Mistress Madeleine (1986)

India. Smita is an untouchable. She dreams of seeing her daughter escape her miserable condition and enter school. Italy. Giulia works in her father’s workshop. When he has an accident, she discovers that the family business is ruined. Canada. Sarah, a successful lawyer, is about to be promoted to the head of her firm when she learns that she is ill. Three lives, three women, three continents. Three battles to fight. Although they don’t know each other, Smita, Giulia and Sarah are unknowingly linked by their most intimate and singular bond.

Drunk and disillusioned Roman, Marcellus Gallio, wins Jesus' robe in a dice game after the crucifixion. Marcellus has never been a man of faith like his slave, Demetrius, but when Demetrius escapes with the robe, Marcellus experiences disturbing visions and feels guilty for his actions. Convinced that destroying the robe will cure him, Marcellus sets out to find Demetrius — and discovers his Christian faith along the way.

After her husband deserts her, working-class mother Ray Eddy is in great need of money to find a home. Lured by the possibility of easy cash, she joins Lila, a widowed Mohawk who earns a living by smuggling immigrants from Canada to the U.S. across the St. Lawrence.

England, 1763. After being convicted of a crime, the young and beautiful Abigail Hale agrees, to escape the gallows, to serve fourteen years as a slave in the colony of Virginia, whose inhabitants begin to hear and fear the sinister song of the threatening drums of war that resound in the wild Ohio valley.

In the 1820s, a taciturn loner and skilled cook travels west to Oregon Territory, where he meets a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two team up on a dangerous scheme to steal milk from the wealthy landowner’s prized Jersey cow—the first, and only, in the territory.

Dido Elizabeth Bell, the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy admiral, plays an important role in the campaign to abolish slavery in England.

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

In the 1860s, fiercely independent French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy embarks on a journey with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen, attempting to forge a life together in the dusty town of Elk Flats, Nevada. When Holger decides to go fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself, which isn't easy in a town controlled by a corrupt mayor.

While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.