The story begins in a New York City courtroom, where an 19-year-old boy from a slum is on trial for allegedly stabbing his father to death. Final closing arguments are presented, and the judge then instructs the jury to decide whether the boy is guilty of murder. The judge further informs them that a guilty verdict will be accompanied by a mandatory death sentence.
Ilija Čvorović (Bata Stojković), a former Stalinist who spent several years in a prison on Goli otok, is contacted by the police to routinely answer questions about his sub-tenant, Petar Markov Jakovljević (Bora Todorović), a businessman, who spent twenty years living in Paris, and now has returned to Belgrade to open a tailor shop. After only several minutes, Ilija is free to go, however, he is starting to suspect that his sub-tenant might be a spy. As time passes, he becomes convinced that Petar, a modern man from a capitalist country, represents a great threat to national security and the socialist system, and starts spying on Petar, to a great surprise of his wife Danica (Mira Banjac), who is more concerned for the future of their daughter Sonja (Sonja Savić), who, although holding a degree in dentistry, is unable to find a job. Ilija phones inspector Dražić (Milan Štrljić), claiming that Petar was meeting "suspicious people" (which are actually his intellectual friends, but Dražić does not take him seriously. Ilija decides to take matters into his own hands. He begins his own surveillance operation against the innocent man and his friends. Eventually, he bars his house, buys a guard dog, arms himself with munition, and even gets help from his brother Đura (Zvonko Lepetić), both of them becoming convinced that Petar is a foreign agent.
The story takes place in an unnamed small Serbian town in 1935, and focuses on the Topalović family consisting of six generations of undertakers: gravely ill Pantelija, wheelchair-bound Maksimilijan who's also mute and nearly deaf, rheumatic Aksentije, sober-minded Milutin, impulsive and narcissistic Laki, and young and naive Mirko. Constantly bickering amongst each other, the latest family arguments arise from the youngest son, Mirko, not wanting to continue the family business of coffin-making. Deeply in love with a local girl Kristina, the daughter of a local hoodlum Bili Piton, he's looking to avoid the career path of his father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc.
Prologue
At the fictional Opera Populaire (based on the Paris Opéra House) in 1905, an auction of old theatre props is underway. Lot 665, purchased by the elderly Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, is a music box in the shape of a monkey; it is familiar to him, and he speaks of a mysterious "she" - that the details of the strange little music box appear "exactly as she said." Lot 666 is a shattered chandelier that is claimed by the auctioneer to have been related to "the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera, a mystery never fully explained," having appeared in some great disaster in years past. As the chandelier - which has been replaced, in part, with new electric wiring - is uncovered, it illuminates as the years roll back and the Opéra returns to its 1880s' grandeur ("Overture").
As described in a film magazine, Poor young man Frederick Tile (Barrymore) is in love with the daughter of a rich man, in order to obtain money agrees to marry a veiled woman from whom he will be divorced in one year and allow some schemers to use his name to obtain a vast property.
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.
Set in December, 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine is the proprietor of an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele: Vichy French, Italian, and German officials; refugees desperate to reach the still neutral United States; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed he ran guns to Ethiopia during its war with Italy and fought on the Loyalist side against the fascist Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton), a master barrister in ill health, takes on Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) as a client, despite the objections of his private nurse, Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester), who says the doctor warns him against taking on any criminal cases. Vole is accused of murdering Mrs. Emily French (Norma Varden), a rich, older widow who had become enamored of him, going so far as to make him the main beneficiary of her will. Strong circumstantial evidence points to Vole as the killer, but Sir Wilfrid believes Vole is innocent.
The story begins in 1823 as the elderly Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) attempts suicide by slitting his throat while loudly begging forgiveness for having killed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) in 1791. Placed in a lunatic asylum for the act, Salieri is visited by Father Vogler (Richard Frank), a young priest who seeks to hear his confession. Salieri is sullen and uninterested but eventually warms to the priest and launches into a long "confession" about his relationship with Mozart.
In County Durham, the 1984-85 coal miners' strike is just beginning ("The Stars Look Down"). Motherless eleven-year-old Billy is required to stay behind after his boxing class and finds his way into a ballet class run by Mrs. Wilkinson. He is the only boy, but becomes attracted to the grace of the dance ("Shine"). The secret is at first easily kept, as the only person home at the time is his grandmother. She reveals her abusive relationship with her dead husband and that she too loved to dance, which made everything all right ("Grandma's Song").
The film opens to a woodcutter chopping down a tree. He works for Siddappa (Vajramuni), a landlord in the village. The tree he has been working on, breaks at the stem and falls on him, killing him instantly. His wife Parvathamma (M. V. Rajamma) approaches Siddappa with her two children (Vishwa and Veerabhadra) and request him to pay for the services of her deceased husband. Siddappa is however unconvinced and drives them away, which would go on to influence Veerabhadra ("Bhadra") hugely as he grows. Both the children grow into hardworking men; Vishwa however works for Siddappa and stays in his good books and Bhadra grows into an easy going man with the least amount respect for Siddappa.
Nawal Marwan, an immigrant to Canada, succumbs to a stroke she suffers at a community swimming pool, and her two children, a brother and sister, receive her final requests in her will. To fulfill her wishes, they must journey to her birthplace.