In the opening scene, chickens are being prepared for a meal when a chicken escapes and an armed gang chases after it in a favela called the Cidade de Deus ("City of God"). The chicken stops between the gang and a young man named Rocket (Buscapé), who believes that the gang wants to kill him. A flashback traces Rocket, the narrator, back to the late 1960s. He lived incredibly poor in this slum of Rio.
Priest (Ron O'Neal) is an up-and-coming cocaine dealer in New York City. On his way to a meeting point in Harlem early one morning he is mugged by two junkies. Priest beats one up and gives chase to the other, beating him until he gets the money back. Afterwards, Fat Freddie and Nate Adams, Priest's main dealers, turn up at his apartment to make their payments.
In 1966 Jude, a young shipyard worker from Liverpool, enlists in the Merchant Navy and jumps ship in New Jersey hoping to find his American G.I. father, whom he has never met ("Girl", "Hold Me Tight", "All My Loving"). Meanwhile, Lucy Carrigan worries about her boyfriend Daniel who is headed for service in the Vietnam War, while in Dayton, Ohio, Prudence pines for a fellow female cheerleader ("I Want to Hold Your Hand"). Jude meets his father, who is a janitor at Princeton University, and befriends Lucy's brother, the privileged and rebellious student Max ("With a Little Help from My Friends"). Lucy receives a letter from Daniel ("It Won't Be Long"), but when Max brings Jude home with him for Thanksgiving Jude becomes attracted to Lucy ("I've Just Seen a Face").
The film opens with George W. Bush (Josh Brolin), dreaming of being a baseball player and is in the stadium with a empty crowd cheering for him. In 1966, Bush endures an alcohol-fueled initiation by his fellow Yale University students as a Delta Kappa Epsilon pledge. During the hazing, Bush successfully recalls the names and nicknames of many of the fraternity members, and states that his family's political legacy is one in which he has no interest. A little later, after Bush is jailed in New Jersey for rowdiness following a football game, his father, George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell), states that he will help Bush, but for the last time. Following his graduation from Yale, Bush takes a job at an oil patch back in his home state of Texas, but he quits after only a few weeks. In 1972, "Junior" reveals his real aspirations in a father-son talk: working in professional baseball, in some capacity. Soon afterwards, Bush is accepted into Harvard Business School with the help of his father. That night after drinking heavily, Bush crashes his car into his family estate and challenges his father to a fistfight. His brother, Jeb (Jason Ritter) intervenes and stops the fight.
In a small Kansas town, Betty (Renée Zellweger), a kind and considerate diner waitress, is a fan of the soap opera A Reason to Love. She has no idea that her husband, Del (Aaron Eckhart), a car salesman, is having an affair with his secretary and that he intends to leave Betty to pursue a relationship with the secretary. She also doesn't know that her husband supplements his income by selling drugs out of the car dealership. When she calls to leave a message about borrowing a Buick LeSabre for her birthday, her husband tells Betty to take a different car, as the LeSabre (unknown to Betty) has stolen drugs hidden in the trunk.
In late 1969, Mary Rose Foster (Bette Midler) is a famous rock and roll diva known as The Rose. Although a success, she is burnt out and lonely but is kept working by her gruff, greedy manager and promoter Rudge Campbell (Alan Bates). Though loud and brassy, Rose is an insecure alcoholic and former drug user who seems to crave approval in her life. As such, she is determined to return to her hometown, now as a superstar. After being humiliated by a country singing star named Billy Ray (Harry Dean Stanton) whose songs she performs in her show, Rose takes off with a limousine driver named Houston Dyer (Frederic Forrest) and begins a romance with him. Rudge thinks Houston is just another hanger on, but Rose thinks she has finally met her true love. Houston tells her that he is actually an AWOL sergeant from the Army, and she tells him of her past in Florida. They have a rocky relationship and her lifestyle of "Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll" and constant touring lead her to an inevitable breakdown. Houston and Rose break up and she returns to her hometown with an escort where she tells him about her past. Finally, Rose collapses on stage from a fatal drug overdose (on alcohol, barbiturates and heroin) in the opening minutes of her long-awaited homecoming concert in Jacksonville Florida.
The story takes place involving three different people who all work together in the same supermarket over the 24 hour period leading up to Christmas. Ronna (Sarah Polley) is broke and about to be evicted from her apartment. Despite having worked for 14 hours, she agrees to take her British co-worker Simon's (Desmond Askew) shift. While working, she's approached by two men, Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr), who ask if she can come up with 20 hits of ecstasy, which they were hoping to buy from Simon. Realizing she can make some money from the deal, she goes to Simon's dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant). Because she doesn't have enough money, Ronna has to leave her friend and co-worker Claire (Katie Holmes) with Todd until she makes her deal. Once she tries to make the deal, she grows suspicious when Burke (William Fichtner), a person she never met before and who is with Adam and Zack, presses her for the drugs. In a panic, she flushes the drugs down the toilet and manages to get out. Ronna then swaps the pills she flushed with aspirin pills she steals with the help of Mannie (Nathan Bexton), Ronna and Claire's friend (and also co-worker in the supermarket), who had swallowed two of the pills without knowing their strength. Ronna hands off the pills to Todd and she, Claire and Mannie make their way to a rave party. Todd soon realizes that he's been given fake pills and goes after Ronna. Mannie sees Todd coming and Ronna hides Mannie when he starts to become sick. In the parking lot of the party Todd confronts Ronna, but before he can shoot her a car runs her over and dumps her off the side of a small cliff, leaving her fate unknown.
Long-time friends and small-time criminals Eddy, Tom, Soap and Bacon put together £100,000 so that Eddy, a genius card shark, can buy into one of "Hatchet" Harry Lonsdale's weekly high-stakes three card brag games. The game is rigged however, and the friends end up massively indebted to Harry, who fully expects them not to be able to come up with the money before the deadline he gives them. He has his sights set on Eddy's father's bar as repayment, and sets his debt collector Big Chris (who is often accompanied by his beloved son, Little Chris) to work in order to ensure that some form of payment is coming up.
Craig Jones (Ice Cube), a twenty two year old man living in South Central Los Angeles, California, has just lost his job, after being framed for stealing. Not having any plans, he hangs out on his front porch with his delinquent best friend, Smokey (Chris Tucker), a pothead who sells marijuana for Big Worm (Faizon Love), the psychopathic neighborhood supplier.
Kaydee "Caine" Lawson is a child raised in South Central Los Angeles. His father was a dope dealer who was killed in a drug deal when Caine was ten and his mother was a heroin addict. As a result he went to go live with his grandparents. Caine grows up to become a drug dealer himself along with his friends.
Homicide detective Ko Gun-su is having a hard day. His mother has just died, and he and his colleagues are being investigated by the internal affairs over bribery charges. Then on his way to his mother's funeral, he drives recklessly and commits a fatal hit and run. He tries to cover-up the accident by hiding the man's corpse in his deceased mother's coffin. But someone has been watching all along, and Gun-su gets a mysterious call from a person claiming that he was the sole witness to the crime, who now begins to blackmail him.
After being unexpectedly widowed, respectable and reserved housewife Grace Trevethyn (Brenda Blethyn) discovers that her late husband ran up significant debts and left her facing foreclosure and numerous repossessions. Well liked around Port Isaac, the coastal fishing town she lives in, Grace is given emotional support by the town's inhabitants, particularly her loyal, pot-smoking gardener Matthew Stewart (Craig Ferguson), his girlfriend and the town's fisherwoman Nicky (Valerie Edmond), and their friend Dr Martin Bamford (Martin Clunes). Despite wanting to help Grace, none of the residents are able to find a way to get her out of her dire situation.
À Détroit, dans les années 1980, Richard Wershe Jr. n'est encore qu'adolescent mais traîne avec les plus gros trafiquants de crack de la ville. Dans ce milieu dirigé par les Afro-Américains, le jeune homme est rapidement surnommé « White Boy Rick ». Il importe ensuite de la cocaïne depuis Miami. Il amasse des fortunes et passe notamment des week-ends à Las Vegas.
Actress Georgia Hines is being released from a rehab center where she has been undergoing treatment for alcoholism and weight gain. She returns to her Manhattan apartment to begin a new sober life with her supportive friends: Jimmy, an unemployed actor, and Toby, a sophisticated, vain socialite. She pledges to both that she will maintain her sobriety and slowly ease back into theatre work.
At the Tarasco bar in Mexico, an American man tells the story of how he witnessed a massacre in another bar committed by a Mexican with a guitar case full of guns. The bar's patrons are uninterested until the American mentions the name "Bucho." Meanwhile, El Mariachi has a dream of his encounter with Moco that left his lover dead and his hand shot. He is awakened by the American, who tells him to continue his search for Bucho at the bar. El Mariachi travels to the town and meets a child to whom he gives some guitar playing tips. At the Tarasco bar, El Mariachi engages in a tense standoff with Bucho's goons before a massive gunfight erupts. He kills everyone in the bar, but is followed outside by a man named Tavo. On the street, Tavo shoots El Mariachi twice before being killed himself. El Mariachi is then sheltered in the local bookstore by Carolina, the owner. Bucho arrives at the bar to survey the carnage and hears the kid from earlier playing his guitar by the door. A paranoid Bucho orders his men to hunt down the man with a guitar case full of guns.