Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the complex case is over, Marlowe sees murder, blackmail, deception, and what might be love.

A woman moves into a Manhattan apartment, where she learns that the previous tenant's life ended under mysterious circumstances.

A young South African boy from the Johannesburg ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster, leaves home as a child to get away from his helpless parents. Now a teenage thug, Tsotsi finds a baby in the back seat of a car he's just stolen. He decides that it is his responsibility to care for the infant and in the process learns that maybe the criminal life isn’t the best way.

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

On the wharfs of San Francisco, saloon girl Toy, also known as Mary, lives over Mother Bright's bar. When Como Murphy, a fugitive from the law, hides in her room, she falls in love with him. He explains that after he spoke out about the rights of man to a crowd, a riot ensued, during which a policeman was killed. Como took the gun from the killer, but is thought to be guilty of the crime himself. Como, who reciprocates Mary's love, spends the night with her, but leaves to keep her out of danger. He joins the crew of a ship sailing to China after he is befriended by Turk, a big lumbering sailor who is also in love with Mary. Each man is unaware that they love the same woman.

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

A man's relationship with a bipolar woman becomes dangerous.

Loosely based on the true story of the killing of Kitty Genovese: A young woman's murder is witnessed by fifteen of her neighbors who do nothing to help and refuse to cooperate with the police.