Michele Casali is a middle-class professor in Fascist Italy who teaches at the same high school attended by his only daughter, Giovanna. A shy and sensitive girl, her insecurities are only magnified by Michele's overprotectiveness—reaching a point of no return.

When his destituite widowed sister-in-law—whom he had never stopped harbouring feelings for—and her ne'er-do-well son come to live with him after World War II, a mentally-ill farmer who spends all his time destroying unexploded ordnance scattered across the countryside finds a new purpose in his lonely life.

Rome, 1929. The Pope's tailor sends his only son, 35-year-old virgin Nello, to more liberal Bologna hoping he'll find a wife. His head brimming with ideas on romantic love induced by classical poetry, Nello falls for Angela, a beautiful blind woman who indulges him only to win back her fiancé.

Marco Baldini is a young man determined to become the voice of a major radio; he alternates between his job at Radio Deejay and his gambling addiction, that slowly consumes his life, his relationship with his girlfriend and his work skills.

Elba island, 1814. Martino is a young teacher, idealist and strongly anti Napoleon, in love with the beautiful and noble Baroness Emily. The young man finds himself serving as librarian to the Great Emperor in exile, whom he deeply hates, yet soon begins recording Napoleon's memoirs, getting to know and learning to value the man behind the myth. Among seductions and affairs, expectations and fears, he will craft a precise portrait that nevertheless will not manage to hide a final, inevitable, disappointment.

From childhood to fatherhood, Piero learns things the hard way while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Livorno.

Fausto and Elena, two deaf teenagers from different backgrounds, meet and fall in love. As they push back against prejudice and silence – both societal and familial – their bond becomes a source of strength. Together, they navigate a world that misunderstands them and find the will to dream beyond imposed limits.

An Italian man emigrates to Sweden after getting tempted by the picture painted by his friend's letters but finds the reality quite different.

In a shabby residence on the coast between Livorno and Pisa, Mario, known as "Il Cormorano", a grumpy and disillusioned young man, works as a plumber to scrape together the sum necessary to realize his dream. He wants to join his uncle Piero in America to become an underground musician. His story is intertwined with that of Nevio, the cynical manager of the residence, of Gabriella, his naive and dreamy lover and of the maid Gaia who behind has a past as a drug addict, with whom Mario has a relationship of hate love. But reality is not as rosy as dreams: