Cecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' in hopes of raising her spirits, where she watches dashing archaeologist Tom Baxter time and again.

Jason is in need of a collaborator to give him inspiration. Phoebe is a small-town English teacher with an urge to write. On the day Jason is being married, Jason and Phoebe meet and form a partnership.

Harold Krebs went off to fight in World War I, "the war to end all wars." But when he comes home, Harold finds that he doesn't fit in any more. He needs peace and quiet to figure out what has happened to him and who he has become, but his mother pressures him to rejoin society.

A group of scientists take Simon, a psychology professor, as a test person for a brainwashing experiment and try to convince him that he is a living being from another planet.

A precocious young girl and her younger brother run away from home and hide in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Two Vietnam vets, Tom and Nordi, live sad lives in a crumbling New Jersey city. Sharing a one room apartment, they talk about their inability to hold down real work, struggle to get noticed at the VA and fail to connect with women. This changes for Tom when he meets Marcella and they begin a relationship. However, he can't escape his past with Nordi and the toxic bond soon takes a gruesome turn.

A murder takes place in the shop of David Lyons, a deaf man who fails to hear the gunshot being fired. Outside, blind man Wally Karue hears the shot, but cannot see the perpetrator. Both are arrested, but escape to form an unlikely partnership. Being chased by both the law AND the original killers, can the pair work together to outwit them all?

A writer for a greeting card company learns the true meaning of loneliness when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man.

Rock-and-roll singer Mary Rose Foster's romantic relationships and mental health are continuously imperilled by the demands of life on the road.

Felix is a down-and-out young drummer who obtains a pair of magic drumsticks from a street vendor. He soon finds out the sticks are able to make native New Yorkers dance uncontrollably.