A Jewish pawnbroker, a victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.

Taken in by the musical world as a young orphan, Rick Martin grows up with a desire to play pure jazz instead of the commercial gigs he lands, whilst also coping with the problems caused by his tempestuous marriage to an aloof heiress.

Respected black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior officer.

A fisherman with money problems hires out his boat to transport criminals.

One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that "something big" is behind it all, decides to pursue the case.

As Kenya's Mau Mau uprising tears the country apart, former childhood friends Kimani (Sidney Poitier), a native, and Peter (Rock Hudson), a British colonist, find themselves on opposite sides of the struggle in this provocative drama. Though each is devoted to his cause, both wish for a more moderate path -- but their hopes for a peaceful resolution are thwarted by rage, colonial arrogance and escalating violence on both sides.

Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.

The opportunistic Jean marries an older man, plantation owner Don Luis, for financial security and finds herself falling for his virile right-hand man, Carlos. Jealous of Carlos' position and fearing that Jean will inherit Luis' money, his greedy cousin, Miguel, does his best to turn Luis against the would-be lovers and come out on top in the process.

A female doctor in the Congo is torn between two loves.

The man called Obam struggles with the increasingly hostile forces facing each other in a colonial African country. The African natives want their land and lives back from the British colonists. Obam's motives are questioned by his own people, in particular his brother Kanda. With the help of his wife Renee and missionary Bruce Craig, will he be able to get things under control before the country self-destructs? Written by Greg Bruno