The man in the background

Ulrich Mott is an eccentric and versatile social climber with grandiose plans to affect United States foreign policy. Encouraged in his attempts by his strategically chosen (and much older) wife, the well-connected journalist Elsa Brecht, Mott has a knack for making himself indispensable and impossible to ignore. The only one seemingly immune to his charms is Elsa's daughter Amanda, who might simply disapprove of her mother marrying a much younger man - or perhaps she senses something more sinister beneath the smooth-talking surface?

Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Set in a warm summer in 1990 in former East Germany, it follows a young woman who begins a relationship with a charismatic farmer who is twice her age.

In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.

A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

After the wild lifestyle of a famous young German photographer almost gets him killed, he goes to Palermo, Sicily to take a break. Can the beautiful city and a beautiful local woman calm him down?

Two drifters bum around, visit earthy women and discuss opening a car wash in Pittsburgh.

In 1933 in Berlin. Anna is only nine years old when her life changes from the ground up. To escape the Nazis, her father Arthur Kemper, a well-known Jewish journalist, has to flee to Zurich. His family, Anna, her twelve-year-old brother Max and her mother Dorothea, follow him shortly thereafter. Anna has to leave everything behind, including her beloved pink rabbit, and to face a new life full of challenges and privations abroad.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

When 30-ish rich kid Lenny has to take care of 15-year-old David, who’s suffering from heart disease, it’s the beginning of a wild adventure. Lenny fearlessly breaks all the rules to fulfill his young friend’s every wish.

Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in the year 1900, but budding artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules.

Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Vice detective Bob Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered and daughter kidnapped by a cult. Frustrated by the botched official investigations, he quits the force and infiltrates the cult to hunt down the leader with the help of the cult’s only female victim escapee, Case Hardin.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.