Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy) are two middle management employees at a corporation, temporarily assigned to a branch office away from home for six weeks. Howard is assigned to head up the project. Embittered by bad experiences with women, they form a revenge scheme to find an insecure woman, romance her simultaneously, and then break up with her at the same time. Chad, who is cruel, manipulative, duplicitous, and abusive to his subordinates, is the originator and driving force behind the scheme, while Howard is the more passive of the two, which leads to a later conflict with the scheme.
The film begins in 1783 with the Chevalier de Milletail (Carlo Brandt) visiting the elderly Monsieur de Blayac (Lucien Pascal), confined to his chair. He taunts him about his past prowess in wit and reminds him of how he humiliated him, naming him "Marquis de Clatterbang" when he fell over while dancing. He then urinates on the helpless old man.
In the early 1900s, actor Lon Chaney (James Cagney) is working in vaudeville with his wife Cleva (Dorothy Malone). Chaney quits the show and Cleva announces that she is pregnant. Lon is happy and tells Cleva that he has been hired by the famous comedy team Kolb and Dill for an upcoming show.
À la suite d'une exploration de grotte, des scientifiques mettent au jour de terrifiantes créatures, ressemblant à des chauves-souris, qui envahissent la Terre et tuent la population, aussi bien humaine que animale, en la repérant aux bruits qu’elle produit.
Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun), is a deaf-mute man working in a factory to support his ailing sister (Im Ji-eun), who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. As Ryu is not a match, and he is laid off from his job, Ryu contacts a black market organ dealer, and agrees to exchange his severance money and one of his own kidneys in exchange for a matching one. The dealers perform the operation, but disappear after taking Ryu's kidney and money. Three weeks later, Ryu learns from his doctor that a donor has been found, but Ryu is unable to afford the operation now.
Sur deux époques distinctes, les parcours de Ben et Rose. Ces deux enfants souhaitent secrètement que leur vie soit différente ; Ben rêve du père qu'il n'a jamais connu, tandis que Rose, isolée par sa surdité, se passionne pour la carrière d'une mystérieuse actrice. Lorsque Ben découvre dans les affaires de sa mère l'indice qui pourrait le conduire à son père et que Rose apprend que son idole sera bientôt sur scène, les deux enfants se lancent dans une quête à la symétrie fascinante qui va les mener à New York.
Rebeca, a TV news broadcaster, is at Madrid's airport anxiously awaiting the return of her mother whom she has not seen since she was a child. Her mother, Becky del Páramo, a famous torch song singer, is coming back to Spain after a fifteen-year stay in Mexico. While waiting, Rebeca recalls incidents from her childhood in which her mother let her in the background of her life preoccupied with her career and her romantic life. For fifteen years Rebeca has longed for her mother to come back and for the love and affection of which she had been deprived. Nevertheless, her love is accompanied by a deep resentment.
Imprisoned Sandra (Elpidia Carrillo) has an emotional breakdown when the broken telephone in her cubicle prevents her from communicating with her daughter on visiting day.
John Singer (Alan Arkin) is a deaf-mute who works as a silver engraver in a small southern town. His only friend is a mentally disabled mute, Antonapoulos (Chuck McCann), who continually gets into trouble with the law since he doesn't know any better. When Antonapoulos is committed to a mental institution by his family, Singer decides to move to a town near the institution in order to be near his friend. Singer finds work there and rents a room in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Kelly (Biff McGuire and Laurinda Barrett), who are having financial difficulties as a result of Mr. Kelly's recent hip injury. Because the Kellys' teenage daughter, Mick (Sondra Locke), resents having to give up her room to him, Singer makes a few tentative efforts to win her friendship. Singer also tries to become friends with Blount (Stacy Keach), a semi-alcoholic drifter, and Dr. Copeland (Percy Rodriguez), an embittered segregationist African American who is secretly dying of lung cancer. Copeland's deepest disappointment is that his educated daughter, Portia (Cicely Tyson), works as a domestic and is married to a field hand.
Dot (Camilla Belle) is a young, orphaned, deaf and mute teenager. After the death of her also deaf father, she is sent to live with her godparents and their daughter Nina (Elisha Cuthbert), with whom she used to be close friends. However, she soon learns the secrets her new family withhold from the rest of the world as well as from one another.
The film opens in 1938. Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), is a 70-year-old professor of linguistics. On the eve of World War II, Dominic attempts to visit the Café Select but is denied access due to wearing his pyjamas. Dominic realises that he is getting no younger, and has essentially failed his aim in life – to fully discover the origin of human language. His tireless labours have condemned him to a solitary existence, often spent pining after Laura (Alexandra Maria Lara), the love of his youth. Intent on committing suicide, Dominic travels to Bucharest, the city where he and Laura met at university. He is struck by lightning. In hospital, he is initially diagnosed by Professor Stanciulescu (Bruno Ganz) to be dying of his burns. However, Stanciulescu is startled when his patient regenerates into a much younger man. The Professor helps Dominic out of the hospital so as to continue studying him. Shortly afterwards, Romania is occupied by the Nazis, whose interests are aroused by Stanciulescu’s miracle patient.
A young shy boy arrives at a boarding school for the deaf. There he tries to find his place in the hierarchy of the school community, which operates like a Mafiosi group ruled by the King.
Frankie's loss of hearing is first apparent when he hears a high-pitched whine instead of an Arsenal football match on TV. At this time, Frankie is making his next album with his "two Austrian mates" Alfonse and Horst, who seem more suited for a rock band. Frankie continues working on his album and playing gigs at clubs, but his hearing degrades rapidly. As a result, progress on his album stagnates. However, Frankie refuses to acknowledge his problem until a gig in Amnesia, when he cannot hear the second channel in his headphones and must crossfade one song into the next without being able to beatmatch them. The result sounds terrible, and the crowd boos him. Overcome with fear and frustration, he throws the turntable and the mixer onto the dance floor, and is forcibly removed from the club.
The film features several different storylines, all of which intersect periodically throughout the film. The film's opening scene features a brief encounter with four of the main characters: Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche) is an actress working in Paris, and she walks briefly with her boyfriend's younger brother Jean. After they part, Jean throws a piece of garbage at Maria, a homeless woman sitting on the side of the road. Amadou, the child of Malian immigrants, witnesses this and confronts Jean. The two fight, and eventually Amadou and Maria are both taken to a police station for questioning. Amadou is released presumably shortly after, though we learn that he was held, beaten and shamed, but Maria is deported to her native Romania and she reconnects with her family there.