After a brief introduction to some of the main characters of the story, the beginning sees a group of Rishis, led by Vishvamitra, performing a Yajna in a forest not far from Ayodhya, the Capital of the Kingdom of Kosala. This Yajna, like several before it, is interrupted and destroyed by a group of flying demons led by Ravana's relation Maricha. After seeing yet another Yajna destroyed, a despondent Vishvamitra appeals to Lord Vishnu for salvation. Vishnu appears in a spiritual blaze of light, informing him of his saviour- Prince Rama of Ayodhya, first-born of King Dasharatha. Vishvamitra travels to Ayodhya to meet the King and requests him to offer Rama's services to help destroy the demons in the forests. Although the Solar Dynasty King is reluctant at first to send the young lad, he is reassured by the resident Rishi that no harm will come to him and even encouraged to send his third son Lakshmana as an accompaniment.
Subhadra (the sister of Balarama and Krishna) marries a Pandava named Arjuna, and their son Abhimanyu falls in love with Balarama's daughter, Sasirekha. The families decide to marry them when they reach adulthood. By the time Abhimanyu and Sasirekha grow up, the Pandavas have lost a dice game to the Kauravas due to Sakuni's manipulation. Krishna, furious at an action of Dussasana that has insulted Draupadi, saves Draupadi. Balarama teaches the Kauravas a lesson and later reaches Hastinapuram. Sakuni and Duryodhana respect Balarama; after manipulating him, they seek his favour by requesting that Sasirekha be married to Duryodhana's son Lakshmana Kumara. They intend to force Balarama and Krishna to support them if the Pandavas wage war after their fourteen-year exile. Unaware of this, Balarama accepts.
Nathu (Om Puri), a Chamar, is finishing his work in his shop when the thekedar (Pankaj Kapur) walks in and asks him to entice a pig from a nearby piggery into his shop and kill it for the Veterinary doctor who needs it for medical purposes. Nathu tries to decline saying he has never killed a pig before and doesn't have the necessary skill for it, offering instead to tan the hide if required provided the people from the piggery kill it. Thekedar insists that he wants Nathu to do it and gives him 5 rupees for it and leaves the shop saying that the work must be done by morning when the jamadar will come to take the carcass.
The film is concerned chiefly with four topics: Chełmno, where mobile gas vans were first used by Germans to exterminate Jews; the death camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau; and the Warsaw Ghetto, with testimonies from survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators.
In Kraków during World War II, the Germans had forced local Polish Jews into the overcrowded Kraków Ghetto. Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German, arrives in the city hoping to make his fortune. A member of the Nazi Party, Schindler lavishes bribes on Wehrmacht (German armed forces) and SS officials and acquires a factory to produce enamelware. To help him run the business, Schindler enlists the aid of Itzhak Stern, a local Jewish official who has contacts with black marketeers and the Jewish business community. Stern helps Schindler arrange loans to finance the factory. Schindler maintains friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoys wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", and Stern handles administration. Schindler hires Jewish workers because they cost less, while Stern ensures that as many people as possible are deemed essential to the German war effort, which saves them from being transported to concentration camps or killed.
In 1939 Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who is leaving his old life and going to work in the city where his uncle lives. Guido is comical and sharp, making the best from each situation he encounters. From the start he falls in love with a girl Dora. Later he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher. Dora is set to be engaged to a rich but arrogant man. He is a local government official with whom Guido has run-ins from the beginning. Guido is still in love with Dora and performs many stunts in order to see her. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest. Finally Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in against her better judgement. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. Soon they are married and have a son, Giosuè.
In Bedford Falls, New York, on Christmas Eve 1945, George Bailey is suicidal. Prayers for him reach Heaven. Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class, is assigned to save George in order to earn his angel wings. To prepare Clarence, his superior Joseph shows flashbacks of George's life.
Night and Fog is a documentary that alternates between past and present and features both black-and-white and color footage. The first part of Night and Fog shows remnants of Auschwitz while the narrator Michel Bouquet describes the rise of Nazi ideology. The film continues with comparisons of the life of the Schutzstaffel to the starving prisoners in the camps. Bouquet then addresses the sadism inflicted upon the doomed inmates, including torture, scientific and medical "experiments", executions, and prostitution. The next section is shown completely in black-and-white, and depicts images of gas chambers and piles of bodies. The final topic of the film depicts the liberation of the country, the discovery of the horror of the camps, and the questioning of who was responsible for them.
The plot concerns the adventures of João Grilo (Matheus Nachtergaele) and Chicó (Selton Mello), the most cowardly of men. Both struggle for daily bread in a telling representation of the life of the poor in North-East Brazil (O Nordeste) and gull a series of comical stereotypes - baker, landowner, and priest - in a series of interrelated episodes united by the passion of the adulterous baker's wife for her little dog who dies from eating the food she supplies to them as occasional workers, and the daughter of the landowner Antônio Morais (Paulo Goulart) - a magnificent comic character who represents the colonial pretensions of the erstwhile "colonial" class who owned the great estates (or "fazendas") of the region in which sugar production was central to a once-booming economy.
In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland which caused the outbreak of World War II. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman celebrates with his posh family at home when learning that Britain and France have declared war on Germany. German troops soon enter Warsaw and the Nazi authorities implement measures to identify, isolate, financially ruin and reduce the Jewish population in Warsaw. Jews are ordered to provide their own identifying armbands with the Star of David.