The film is notable for presenting a more human Jesus, compared to more solemn portrayals in earlier films; here Jesus laughs and cries like anyone else. Among other things, he weeps at Joseph’s funeral, throws stones in Lake Galilee when meeting Simon Peter and James son of Zebedee for the first time, dances at the wedding at Cana, and starts a water-splashing fight with his disciples as well. Satan is portrayed as a man in modern dress (and as a woman in red). During his temptation of Jesus, he shows him the Earth from the vantage point of space. Satan also shows Jesus images of wars and destruction carried out in his name. The film adds an apocryphal Roman historian named “Livio” who watches and comments as events unfold; he is presumably named after Livy.
After having successfully eluded the authorities for years, Hannibal peacefully lives in Italy in disguise as an art scholar. Trouble strikes again when he's discovered leaving a deserving few dead in the process. He returns to America to make contact with now disgraced Agent Clarice Starling, who is suffering the wrath of a malicious FBI rival as well as the media.
Major Charles Forsythe (Carradine) is a Vietnam veteran U.S. Army officer stationed near Rome. He is a brutal, if effective, commander who was "fragged" by his own men in Vietnam. When he is denied promotion because of the number of men injured during his training exercises, he takes out his anger by beating his pregnant wife Sarah (Hutton). She miscarries. On her release from the hospital, Sarah is determined to get back into shape and begins running. She meets Alan Morani (Segal) a former Olympic runner who is a paraplegic as the result of a car accident. Morani offers to coach Sarah to run in the Rome marathon, a race which her husband has won two years in a row. Sarah realizes that winning the race is the best way to avenge the death of her baby and destroy her husband's ego.
Michael works as a hospital janitor and he lives with his wife Ester, who has fallen into depression after the death of their son. Michael is willing to do anything he can to save Ester, even things that no sane mind would ever dream of.
Self condemned to the immense and boundless prison of the Mojave desert, Phoenix leads a life of forced isolation, living by himself in a house as far away as possible from the rest of the world. Phoenix does one thing and one thing only: he digs holes. Every month he digs a hole in the middle of nowhere and buries something. The last stronghold of society stands with the man that frequently delivers his mail. When one day the delivery doesn't happen by the hand of his trustworthy mailman, but by that of the beautiful and quizzical Ariel, Phoenix's life derails in an escalation that leads him to dangerous consequences which will be impossible to escape.
Hans Baerlach is a Swiss police detective who has dedicated much of his career to pursuing powerful and allegedly murderous businessman Richard Gastmann. Though Baerlach's partner meets his demise while investigating Gastmann, his replacement, Walter Tschanz, is undaunted. Meanwhile, the lovely Anna Crawley becomes involved in the case, which proceeds to take many twists and turns.
Alain, "a young wolf", elegant and racy, is maintained by the princess Linzani. At the same time, he goes out with a girl of his age, Sylvie, who despite her bold attitude has never had a lover.
Bouncing between Europe and the United States as often as she would between lovers, Peggy Guggenheim’s life was as swirling as the design of her uncle’s museum, and reads more like fiction than any reality imaginable. Peggy Guggenheim – Art Addict offers a rare look into Guggenheim’s world: blending the abstract, the colorful, the surreal and the salacious, to portray a life that was as complex and unpredictable as the artwork Peggy revered and the artists she pushed forward.
Set in Bertolucci's ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives of two men during the political turmoils that took place in Italy in the first half on the 20th century.