Poitier portrays Alan, a Seattle college student who is volunteering at Seattle's then-new Crisis Clinic, a crisis call center. Shortly after beginning his night shift, Alan receives a call from a woman named Inga (Bancroft) -- the wife of a fisherman (Steven Hill) who has put out to sea earlier that day—who says she has just taken a lethal dose of pills and wants to talk to someone before she dies, but refuses to reveal her location. As the circumstances that have led to her suicide attempt are revealed through flashbacks, the story line follows the efforts of Alan, a psychiatrist (Telly Savalas) and a detective (Ed Asner) to locate both the woman and her husband.
One year after the famed Battle of Thermopylae, Dilios, a hoplite in the Spartan Army, begins his story by depicting the life of Leonidas I from childhood to kingship via Spartan doctrine. Dilios's story continues and Persian messengers arrive at the gates of Sparta demanding "earth and water" as a token of submission to King Xerxes; the Spartans reply by killing and kicking the messengers into a well. Leonidas then visits the Ephors, proposing a strategy to drive back the numerically superior Persians through the Hot Gates; his plan involves building a wall in order to funnel the Persians into a narrow pass between the rocks and the sea. The Ephors consult the Oracle, who decrees that Sparta will not go to war during the Carneia. As Leonidas angrily departs, a messenger from Xerxes appears, rewarding the Ephors for their covert support.
Queen Gorgo of Sparta tells her men about the Battle of Marathon, in which King Darius I of Persia was killed by General Themistocles of Athens 10 years earlier. Darius' son, Xerxes, witnesses his father's death, and is advised to not continue the war, since only "the gods can defeat the Greeks". Darius' naval commander, Artemisia, claims that Darius' last words were in fact a challenge and sends Xerxes on a journey through the desert. Xerxes finally reaches a cave and bathes in an otherworldly liquid, emerging as the 8-feet tall "God-King". He returns to Persia and declares war on Greece to avenge his father.
The story revolves around two Prefecture of Police officers: Léo Vrinks (Daniel Auteuil), head of the BRI and Denis Klein (Gérard Depardieu), head of the BRB. Both want to catch a vicious gang of armoured-car robbers that have killed nine people. But when their immediate superior, the chief of the criminal police (André Dussolier), announces that he will soon retire, the rivalry pushes Klein to play dirty in order to get the promotion.
Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) is a 34-year-old failed writer, now making a living as a handyman for a community of beach houses at Gruissan. He meets Betty (Béatrice Dalle), a volatile and impulsive young woman, and the two begin a passionate affair, living in his shack on the beach. After a row with him, she finds the manuscript of a novel he once wrote and decides he is a genius. However, after another argument with his boss, she empties the shack and burns it down. The two decamp to the outskirts of Paris, where her friend Lisa (Consuelo de Haviland) has a small hotel. There they find work in the pizzeria of Lisa's friend Eddy (Gérard Darmon), but a fight erupts in which Betty stabs a customer with a fork. Back at the hotel, she laboriously types out Zorg's novel and submits it to various publishers. Though Zorg hides the rejection letters she finds one and, going to the publisher's house, slashes his face. Zorg induces him to drop charges.
In the Arizona Territory of the 1880s, rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin) and his young sons witness a stagecoach holdup. The boys want to try to intervene, but their father warns them that it would be useless to act when they are so heavily outnumbered. When the stagecoach driver overpowers one of the robbers and uses him as a human shield, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford), the leader of the gang, callously shoots both men dead.
In August 1884, Dan Evans (Bale) is an impoverished rancher and Civil War veteran. He owes money to Glen Hollander (Loftin) and when he fails to pay, two of Hollander's men set his barn on fire. The next morning, as Evans and his two sons drive their herd, they stumble upon outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe) and his gang who are using Evans' cattle to block the road and ambush an armored stagecoach staffed by Pinkerton agents. As Wade loots the stage, Wade discovers Evans and his two sons watching from the hills. Acknowledging that they pose no threat to him and his gang, Wade takes their horses telling Evans that he will leave them tied up on the road to Bisbee.
Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) is a 40-year-old virgin who is involuntarily celibate. He lives alone, collects action figures, plays video games, and his social life seems to consist of watching Survivor with his elderly neighbors. He works in the stockroom at an electronics store called SmartTech. When a friend drops out of a poker game, Andy's co-workers David (Paul Rudd), Cal (Seth Rogen), and Jay (Romany Malco) reluctantly invite Andy to join them. At the game (which he wins, due to playing online poker constantly), when conversation turns to past sexual exploits, Andy desperately makes up a story, but when he compares the feel of a woman's breast to a "bag of sand", he is forced to admit his virginity.
Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett) and his roommate, Ryan (Paulo Costanzo), are co-workers at a San Francisco dot-com company. Matt is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, Nicole (Vinessa Shaw), and his obsession repeatedly causes him problems during attempted one-night stands. He confides his sexual problems to his brother, John (Adam Trese), who is training to become a Catholic priest. In an attempt to fix his problems, Matt vows to abstain from sexual stimulation, including masturbation, for the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent. John warns Matt that chastity is not easy; meanwhile, Ryan starts a popular office pool to bet on how long Matt can last.
The film tells the story of Jackie Robinson and, under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey, Robinson's signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American player to break the baseball color barrier. The story focuses mostly on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers season and somewhat on Robinson's 1946 season with the Montreal Royals, which emphasize his battles with racism.
It is 1932, the depth of the Depression, and noted Broadway producers Jones (Robert McWade) and Barry (Ned Sparks) are putting on Pretty Lady, a musical starring Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels). She is involved with wealthy Abner Dillon (Guy Kibbee), the show's "angel" (financial backer), but while she is busy keeping him both hooked and at arm's length, she is secretly seeing her old vaudeville partner, out-of-work Pat Denning (George Brent).
Convicted thief Albert Ganz is working as part of a road gang in California, when a big Native American man named Billy Bear drives up in a pickup truck and asks for water to cool off his truck’s overheating radiator. Ganz and Billy exchange insults and proceed to stage a fight with each other, wrestling in a river, and when the guards try to break up the fight, Billy slips a gun to Ganz, and Billy and Ganz kill two of the three guards and flee the scene. Two days later, Ganz and Billy kill Henry Wong (John Hauk), who was one of their partners.
San Francisco cop Jack Cates is at the Hunter's Point Raceway checking out a known associate of the Iceman, Tyrone Burroughs, who for unknown reasons is giving some money to mechanic Arthur Brock.
Early in the Second World War, U-37, a German U-boat, makes its way to Canadian waters and participates in the Battle of the St. Lawrence. It succeeds in evading an RCAF patrol and moves north. While a raiding party of six Nazi sailors is put ashore in an attempt to obtain supplies, the U-boat is sunk in Hudson Bay. The six attempt to evade capture by traveling across Canada to the still-neutral United States.
There are five cameras — each with its own story. When his fourth son, Gibreel, is born in 2005, self-taught cameraman Emad Burnat, a Palestinian villager, gets his first camera. At the same time in his village of Bil’in, the Israelis begin bulldozing village olive groves to build a barrier to separate Bil'in from the Jewish Settlement Modi'in Illit. The barrier's route cuts off 60% of Bil'in farmland and the villagers resist this seizure of more of their land by the settlers.