On the Fourth of July holiday in 1906, the Miller family prepares to celebrate in their New England home. Young Richard, 16, is a thoughtful and poetic youth in love with a neighbor girl, Muriel. When Richard's messages of poetry to Muriel upset her prudish father, Muriel is forbidden to see him and forced to write a letter saying she wishes no more to do with him. Richard, devastated, sets out to learn the evil ways of the world and put his broken heart behind him.

Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner, who drinks, patronizes prostitutes, and apparently brutalizes her. When a gentlemanly neighbor makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true—when her husband dies in a mining accident. When Charles Holroyd's body is brought home from the mine, and his wife and mother must wash him and lay him out for his funeral, we see for the first time the other side of the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd—now, when it's too late.

A college professor remembers the humor and sorrow of his youth in World War II Britain.

Kate Soffel is married to a prison warden in Pittsburgh, and is the mother of their four children. Ed Biddle is a convicted murderer awaiting execution on death row with his brother Jack. When Kate meets Eddie through her Bible readings to the prisoners, she is drawn to him, and they pursue a clandestine relationship. She agrees to help the brothers escape, and begins a treacherous journey with them to freedom in Canada.

Three bears come home from a bicycling trip through the woods to find a little girl "all nice and cozy and fast asleep" in Baby Bear's bed.

An unemployed man who lives with his wife and overbearing mother-in-law sees an opportunity to relieve himself of the old bat, which tangles him in a maze of deception.

Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."

When Winnie, who never reads, lifts off with a foxy stranger, sensible Harriet must use every ounce of energy and brain power to rescue her.