In this modern day version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, a hitman heeds a spiritualist's prophesies that he will rise to the head of his family. He starts his ascension by clandestinely executing the heads of the family and casting the blame on others. However, with power comes consequences that are also predicted by the seer.

The film tells the story of Marco della Riva, an Italian student at the elite Swiss boarding school, Mont Reve, who is not your ordinary guy. A fierce athlete and secretly a writer, he is quite the trouble maker and of course a ladies’ man. With his on campus nemeses, the drug-dealing Spanish gang, vowing to cause him and his friends, a fiercely loyal group of Italians, trouble, life at the Mont Reve Boarding School is a constant game with one goal: to reach the finish without being caught. But when Marco's eyes set upon Divina V. Rawling, a British classmate and dancer with a perfect record and lineage extraordinaire, his charm is tested. Will she risk his reputation and give him a chance?

Around 1940, New Yorker staff writer Joe Mitchell meets Joe Gould, a Greenwich Village character who cadges meals, drinks, and contributions to the Joe Gould Fund and who is writing a voluminous Oral History of the World, a record of 20,000 conversations he's overheard. Mitchell is fascinated with this Harvard grad and writes a 1942 piece about him, "Professor Seagull," bringing Gould some celebrity and an invitation to join the Greenwich Village Ravens, a poetry club he's often crashed. Gould's touchy, querulous personality and his frequent dropping in on Mitchell for hours of chat lead to a breakup, but the two Joes stay in touch until Gould's death and Mitchell's unveiling of the secret.

A hapless, bad-luck prone loser meets a free-spirited Frenchwoman who inspires him to get his life back on track.

Primo and Secondo, two immigrant brothers, pin their hopes on a banquet honoring Louis Prima to save their struggling restaurant.