Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is a 51-year-old advertising executive and head of sales for Sports America, a major sports magazine. Happily married with two daughters, Dan faces a life-changing event when his magazine is bought out by Globecom, an international corporation that promotes the corporate concept of "synergy". After he is forced to fire several of his longtime colleagues, Dan is demoted and becomes the "wingman" of his new boss, Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), a 26-year-old business school prodigy. While Dan develops clients through handshake deals and relationships, Carter champions the corporate creed of synergy, cross-promoting the magazine with the cell phone division and "Krispity Krunch", a snack food also owned by Globecom.
The film begins with Emil Slovak (Karel Roden) and Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov) arriving in America. They were former criminals and after getting out of prison have come to the U.S. to claim their part of a bank heist in Russia (or somewhere in Czech Republic). Within minutes of arriving, Oleg steals a video camera. They go to the run down apartment of their old partner and demand their share. He doesn't have it so Emil stabs him and his wife to death, as Oleg tapes it with the camera. The couple's friend, Czech immigrant Daphne Handlova (Vera Farmiga), covertly witnesses the murders from the bathroom, but she escapes before they can get her too. To hide the crime, Emil burns down the apartment.
François Pignon, an unassuming divorced man with a teenage son who ignores him, lives a quiet and unremarkable life. When he learns he will be fired from his job as an accountant in a rubber factory, he contemplates suicide, but his new neighbor Jean-Pierre Belone, a former industrial psychologist, dissuades him from jumping from his balcony and suggests a way to keep his position. Belone proposes that Pignon start a rumor he is homosexual by inserting his image in sexually provocative snapshots of a gay couple in a bar and anonymously mailing them to his boss, Mr. Kopel. The factory's primary product is condoms, so the gay community's support is essential, and Kopel will have to keep Pignon on the payroll to avoid charges of anti-homosexual bigotry.
The film opens with Shane Falco, a former star quarterback at The Ohio State University who choked in his final college game and failed to succeed in the pros, doing his job cleaning the bottoms of peoples' boats. While underwater, he finds a metal trophy football labeled "Shane Falco: All American" and pretends he is playing football again.
Dolores Claiborne (Bates) works as a domestic servant on a Maine island. The film opens with Dolores having a struggle with her elderly, paralyzed employer Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt) in her mansion, after which Vera falls down the staircase. Dolores ransacks the kitchen and is then caught by a mailman as she stands over Vera with a rolling pin, apparently intending to kill her. Vera dies and the police begin a murder investigation.
In 1967, during the Vietnam War, a group of new U.S. Marine Corps recruits arrive at Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training. After having their heads shaved, they meet Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who employs excessively aggressive tactics to turn the recruits into hardened, combat-ready Marines. Among the recruits are privates "Joker", "Cowboy", and the overweight, bumbling Leonard Lawrence, who earns the nickname "Gomer Pyle" after attracting Hartman's wrath.
In the Arizona desert, truck driver Martin "Rubber Duck" Penwald is passed by a woman in a Jaguar E-Type, which leads to an encounter with a sheriff's deputy. Proceeding on his way, Rubber Duck runs into fellow truck drivers Pig Pen/Love Machine and Spider Mike, when another "trucker" informs them over the C.B. that they are okay to increase their speed. The "trucker" turns out to be cold county Sheriff "Dirty Lyle" Wallace, a long-time nemesis of the Duck, who extorts them for $70 each.
In Marseille, France, a young Vespa delivery boy named Daniel (Samy Naceri) has just finished his last delivery for a local pizza parlor, Pizza Joe, owned by Joe (Georges Neri), his boss, also beating his old record, as he is planning to quit the job to pursue a career as a taxi driver. As he reunites with his girlfriend Lilly (Marion Cotillard), a large group of delivery boys throw a huge celebration in honor of his departure as he goes with Lilly to his apartment.
In the prologue, a young Max Skinner, whose parents have died in an accident, spends his childhood summer holidays learning to appreciate the finer things in life at his Uncle Henry's vineyard estate in Provence in south-eastern France. Some 25 years later, Max is an unethical yet very successful hard-working London-based bond trader with a large portion sense of humour.
A television reporter named Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott Percival (Steve Harris) are assigned to follow firefighters Jake (Jay Hernandez) and Fletcher (Johnathon Schaech) on their night shift. The crew responds to an emergency call from an apartment building. The apartment manager Yuri (Rade Sherbedgia) says that he and other residents heard screams from the room of an old woman named Mrs. Espinoza (Jeannie Epper), who has locked herself in her apartment. Jake, Fletcher, Yuri, police officers Danny (Columbus Short) and James (Andrew Fiscella), and the camera crew go to the apartment, where they find Mrs. Espinoza in serious condition. She is bleeding severely and foaming at the mouth. Moments later, they are attacked by Espinoza who bites James in the neck. They take him downstairs for medical assistance, while Fletcher stays with a now sedated Mrs. Espinoza upstairs. However, when they get downstairs, they find the apartment doors have been locked from the outside, leaving everyone, including several residents, trapped inside. Upstairs, Fletcher is attacked by Mrs. Espinoza and thrown from the railing to the ground, leaving him in serious condition. Lawrence (Greg Germann), a veterinarian, starts tending to the injured as best as possible.
The film is set in Washington state in 1964 and focuses on Selma Ježková (Björk), a Czech immigrant who has moved to the United States with her son, Gene Ježek (Vladica Kostic). They live a life of poverty as Selma works at a factory with her good friend Kathy (Catherine Deneuve), whom she nicknames "Cvalda" (which means "chubby" in Czech). She rents a trailer home on the property of town policeman Bill Houston (David Morse) and his wife Linda (Cara Seymour). She is also pursued by the shy but persistent Jeff (Peter Stormare), who also works at the factory.
C.D. "Charlie" Bales (Steve Martin), the fire chief of a small American ski town in Washington, is intelligent, humorous, charismatic, athletic and skilled. He is close to many in town, especially his godsister, Dixie (Shelley Duvall), who owns the town diner and several rental homes. He becomes immediately attracted to beautiful newcomer Roxanne Kowalski (Daryl Hannah), an astronomy student in town for the summer searching for a new comet. She adores Bales, but only as a friend, preferring Chris (Rick Rossovich), a handsome but dim fireman who has just joined Bales's unit to help turn it around. Bales is sensitive about his large nose, which many in town have learned to not mention. He is unable to have it surgically altered because of a dangerous allergy to anesthetics.
Sylvain Marot, pilote d'exception, est un super-flic parisien qui vient d'arrêter un truand et, parce que celui-ci est d’humeur râleuse, décide de lui offrir quelques dérapages et pics de vitesse dans les grandes rues de la capitale. De retour au poste de police, il apprend être sanctionné pour avoir couché avec la femme du préfet : ce dernier le mute dans une brigade de police municipale de Marseille alors qu'à la base, il rêvait du RAID. Sur place, Alain Trésor, idiot logorrhéique en poste depuis plus de 20 ans à la Criminelle de Marseille et maintenant à la tête de la Municipale, lui présente l'équipe de bras cassés en place : Ménard, un grand dadais des farces et attrapes. Michel, un nain agressif. Régis, un pervers incontrôlable. Et Sandrine, une policière obèse et nymphomane. Lors d'un contrôle de routine, Sylvain est renversé par un chauffeur VTC calamiteux et intellectuellement limité. Il tente de poursuivre la Renault Laguna à travers les rues de Marseille, mais le passager du véhicule vomit sur le pare-brise de la voiture de police qui plonge dans le Vieux-Port. Casse-cou peu au fait des mœurs marseillaises, Sylvain est pris à partie par deux agents de la police nationale, qui connaissent ses origines parisiennes.
The story begins with the idea that the Wizard (George Carlin) controls all of the fairy tales and maintains the balance of good and evil in Fairy Tale Land. With the help of his assistants the uptight Munk (Wallace Shawn) and the decidedly goofy Mambo (Andy Dick), the Wizard is checking to make sure that all the fairy tales under his care are "on track" to have their traditional happy endings. As we meet him however, the Wizard is leaving for Scotland for a long-overdue vacation. He leaves the kingdom in the hands of Munk and Mambo.
Vers la fin du XIX siècle, Étienne Lantier, machineur au chômage, arrive à la mine « Le Voreux », dans le nord de la France. Après la mort d'une mineuse du nom de Fleurance, il est engagé. Il est envoyé dans un petit groupe dirigé par Toussaint Maheu, qui devient son ami. La famille Maheu compte dix personnes : Maheu, mineur, son père, travaillant également à la mine, sa femme, la Maheude, et leurs enfants. Zacharie, Catherine et Jeanlin, les ainés, travaillent eux aussi à la mine ; Alzire, bossue, garde le lit ; Léonore, Henri et le petit dernier sont encore trop petits pour travailler.