An African American couple (Winfield and Alice) adopt two orphans from a Vietnamese refugee camp. After twenty-two years, the children are reunited with their birth mother, bringing deeply submerged resentments and misconceptions to the surface and forcing the characters to reexamine their identity and relationships in both comical and poignant situations.
Captain William Stanaforth is on a one-way solo mission to take the first steps in colonising Mars. Like all pioneers throughout history, Stanaforth will face insurmountable odds and life and death decisions as he rockets bravely through space.
A young African-American couple navigates the tricky paths of romance and athletics in this drama. Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) grew up in the same neighborhood and have known each other since childhood. As they grow into adulthood, they fall in love, but they also share another all-consuming passion: basketball. They've followed the game all their lives and have no small amount of talent on the court. As Quincy and Monica struggle to make their relationship work, they follow separate career paths though high school and college basketball and, they hope, into stardom in big-league professional ball.
Matt Lee Whitlock, respected chief of police in small Banyan Key, Florida, must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion. Matt Lee has to stay a few steps ahead of his own police force and everyone he's trusted in order to find out the truth.
Ben Singer is a failed children's folk singer, a career proofreader, a less-than-extraordinary weekend dad, and perhaps the most negative man alive. Floundering in all aspects of his life, Ben's only comfort comes from regular chess games and friendly debates on game theory with his Senegalese roommate Ibou. When Ibou is suddenly struck ill, Ben's pessimistic worldview seems unequivocally confirmed. It takes an extended visit from Ibou's sister Khadi for Ben to realize that cynicism may be all a matter of perspective.
Dreams can make a life worth living, but they can also be dashed by bad decisions. This is the crossroads whare the Younger family find themselves when their father passes away and leaves them with $10,000 in life insurance money. Should they buy a new home for the family? Perhaps a liquor store? While no choice is easy, life on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s is even harder.
Zora Banks is a school teacher and aspiring singer hoping to become a successful star while taking a break from heartache. Franklin Swift is a down-on-his-luck construction worker and not-quite divorced father of two hoping to start his own business. The two meet and fall in love and during the course of the stormy relationship, they both come to some startling conclusions about love and each other.
Kenya McQueen, a corporate lawyer finds love in the most unexpected place when she agrees to go on a blind date with Brian Kelly, a sexy and free-spirited landscaper.
A once-powerful, but now ailing movie director nears the end of his life. As he awaits death, he slips into a "dream" and is shown three "snippets" of the movie of his son's life. At first suspicious, then curious, and ultimately captivated, he watches his son's growth from mid-teens to mid-thirties as the son pursues his life-long love, Isabelle. The two constants through these snippets are his pursuit of Isabelle and the imagined voice of his father, telling him that he is worthless and unwanted. It is not until the story reaches its conclusion, that the old man discovers the surprising truth about his son and himself.
Four women filmmakers examine sexuality in this anthology. Segment 1 is entitled "Let's Talk About Sex" and is the story of an aspiring actress whose day job is as a phone-sex operator. Tiring of listening to callers' fantasies, she finds a caller who is willing to listen to hers. Segment 2 is called "Taboo Palor" and tells the story of two lesbians, who, for variety, pick up a man for sex. He ends up getting more than he bargained for. Segment 3 is "Wonton Soup." Here an Australian-Chinese man tries to rekindle his affair with a Chinese woman by returning to their roots: both in the kitchen and in the bedroom.