The Iron Master (1914)

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

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.

A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

On the French island of Mont Saint-Michel, Jack, a failed presidential candidate, Tom, his ex-speechwriter and Sonia, a physicist, engage in an intellectual conversation about politics, philosophy and life over the course of a single day.