When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

"Boxcar" Bertha Thompson, a transient woman in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early '30s, meets up with rabble-rousing union man "Big" Bill Shelly and the two team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment.

The son of a powerful Mafia don comes home from his army service in Vietnam and wants to lead his own life, but family tradition, intrigues and powerplays involving his older brother dictate otherwise, and he finds himself being slowly drawn back into that world.

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

Looking to get rich quick, an unsuccessful lawyer uses dishonest means to try to become a boxing promoter.

Widowed Elinor Randall and her young daughter Jerrine arrive in a barren stretch of Wyoming in 1910 after Elinor's application for work as a housekeeper is accepted by Clyde Stewart, a rancher. The work is back-breaking and the isolation is brutal, particularly as winter arrives. Elinor begins to think about homesteading her own property near Stewart's ranch, but Stewart tries to dissuade her with explanations about the killing conditions and poor rewards, especially for a woman with no man to help her ranch. Although their temperaments are different and little affection exists, Elinor and Stewart agree to marry and combine homesteads. What lies ahead is the severest test of all.

Megan Carter is a reporter duped into running an untrue story on Michael Gallagher, a suspected racketeer. He has an alibi for the time his crime was allegedly committed—but it involves an innocent party. When he tells Carter the truth and the newspaper runs it, tragedy follows, forcing Carter to face up to the responsibilities of her job when she is confronted by Gallagher.

Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.

Lou Andreas Sand, a once famous model, recalls her past as she tries to make success in the modeling world of New York, her stressful workdays, her affair with Mark, an advertising executive, her friendship with photographer Aaron, and her downward spiral into ruin.

Free-thinking student tries to put up with life at a straight-laced college in 1958.