A Better Life

Doc, who has just moved to Cannery Row, realizes that the only entertainment is the brothel. There he meets the spunky Suzy and they fall in love, giving them both a renewed chance at life.

Tom, now in his 40s, begins to write the memoirs of his 1960s childhood, as the little boy whose mother Rose was a glamorous Shanghai nightclub singer. When Rose meets Aussie sailor Bill, they are quickly married, and she packs up Tom and his older sister May to head for Melbourne. The marriage just as quickly breaks up and Rose moves with the kids to Sydney. After a succession of male friends and little success, in 1971 Rose moves back to Melbourne, in an uncomfortable arrangement living again with Bill – and his mother. With Bill called away to sea, Rose takes up with young Chinese cook Joe, but despair and conflicts over May's relationship with Joe tear the family further apart. Little Tom is deeply hurt, but May's ongoing conflict with her mother takes a respite when Rose tells her daughter about her traumatic teenage years.

Chronicling one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome, unforeseeable extremes.

As he approaches manhood, Ben Meechum struggles to win the approval of his demanding alpha male father, an aggressively competitive, but frustrated marine pilot.

While Sergeant John Tyree is home on two weeks leave from Germany, he meets Savannah after he dives into the ocean to retrieve Savannah's purse that had fallen off a pier. John eventually falls in love with Savannah, who promises to write to him until he returns from overseas.

Hilarity ensues when a falsely accused fugitive from justice hides at the house of his childhood friend, which she has recently rented to a high-principled law teacher.

Still reeling from a heartbreaking family event and his parents' subsequent divorce, Tyler Hawkins discovers a fresh lease on life when he meets Ally Craig, a gregarious beauty who witnessed her mother's death. But as the couple draws closer, the fallout from their separate tragedies jeopardizes their love.

On a Saturday night, in a small 1950s Californian town, a young man, whose parents are an inch from a divorce, takes his brand new pink Cadillac for a spin to meet girls. He hooks up with the daughter of the town's radical preacher.

It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.

Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.

A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.