communist country for the USA with their eldest daughter Maria. Unfortunately, they are forced to leave behind their infant daughter, Suzanne, who is raised by a kind foster couple. Five years later, Peter and Margit arrange for the American Red Cross to bring Suzanne to their new home in Los Angeles. There, the perplexed young girl is forced to accept her sudden change in home and country, which leads to a troubled upbringing. At age 15, Suzanne, rebellious and unsure of herself, tries to come to terms with her roots and decides to travel back to Budapest, Hungary, to unravel her past and to find her true identity.
"Here is the All-American Canal. It runs through the desert for miles along the California-Mexico border... Farming in Imperial Valley... [requires] a vast army of farm workers... and this army of workers comes from our neighbor to the south, from Mexico. ... It is this problem of human suffering and injustice about which you should know. The following composite case is based upon factual information supplied by the Immigration and Naturalization Service..."
Le cœur gros, Maya a laissé sa mère a Cuernavaca pour émigrer aux États-Unis. Après bien des péripéties, elle arrive à Los Angeles où vit depuis longtemps sa sœur ainée Rosa. Énergique et décidée, Maya décroche un premier job de serveuse dans un bar de nuit puis obtient de Rosa, employée dans une entreprise de nettoyage, qu'elle la présente à son directeur, Perez. Devenue femme de ménage, Maya se retrouve au milieu d'une armée d'employées de toutes les nationalités, qui travaillent dans des conditions inacceptables. Maya refuse de se soumettre.