Wisconsin farm girl Elizabeth Carlson leaves family and her English teacher lover behind and escapes to New York. There she soon makes a career for herself as a fashion model. During a vernissage she's approached by a mysterious man whose motives are unclear...

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman.

After her husband dies, Alice and her son, Tommy, leave their small New Mexico town for California, where Alice hopes to make a new life for herself as a singer. Money problems force them to settle in Arizona instead, where Alice takes a job as waitress in a small diner.

A wanna-be concert pianist spends his days making a living by collecting debts for his Mafioso father, a lifestyle that could eventually ruin his dreams of a musical career.

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

Record executives want a highly-regarded record producer to focus on a white pop act whom they feel has the sound America wants. To keep his creative integrity, Buckmaster carefully begins to fight the system that has made him the respected producer he has become.

Bernice, a shy young woman, leaves her safe home to go visit her flapper cousin. When her cousin tries to teach Bernice how to be much more modern, Bernice gives her much more than she bargained for.

Once a hot spot, the Bowery Follies Cabaret is now just another broken down New York City nightclub populated with the last vestiges of vaudeville entertainers, misfits and a headliner known as Heaven. She, like the club, has been there too long. In a drunken reverie, she wanders through the lives of the men who watch her sing night after night, looking for love ...trying to make sense of how she got there in the first place, hoping, for a ticket out.

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.