The investigation into Arnold Friedman's life started after a federal sting operation, when he received a magazine of child pornography from the Netherlands by mail. In searching his Great Neck, New York home, investigators found a collection of child pornography. After learning that Friedman taught children computer classes from his home, local police began to suspect him of abusing his students.
Lorenzo "Shakes" Carcaterra, Thomas "Tommy" Marcano, Michael Sullivan, and John Reilly are childhood friends in Hell's Kitchen, New York City in the mid-1960s. The local priest, Father Robert "Bobby" Carillo, plays an important part in their lives and keeps an eye on them. However, early on they start running small errands for a local mafia gangster, "King" Benny.
Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a hapless, stay-at-home mother in a small suburban Boston community. She had been working on a doctorate in English, but set aside her work to marry Richard (Gregg Edelman) and raise their 3-year-old daughter, Lucy (Sadie Goldstein). Her marriage falls apart when she discovers that Richard is addicted to online pornography. She meets Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), a law student who brings his 4-year-old son, Aaron (Ty Simpkins), to the park. Although Brad's marriage to Katherine (Jennifer Connelly) is loving and amicable, it has been lacking intimacy.
Set in 1964 at a Catholic church in The Bronx, New York, the film opens with the jovial Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) giving a sermon on the nature of doubt, noting that like faith, doubt can be a unifying force. The next evening, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the strict principal of the parish school, discusses the sermon with her fellow nuns, the Sisters of Charity of New York. She asks if anyone has observed unusual behavior that would inspire Father Flynn to preach about doubt, and instructs them to keep their eyes open should any such behavior occur in the future.
Set in the 1950s, the film begins in medias res near the end of the story, with a confrontation between two men: one of them, Clare Quilty, drunk and incoherent, plays Chopin's Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1 on the piano before being shot from behind a portrait painting of a young woman. The shooter is Humbert Humbert, a 40-something British professor of French literature.
In Prague, Czech Republic, single mother Helena (Isabelle Blais) is seduced by a successful handsome man and travels with him to spend a weekend in Vienna, Austria. He then sells her to Human Traffickers and she is brought to New York to work as a sex slave. In Kiev, Ukraine, sixteen-year-old Nadia (Laurence Leboeuf) has recently finished school and, without her father's prior consent or knowledge, she enters a modelling competition. She is selected by the bogus model agency to travel to New York with the other selected candidates, here she is forced into a life of sexual slavery. In Manila, Philippines, twelve-year-old American tourist Annie Gray (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse) is abducted in front of her parents in a busy street by sex traffickers. She is forced into a child brothel which primarily services sex tourists. In common, the girls become victims of a powerful international network of sex traffickers lead by the powerful Sergei Karpovich (Robert Carlyle).
Jeroen (Jeroen Krabbé) reminisces about the time in 1944 when he (Maarten Smit) and other boys were sent to the countryside by their parents to escape the war. The city suffers from food shortages, with more food available in the country. He stays with an eel fisher's family, but despite the abundance of food, he is plagued by homesickness. Jeroen and his friend Jan go to the ocean and see an American plane in the water; Jan tries to go under but claims there are too many eels and comes up with a big cut on his upper right thigh.
Au milieu des années 70, le concierge de l'orphelinat religieux pour garçons Saint-Vincent à Terre-Neuve est à l'origine d'une enquête de police qui révèle que de nombreux enfants y sont victimes de sévices corporels et sexuels. Les frères incriminés sont simplement relevés de leurs fonctions, la collusion entre la hiérarchie catholique et différents membres du gouvernement ayant abouti au classement de l'affaire. Quinze ans plus tard, un inspecteur rouvre le dossier et le gouvernement nomme une commission d'enquête. Les enfants abusés, devenus des adultes traumatisés, viennent enfin témoigner publiquement de leur calvaire.
In Madrid in 1980, Enrique Goded, a young film director, is looking for his next project when he receives the unexpected visit of an actor looking for work. The actor claims to be Enrique's boarding school friend and first love, Ignacio Rodriguez. Ignacio, who is using now the name Ángel Andrade, has brought with him a short story titled "The Visit" hoping that Enrique would be interested in making a film out of it giving him the starring role. Enrique is intrigued since "The Visit" described their time together at the Catholic school and it also includes a fictionalized account of their reunion many years later as adults.
The film centers on the Essenbecks, a wealthy industrialist family who have begun doing business with the Nazi Party. On the night of the Reichstag fire, the family's conservative patriarch, Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, who represents the old aristocratic Germany and detests Hitler, is murdered. Herbert Thalmann, the family firm's vice president, who openly opposes the Nazis, is framed for the crime. He escapes the grasp of the Gestapo, but his wife Elizabeth and their children do not.
The first scene of the film is a reenactment of a kidnapping. A girl is kidnapped and brought to the apartment of a criminal organization, where she is confined with other girls in a room with a creaky ceiling lit by a flickering lightbulb. The girls are naked and cry from fear as men examine them and shout commands and threats at them. One girl is dragged away into another room. The girls are then brutally abused until they become sexually submissive. These events take place in a small European town, possibly in Moldova. The film asserts that 10% of the population of Moldova has been sexually trafficked. From there, the film tracks the girls through Serbia and Croatia to Amsterdam's red-light district and markets in Berlin and Las Vegas. Among legal prostitution in cities, the slavery goes undetected. Slaves are depicted in confinement, at their places of work, and as they are sold. Many of the girls are orphans and all are either initially kidnapped or tricked into forced prostitution. The methods that the traffickers use to keep the girls include hard drugs, mind control, and both sexual and physical abuse.
Les policiers de la brigade de protection des mineurs (BPM) de Paris luttent contre les innombrables sévices subis par des mineurs : traque de pédophiles, appréhensions de parents soupçonnés de maltraitance, suivi d'adolescents pickpockets, adolescents en dérive sexuelle, protection de mineurs sans domicile, mineurs victimes de viol, etc. Plongés dans cet univers éprouvant, ces policiers très impliqués et soudés tentent de préserver leur vie privée et leur santé psychique. Une jeune photographe est envoyée faire un reportage photo dans l'unité chargée des affaires de mœurs.
Madhavi Sharma (Konkona Sen Sharma) arrives in Mumbai and soon lands a journalist job. Her boss Deepak Suri (Boman Irani) gives her the task of reporting celebrity news. She begins her journey in the glitzy and glamorous world of celebrity lifestyle working on Page 3. Her roommate Pearl Sequiera (Sandhya Mridul) is an air hostess and wants to marry for money. Gayatri Sachdeva (Tara Sharma) later joins them. She is an aspiring actress and gets involved with a leading actor, Rohit Kumar (Bikram Saluja). When she tells him that she is pregnant with his baby, he suggests she have an abortion. Depressed and shattered, she unsuccessfully tries to commit suicide and, in the process, loses her unborn child. Meanwhile, Pearl marries a wealthy old man and moves to the United States. Madhavi plans to expose Rohit by writing an article on his relationship with Gayatri, but her editor kills the article, and she is forced to apologise to Rohit.