Universal Pictures est une société de production cinématographique américaine appartenant à Comcast. Au sein de sa filiale NBCUniversal, elle fait partie d'Universal Studios. Créée en 1912 par Carl Laemmle, c'est le plus ancien studio de cinéma américain encore en activité et le quatrième plus ancien au monde, après Gaumont, Pathé et Nordisk Films. C'est un des six plus gros studios de cinéma, il fait partie des majors du cinéma.
Son siège social se situe à Universal City, au nord de Hollywood, en Californie. Trois des films d'Universal Studios — Les Dents de la mer (1975), E.T. (1982), et Jurassic Park (1993) — furent des records au box-office, chacun d'entre eux devenant le plus gros film jamais produit au moment de sa sortie et étant réalisé par Steven Spielberg. Le film Jurassic World (2015) est aujourd'hui le plus gros succès des studios Universal dans le monde.
In 1973, nine-year-old Troy Carmichael (Zelda Harris) and her brothers Clinton (Carlton Williams), Wendell (Sharif Rashed), Nate (Chris Knowings), and Joseph (Tse-Mach Washington) live in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The children live with their parents, Woody (Delroy Lindo), a struggling musician, and Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), a schoolteacher.
Carter "Doc" McCoy (Baldwin) and his wife Carol (Basinger) are taking target practice with pistols when Rudy (Madsen) arrives to propose they break a Mexican drug lord's nephew out of jail for a $300,000 payment. The job is successful, but it turns out the drug lord wanted his nephew free only in order to kill him.
The film takes place during a 24-hour period. Henry Hackett (Michael Keaton) is the metro editor of the New York Sun, a fictional New York City tabloid. He is a workaholic who loves his job, but the long hours and low pay are leading to discontent. He is at risk of experiencing the same fate as his publisher, Bernie White (Robert Duvall), who put his work first at the expense of his family.
Austrian Research geneticist Dr. Alex Hesse (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has a nightmare about infants urinating in a library. In the real world, he and his colleague Dr. Larry Arbogast (Danny DeVito), an obstetrician and gynecologist, have invented a fertility drug, "Expectane", that is supposed to reduce the chances of a woman's body rejecting an embryo and thus prevent a miscarriage. Unfortunately, they are not allowed to test it on women since the Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the drug; so Hesse and Arbogast move forward in their research. In response, Hesse breaks into the laboratory and locks himself in. The head of the review board, Noah Banes (Frank Langella), informs Arbogast that while the FDA has denied their team the right of human experimentation, the team has managed to receive a donation from fellow geneticist Dr. Diana Reddin (Emma Thompson) from the ovum cryogenics department. When Hesse questions the chances of a woman taking an unapproved drug during pregnancy, Arbogast reveals that there is no need to identify the gender of the experiment and convinces Hesse to impregnate himself, using an ovum codenamed "Junior".
John Hammond, the founder and CEO of bioengineering company InGen, has created a theme park called Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar, a tropical island populated with cloned dinosaurs. After a park worker is killed by a Velociraptor, the park's investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, demand that experts visit the park and certify it as safe. Gennaro invites the mathematician Ian Malcolm while Hammond invites paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant and paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler. Upon arrival, the group is stunned to see three Brachiosaurus and a herd of Parasaurolophus in the distance.
Lorenzo (Zack O'Malley Greenburg) is a bright and vibrant young boy living in the Comoro Islands, as his father Augusto (Nick Nolte) works for the World Bank and is stationed there. However, when his parents relocate to the United States, he begins to show neurological problems, such as loss of hearing, tantrums, etc. The boy is diagnosed as having adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), which is fatal within two years. Failing to find a doctor capable of treating their son's rare disease, Augusto and his wife Michaela (Susan Sarandon) set out on a mission to find a treatment to save their child. In their quest, the Odones clash with doctors, scientists, and support groups, who are skeptical that anything could be done about ALD, much less by laypeople. But they persist, setting up camp in medical libraries, reviewing animal experiments, enlisting the aid of Professor Gus Nikolais (Peter Ustinov), badgering researchers, questioning top doctors all over the world, and even organizing an international symposium about the disease.
Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) is shown in Belfast stripping lead from roofs of houses when security forces home in on the district with armoured cars, and a riot breaks out. Gerry's father, Giuseppe Conlon (Pete Postlethwaite), later saves him from IRA punishment, and he is sent off to London to stay with his aunt, for his own good. Instead, he finds a squat, to explore, as he puts it, "free love and dope". One evening by chance he gains entry to a prostitute's flat and he steals the £700 he finds stashed inside; on that evening in Guildford there is an explosion at a pub that kills four off-duty soldiers and a civilian, and wounds sixty-five others.
In New York City in 1975, after serving only five years of a 30-year prison sentence, Carlito Brigante is freed on a legal technicality exploited by his lawyer, Dave Kleinfeld, infuriating the district attorney. Brigante returns to his old neighborhood of Spanish Harlem, where he reconnects with old associates. Although he vows that he is finished with crime, Brigante is persuaded to accompany his cousin Guajiro to a drug deal at a bar. Guajiro is betrayed and killed while Brigante is forced to shoot his way out. He takes Guajiro's money and uses it to buy into a nightclub, with the intent of saving $75,000 to retire to the Caribbean.
In Kraków during World War II, the Germans had forced local Polish Jews into the overcrowded Kraków Ghetto. Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German, arrives in the city hoping to make his fortune. A member of the Nazi Party, Schindler lavishes bribes on Wehrmacht (German armed forces) and SS officials and acquires a factory to produce enamelware. To help him run the business, Schindler enlists the aid of Itzhak Stern, a local Jewish official who has contacts with black marketeers and the Jewish business community. Stern helps Schindler arrange loans to finance the factory. Schindler maintains friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoys wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", and Stern handles administration. Schindler hires Jewish workers because they cost less, while Stern ensures that as many people as possible are deemed essential to the German war effort, which saves them from being transported to concentration camps or killed.
In San Francisco, 1959, four people embark on the same bus. A single mother named Penny Washington leaves her three children at home to work in her night shift as a telephone operator. A singer named Harrison Winslow is afraid of the stage and quits his audition. A waitress named Julia regrets turning down her boyfriend John's marriage proposal and leaves her job to seek him out. A small-time thief named Milo Peck unsuccessfully attempts to retrieve a collection of vintage stamps that he had stolen from a young boy. However, the bus driver, Hal, has a serious accident, killing himself and everyone on board.
In Key West, Florida in 1962, boys Gene Loomis (Fenton) and his brother Dennis (Lee) live on a military base (N.A.S. Key West); their father is away on a nearby submarine. After hearing the announcement of an exclusive engagement of Lawrence Woolsey's (Goodman) new sensational horror film Mant! ("Half man! Half ant!" "in Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama!"), including Woolsey's appearance in-person, they arrive home to President Kennedy's television interruption, stating the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Woolsey finds this atmosphere of fear to be the perfect environment in which to open his atomic-radiation-themed film.
Doug Ireland is a concierge at the Bradbury, a luxurious hotel in New York City that is beginning to decline. Doug is very well-connected and is very good at his job, giving personal attention to guests like Harry Wegman while occasionally pocketing a big tip. Doug's dream is to open his own hotel on Roosevelt Island. He has saved every cent and obtained an option on an old hotel. But he only has a few weeks to begin development and needs at least $3 million immediately.
In New Orleans, a homeless veteran named Douglas Binder is the target of a hunt. He is given a belt containing $10,000 and told that he must reach the other side of town where he would then win the money and his life. Hunting him are the hunt organizer Emil Fouchon, a businessman named Mr. Lopaki who has paid $500,000 for the opportunity to hunt a human, Fouchon's lieutenant Pik Van Cleaf, and mercenaries including Stephan and Peterson. Binder fails to reach his destination and is shot by three crossbow bolts. Van Cleaf retrieves the money belt.
Wayne Dobie (De Niro) is a meek Chicago Police Department crime scene photographer who has spent years on the job without ever drawing his gun; his colleagues jokingly call him "Mad Dog". Mad Dog saves the life of mob boss Frank Milo (Murray) during a hold-up in a convenience store. Milo offers Mad Dog a gift in return: for one week, he will have the "personal services" of Glory (Thurman), a young woman who works as a bartender at Milo's club.
In 1978, narcissistic, manipulative Madeline Ashton performs in a musical on Broadway. Madeline invites long-time rival Helen Sharp, an aspiring writer, backstage along with her fiancé, plastic surgeon Ernest Menville. Ernest is smitten with Madeline, soon breaking off his engagement with Helen to marry her. Seven years later, Helen is in a psychiatric hospital after fixating upon Madeline. Obese and depressed, Helen feigns rehabilitation and is released, plotting revenge on Madeline.