Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.
It is 90 AD, and the Roman Empire is being run by the Emperor Domitian, who has declared himself to be God and ruler over heaven and earth. The Christians, who do not recognize his divinity, are a thorn in his side and he is having them cruelly persecuted. The small village in Asia Minor to which the aged apostle John has withdrawn is also attacked by Roman soldiers.
In a blue-collar American town, a group of teens bands together to form the Dandies, a gang of gunslingers led by Dick Dandelion. Following a code of strict pacifism at odds with the fact that they all carry guns, the group eventually lets in Sebastian, the grandson of Dick's childhood nanny, Clarabelle, who fears the other gangs in the area. Dick and company try to protect Clarabelle, but events transpire that push the gang past posturing.
Winter 1968 and showbiz legend Judy Garland arrives in Swinging London to perform a five-week sold-out run at The Talk of the Town. It is 30 years since she shot to global stardom in The Wizard of Oz, but if her voice has weakened, its dramatic intensity has only grown. As she prepares for the show, battles with management, charms musicians and reminisces with friends and adoring fans, her wit and warmth shine through. Even her dreams of love seem undimmed as she embarks on a whirlwind romance with Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
A fourteen year old lad discovers his first love at the point of his pencil whilst drawing the portrait of a sickly but coquettish fifteen year old girl. In the neighbourhood an old freedom-fighter pits himself against bad types, a pretty cinema-ticket girl takes to the streets at night and a young anarchist dedicates himself to telling tall stories. Far away, in Shanghai, a hero of the Republic meets a beautiful femme fatal with oriental eyes. Reality and fiction become fused in an embrace.
How to become a man when your mother and your closed circle have decided otherwise? This is the challenge Guillaume took up. The film recounts Guillaume's tragicomic battle from the young age of eight, as he adopts the role of a girl then of a homosexual... until, aged 30, he meets the woman who, after his mother, will become the other woman in his life. Beyond this story of a heterosexual coming-out, the film tells the tale of an actor who never stopped loving women, maybe even a little too much.
The story of a famous old sculptor, weary of life and the folly of men, who finds, thanks to the arrival of a Spanish girl escaped from a refugee camp, the desire to return to work and sculpt your final work in occupied France in 1943. Model and artist, as they work, speak with simplicity and closeness to everything around them: The life and death, the injustice of the war, youth and old age, the search for beauty in times of horror, the sense and the need for art ...
Georges, a wealthy Parisian, has a mistress who wants to marry him, but he has no intention of divorcing his wife, the source of his money. The mistress, meanwhile, has a jealous boyfriend, so when Georges dumps her, two people are angry with him. Add Georges' wife, who suspects the affair. The mistress calls Georges to say she's coming to tell his wife everything, so Georges asks Maurice, a stranger who's passing by, to pose as his wife and scare off the mistress. In this farce, nothing goes as Georges plans.