The Lusty Men

In 1971, military dictatorship in Brazil reaches its height. The Paiva family — Rubens, Eunice, and their five children — live in a beachside house in Rio, open to all their friends. One day, Rubens is taken for questioning and does not return.

After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctor, nurse and clerk responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is asked by Fertig's boss to defend him. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.

Vinayachandran and Sindhu are an ideal couple, who are so fond of each other that the greatest thing that they love, according to their neighbours Nambiarettan and Shoshammetathi. Vinayan has just joined a reputed public school as a teacher of Malayalam. The fact that he wants to teach Malayalam is projected as a politically correct stand, which Vinayan promptly starts elaborating with his unconventional ways of teaching.

In a tale set in the rough and tumble world of professional rodeo, an over-the-hill former champion broncobuster and a young hitchhiker develop a special friendship.

Kishanlal marries the beautiful Lachchi, but the day after the wedding, he leaves on business for five years. When Kishanlal reappears only a few days later, Lachchi is delighted, but this new Kishanlal is in fact a spirit who has taken the form of Lachchi's husband, after having seen her by chance and fallen in love with her. Four years later, the real Kishanlal returns and the townsfolk must determine who is who.

An ambitious young skier, determined to break all existing records, is contemptuous of the teamwork advocated by the US coach when they go to Europe for the Olympics.

Four tales, each centered on a woman, journey inward to explore the enigmatic reality of their lives, connecting through a single narrative thread.

Two peanut vendors at a rodeo show get in trouble with their boss and hide out on a railroad train heading west. They get jobs as cowboys on a dude ranch, despite the fact that neither of them knows anything about cowboys, horses, or anything else.

Ruby and her husband Claude are a working-class couple who live in suburban Arkansas. As crazy as they are for each other, their relationship is far from harmonious. (The lack of money doesn't help matters, either.) In fact, their whole family is fraught with unresolved conflicts. Then Claude's uncle is arrested on a felony charge, and everyone rallies round. Ruby's mother Jewel and flirtatious sister Rose (Claude's ex-girlfriend) even fly in from Tennessee; but, far from being a source of support, Jewel seems only to want to break up Ruby and Claude.

The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot - the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.

An abused wife's plan to escape her husband goes awry when she accidentally kills him, causing her to split on a cross-country drive with her best friend and his corpse in tow.