In 2010, Ethiopian Jewish miners retrieve a rare black opal from the Welo mine in Ethiopia. In 2012, gambling addict Howard Ratner runs KMH, a jewelry store in New York City's Diamond District. He struggles to pay off his gambling debts, which include the $100,000 he owes to Arno, his loan shark brother-in-law. His domestic life is split between his wife Dinah, who has agreed to divorce after Passover, and his girlfriend Julia, a KMH employee. Howard's business associate, Demany, brings the basketball star Kevin Garnett to KMH. While he is there, the opal, which Howard had smuggled from Africa, arrives. Garnett becomes obsessed with the opal, insisting on holding onto it for good luck at his game that night. Howard reluctantly agrees, accepting Garnett's 2008 NBA Championship ring as collateral. After Garnett leaves, Howard pawns the ring and wins a six-way parlay on Garnett playing extraordinarily well in that night's game. The next day, Demany says that Garnett still has the opal, angering Howard. Howard is ambushed at his daughter's school play by Arno and his goons, Phil and Nico. Howard's winning bet should have earned him $600,000, but Arno reveals that he placed a stop on the bet because it was made with money Howard owed him. Phil and Nico strip Howard naked and lock him in the trunk of his car, forcing him to call Dinah for help. Howard meets Demany at a nightclub party hosted by the singer the Weeknd to retrieve the opal, but learns that Garnett still has it. Howard discovers Julia snorting cocaine in a bathroom with the Weeknd and gets into a fight with him. Feeling betrayed, Howard confronts Julia and demands that she move out of his apartment. Garnett returns the opal before an auction and offers to purchase it for $175,000, but Howard refuses, believing it is worth much more. Garnett demands his ring back, but Howard lies, saying it is at his house. After Garnett leaves in dismay, Howard berates Demany for allowing Garnett to hold onto the opal for so long. Incensed, Demany quits and trashes Howard's office. After an awkward Passover dinner, Dinah rejects Howard's plea to give their marriage another chance. Just before the auction starts, Howard discovers the opal has been appraised for significantly less than his initial estimate of $1 million. He convinces his father-in-law, Gooey, to bid on the gem to drive up the price, but the plan backfires when Garnett fails to top Gooey's final bid. A furious Gooey gives Howard the opal before Arno, Phil, and Nico assault Howard outside the auction house. Howard returns to KMH, bloody and in tears. Julia comforts him, and they reconcile. Howard learns that Garnett is still willing to purchase the opal. Garnett goes to KMH to pay, giving Howard enough money to repay his debt to Arno. Arno, Phil, and Nico arrive at KMH just before Garnett leaves, but before they enter his office, Howard tells Julia to bet the cash on a three-way parlay on Garnett playing well. Julia escapes as the thugs find Howard in his office and threaten him, while Julia travels by helicopter to the Mohegan Sun casino to place the bet. Arno tells Howard to call Julia and cancel the bet, but he refuses. Furious, the three attempt to pursue her, but Howard locks them between the store's security doors. Howard watches the game on television while Arno, Phil, and Nico remain trapped. Garnett's Boston Celtics win the game, winning Howard $1.2 million. An ecstatic Howard frees Arno, Phil, and Nico, but the enraged Phil shoots Howard dead. Arno protests and tries to escape, but Phil shoots him dead, too. Julia leaves the casino with Howard's winnings as Phil and Nico loot the store.

The story is set in Japan, beginning in the early 1990s up until the present day (2008), with each act centered on a boy named Takaki Tōno.

The movie deals with the main character, Elling, a man in his 40s with generalized anxiety, and his struggle to function normally in society. He has anxiety, dizziness, and neurotic tendencies, which prevent him from living on his own. Elling has lived with his mother his entire life, and when she dies, the authorities take him from the house where he has always lived and send him to an institution. His roommate is the simple-minded, sex-obsessed Kjell Bjarne. The Norwegian government pays for the two to move into an apartment in Oslo, where every day is a challenge as they must prove they can get out into the real world and lead relatively normal lives. With the help of social worker Frank and a few new friends, they learn to break free from their respective conditions. Elling eventually discovers a new vocation as a rebel poet, while Kjell befriends a pregnant woman with a drinking problem, which eventually turns into a romance. The film ends with both men as firm friends, embarking on new lives filled with hope.

Havildar Ishar Singh is a soldier in the 36th Sikhs Regiment of the British Indian Army. His superior and commander is an arrogant British officer who deems all Indians to be cowards, and is jealous of Ishar Singh because of his superior fighting skills. The regiment is posted at Gulistan Fort, on the border between British-held territory and the Afghan border. Once, while on a border patrol, the troops see a group of Pashtun Afghan tribesmen, led by Saidullah, on the verge of killing a married Afghan woman because she refuses to accept her husband, who has been chosen by her family without her consent. The British officer refuses to intervene and save the woman, saying she is an Afghan citizen and does not reside in British territory; since it is a family matter pertaining to tribal custom, the policy of the British Raj is to not interfere. In defiance of the orders of his officer, Ishar Singh fights off the tribesmen and rescues the woman by killing her husband. The British officer writes a strong report informing his commanding officer, who sits at the nearby Lockhart fort, of Ishar Singh's disobedience and insubordination. Soon enough, the Afghans attack the British-controlled Gulistan fort, but are held at bay by Ishar Singh, who fights valiantly and kills many Afghans. Nevertheless, Ishar Singh is blamed by his superiors for his actions, which caused the breach of peace with the Afghans. He is given a punishment transfer to Saragarhi fort, which sits between Gulistan and Lockhart forts, and enables communication between them. Ishar Singh duly travels to Saragarhi fort, where he finds the troop in a mess. He enforces discipline by punishing all to stay without food for an entire week. The troops are furious at first, but later begin to respect Ishar Singh after learning that he too was living without food. Meanwhile, Saidullah forms an alliance between the Afghan tribes and motivates them to mount an attack on British territories as a unified force. Ishar Singh and Lal Singh go to a nearby village in search of their informant, who hadn't reported to them for over three days. The British Commanding Officer, Col. John Haughton from Lockhart fort, sees the Afghan Forces marching towards Sargarhi and alerts Ishar. Ishar and his battalion see ten thousand tribesmen approaching and encircling the fort. Saidullah, with the entire Afghan army at his back, beheads the woman Ishar Singh had rescued earlier in front of the Saragarhi Fort. Despite the commanding officer's orders to fight, Ishar lies to them and says that the commanding officer has told them to abandon the fort and flee. Ishar wants them to decide on their own to stay and fight, not due to an order from a British officer. Ishar Singh and his men decide to fight till death. Khuda Daad, the cook, volunteers to fight, but Ishar Singh asks him to instead provide water to the injured soldiers (including the Afghans). The Afghans initiate the battle, and Bhagwan Singh is the first to be killed. Gurmukh Singh, a young, inexperienced soldier, is unable to fight; Ishar Singh asks him to keep the CO updated regarding the battle, and decides to prolong the battle to prevent the Afghans from advancing to the Gulistan and Lockhart forts. As the battle prolongs, Lal Singh alone fights the Afghans outside the fort and dies while asking one of the sepoys to close the gate to the fort. The Afghans destroy the west wall of the fort using explosives. Ishar Singh remembers his wife, Jeevani, one last time after removing the stripes from his uniform, and starts fighting the Afghans with a red-hot sword until he gets fatally stabbed. Saidullah kills Khuda Daad before himself being stabbed to death by Ishar while trying to remove his turban. Ishar's bravery impresses an Afghan chieftain who orders his men not to touch any Sikh's turban. At this, the Head Afghan chieftain Gul Badshah orders the signaling post to be lit up so Gurmukh Singh's painful screams can be heard as a consolation. As the Afghans set the post on fire, Gurmukh Singh emerges with his body on fire. He chants " Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akaal " thrice, grabs Gul Badshah and triggers the grenades attached to his body, resulting in a huge explosion. The shout echoes and reaches both the nearby forts. The Sikh soldiers present there also start chanting in the name of their Guru. The Afghans loot the fort and eventually set it on fire. The British Parliament honours the fallen with a two-minute silence and posthumously awards them the First-Class Indian Order of Merit (IOM) - the highest gallantry award (equivalent to the Victoria Cross) an Indian soldier could receive in those times.

Irene Vail decides to divorce her husband, the rich ship owner Bruce Vail. However, Bruce learns that he can prevent the divorce if he can provide evidence that she has been involved with another man. He pays his driver Michael to visit Irene's hotel room in Paris and pretend to be her lover so that a private detective can catch them in a compromising position. However, a man overhears Irene's startled cry upon finding Michael in her room, and a struggle ensues when the man defends Irene, leaving Michael on the floor, unconscious. When Bruce and the detective burst into the room, the man threatens them with a gun, demands Irene's jewelry and takes Irene hostage. Once they are away, the intruder, Paul Dumond, returns Irene's jewelry and invites her to dine with him at the Château Bleu restaurant, where he works as a waiter. They dance and Irene falls in love with him. In the morning, Irene returns to find Vail and the police in her room, as Michael is dead. Vail leads her to believe that Paul is responsible for the murder and blackmails her into coming back to the United States with him in exchange for Paul's freedom. Distraught that he is unable to find Irene, Paul learns that Irene has reunited with her husband and left for the U.S. Sensing something is wrong, he embarks for the U.S. to find her, accompanied by Cesare, his good friend and head chef of Château Bleu. In Manhattan, Paul and Cesare rehabilitate a restaurant, hoping that it will attract Irene. The reunion takes place at last, but Paul learns that Michael is dead and that a man has been arrested in Paris for the murder. Unwilling to let an innocent man pay for what he thinks is his crime, Paul embarks for Paris, and Irene joins him. They travel on the liner Princess Irene, which is owned by Vail and named after her. Vail learns that they are on the ship. In a rage, he orders the captain to travel at full speed, despite the danger of collision with an iceberg, claiming a desire to break the record for fastest crossing. Vail actually hopes that the ship will sink, killing Paul and Irene. The ship does strike an iceberg, and premature news reports state that the ship has sunk with tremendous loss of life. Consumed by guilt, Vail commits suicide and confesses to killing Michael in a note. However, the ship's bulkhead doors contain the water and prevent the ship from sinking. Paul, Irene and the other passengers rejoice when they hear that they are to be rescued.

In 1988, Dottie Hinson attends the opening of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame. She sees many former teammates and friends playing a game, prompting a flashback to 1943. With World War II threatening to shut down Major League Baseball (MLB), Chicago Cubs owner Walter Harvey persuades his fellow owners to bankroll a women's league. Ira Lowenstein is put in charge. Scout Ernie Capadino attends an industrial-league softball game in Oregon and likes what he sees in Dottie, the catcher for a local dairy. She is not interested and is happy with her life, waiting for her husband Bob to return from the war. Her younger sister, Kit Keller, however, is desperate to escape and make something of herself. Capadino is unimpressed by Kit's batting and refuses to watch her pitch but agrees to take her along if she changes Dottie's mind. Dottie agrees for her sister's sake. Dottie and Kit travel to Harvey Field (a fictionalized Wrigley Field) in Chicago for tryouts; en route, they force Capadino to accept homely second baseman Marla Hooch. They meet taxi dancer Mae "All-the-Way-Mae" Mordabito, her best friend, bouncer Doris Murphy, soft-spoken right fielder Evelyn Gardner, illiterate left fielder Shirley Baker, pitcher/ shortstop and former Miss Georgia beauty queen Ellen Sue Gotlander, left field/ relief pitcher Betty "Spaghetti" Horn, first baseman Helen Haley and Alice "Skeeter" Gaspers. They and five others constitute the Rockford Peaches, while 48 others make up the Racine Belles, the Kenosha Comets and the South Bend Blue Sox. The Peaches are managed by former star Cubs slugger Jimmy Dugan, a cynical alcoholic. He initially treats the whole concept as a joke, forcing Dottie to take over as on-field leader. Dugan is also abrasive toward his players. The team travels with Evelyn's spoiled, bratty son Stillwell and team chaperone Miss Cuthburt. With a Life magazine photographer in the stands, Lowenstein begs the players to do something spectacular, as the league has attracted little attention. Dottie obliges, catching a popped-up ball behind home plate while doing a split. The resulting photograph makes the magazine cover. A publicity campaign draws more people to the ballgames, but the owners remain unconvinced. The teammates bond. Marla marries a man named Nelson whom she met on a raucous roadhouse outing and leaves the team for the rest of the season, Mae teaches Shirley to read, and Evelyn writes a team song. Lowenstein promotes Dottie as the face of the league, making Kit resentful. Their sibling rivalry intensifies, resulting in Kit's trade to the Racine Belles. The Peaches end the season with the league's best record, qualifying for the World Series. Betty receives a telegram, informing her that her husband was killed in action in the Pacific Theater. Grief-stricken, she leaves the team. That evening, Dottie receives a surprise when Bob shows up, having been wounded and discharged from the Army. Jimmy discovers that Dottie is going home with Bob. Unable to persuade her to play in the World Series, he tells her she will regret her decision. The Peaches face the Belles in the World Series, which goes the full seven games. Dottie rejoins the Peaches for the seventh game, while Kit is the starting pitcher for the Belles. With the Belles leading by a run in the top of the ninth, Dottie drives in the go-ahead run. Kit is distraught, but gets a second chance when she comes to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. She gets a hit and, ignoring the third base coach's sign to stop, collides with Dottie at the plate and causes her to drop the ball, thus scoring the winning run. The sellout crowd convinces Harvey to give Lowenstein the owners' support. After the game, the sisters reconcile before Dottie leaves with Bob. Back in the present at Cooperstown, Dottie is reunited with the other players – including Kit – Capadino and Lowenstein, and reveals that Bob died the previous winter. She also discovers that Jimmy died a year earlier, in 1987, and she meets a grown up Stillwell, who tells her that Evelyn died a couple years earlier. The surviving Peaches sing Evelyn's team song and pose for a photo. During the closing credits, they play baseball once again at Doubleday Field.

A mysterious Japanese man arrives in Gokseong, a small village in the mountains of South Korea. Soon after, a bizarre infection breaks out, causing villagers to become deranged and violently kill their families. Officer Jong-goo's daughter, Hyo-jin, becomes one of the infected. Jong-goo then meets a mysterious young woman named Moo-myeong, who claims the Japanese stranger is an evil spirit. A local hunter reports seeing the stranger with glowing red eyes eating a deer carcass. After a series of disturbing events and violent deaths, Jong-goo enlists the help of a Japanese-speaking deacon, Yang I-sam. They investigate the stranger's house, discovering a shrine with photos and belongings of the murdered villagers, including Hyo-jin's shoe. As Hyo-jin's condition worsens, Jong-goo confronts the stranger, ordering him to leave the village. Jong-goo's family discovers a dead goat hanging at their gate, and Hyo-jin stabs their neighbor to death. A shaman named Il-gwang is consulted, who claims the stranger is a demon and performs a death-hex ritual. Jong-goo stops the ritual midway, instead taking Hyo-jin to the hospital. The next day, Jong-goo and his companions hunt down the stranger but are attacked by the reanimated corpse of another victim, giving the stranger time to flee. They eventually kill him, and Hyo-jin's health improves. Il-gwang encounters Moo-myeong and vomits blood. After his ritual fails, he leaves town in terror but a swarm of flying insects stops him. He calls Jong-goo, warning that Moo-myeong is the real demon, and the stranger was a shaman who was trying to kill her. Meanwhile, Yang I-sam receives news that his uncle Oh Seong-bok has killed his family. Jong-goo goes home and finds that Hyo-jin has disappeared. While looking for Hyo-Jin, Jong-goo runs into Moo-myeong, who he confronts about Hyo-jin's whereabouts. Moo-myeong claims his daughter is possessed by the stranger, who is consuming her life force. She also tells him his daughter is still alive, has just returned and will kill his family. She reveals that she has set a trap for the demon, and that all Jong-goo has to do is remain there and wait. Jong-goo replies that he is not sure if he believes her. The shaman phones him and says he must not let Moo-myeong tempt him. Moo-myeong instructs him to simply wait until the third crow of the rooster. Meanwhile, Hyo-jin returns home possessed and while eating with her hands, eyes a knife in the kitchen. While Jong-goo is engaged with Moo-myeong, Yang I-sam returns to the stranger's house armed with a sickle and finds him alive inside a cave. Yang promises to leave if the stranger reveals his true form. The stranger chuckles at this. Jong-goo notices Moo-myeong is wearing items of the victims and sees his daughter's hairpin on the ground. Believing this to be proof that she is responsible for the infection, he returns home before the rooster's third crow. Upon returning home, Jong-goo discovers that Hyo-jin has slaughtered his wife and mother-in-law; she then attacks him. Meanwhile, the stranger repeatedly photographs Yang I-sam. He then assumes his true appearance—that of a red-eyed demon, bearing stigmata. Il-gwang returns with a camera in his hand and finds Jong-goo's dead family as Hyo-jin sits in a trance and Jong-goo lies dying. Il-gwang photographs the dead family members, then returns to his car and retrieves a box which he drops, revealing photos of other families and victims of the demon. Jong-goo reminisces about the happy times with his daughter as he dies.

The mid-19th-century patriarch of the Hungarian-Jewish Sonnenschein (meaning "Sunshine" in German) family is a tavern owner who makes his own popular distilled herb-based tonic in Austria-Hungary. The tonic, called Taste of Sunshine, is later commercially made by his son, Emmanuel, bringing the family great wealth and prestige. He builds a large estate where his oldest son, Ignatz, falls in love with his first cousin, Valerie, despite the disapproval of Emmanuel and Rose, his wife. Ignatz, while studying in law school, begins an affair with Valerie. Ignatz graduates and later earns a place as a respected district judge, when he is asked by the chief judge to change his Jewish surname to a Hungarian one in order to be promoted to the central court. The entire generation – Ignatz, his physician brother Gustave and photographer cousin Valerie – change their last name to Sors (meaning "fate" in Hungarian). Ignatz then gets promoted when he tells the Minister of Justice a way to delay the prosecution of corrupt politicians. In the spring of 1899, when Valerie becomes pregnant, she and Ignatz happily marry before the birth of their son, Istvan. Their second son, Adam, is born in 1902. Ignatz continues to support the Habsburg monarchy, while Gustave pushes for a communist revolution. Both brothers become officers in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I. Emmanuel dies on the same day as the Emperor Franz Joseph I. In the days after the war, Valerie briefly leaves him for another man, the old monarchy collapses, and Ignatz loses his judicial position under a series of short-lived socialist and communist regimes in which Gustave is involved. When a new monarchy emerges and asks Ignatz to oversee trials of retribution against the communists, he declines and is forced to retire. His health deteriorates rapidly and he dies, leaving Valerie as the head of the family. Istvan and Adam both join the Jewish-run Civic Fencing Club. Adam becomes the best fencer in Hungary, and General Jakofalvy invites him to convert to Roman Catholicism in order to join the nation's top military, non-Jewish, fencing club. While Adam and Istvan are converting, Adam meets Hannah, who is converting at the request of her fiancé and woos her into marrying him. Adam wins the national fencing championship two years in a row and goes on to lead the national team to the 1936 Olympic gold medal in Team Sabre in Nazi Germany, becoming a national hero in Hungary. Istvan's wife, Greta, pursues Adam until they start a secret affair. New Hungarian laws are passed discriminating against people with any near Jewish ancestors, and the Sors family is initially shielded by the exceptions in the laws. However, Adam is soon expelled from the military fencing club. Greta finally convinces the family that they must emigrate to save their children, but they are too late to get exit visas. When Germany occupies Hungary, Valerie and Hannah are immediately moved into the Budapest Ghetto. Valerie escapes and hides in a friend's attic, but nobody knows how or where Hannah died. Adam and his son Ivan are sent to a labor camp, where Adam is beaten, stripped naked, and hosed with water until he freezes to death. Istvan, Greta, and their son are summarily shot by Nazis. After the war, the surviving Sors family returns to the Sonnenschein estate. The elderly Gustave returns from exile and is invited into the communist government, Valerie manages the household, and Ivan becomes a state policeman, working for police Major General Knorr and rounding up fascists from the wartime regime. Ivan rises quickly in the communist ranks and begins an affair with Carole, the wife of a high-ranking communist official. Later, Army General Kope asks Ivan to start vigorously arresting Jews, including Knorr, who are suspected of inciting conspiracies against the current government. After Gustave dies, Kope informs Ivan that his uncle would have been next to be investigated. When Stalin dies in 1953, Ivan feels guilty for helping Kope and not saving Knorr. He leaves the police force and swears to fight the communist regime. In the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he steps up as a leader but is imprisoned after it fails. Released at the end of the decade, he returns to live together with Valerie in a single room of the former family estate. She falls ill while they search for the tonic recipe. After she dies, he continues the search but accidentally disposes of the book while cleaning out the apartment. While searching, he uncovers an old letter written by Emanuel to Ignatz telling him never to make being accepted by others his main goal in life. Inspired, Ivan goes to the legal office to change his name from Sors to Sonnenschein. He concludes his storytelling after the end of the communist regime in 1989. While walking down the street afterward, he feels free for the first time in his life.

An American family – Dr. Ben McKenna, his wife, popular singer Jo Conway, and their son Hank – are vacationing in French Morocco. Traveling from Casablanca to Marrakesh, they meet Frenchman Louis Bernard. He seems friendly, but Jo is suspicious of his many questions and evasive answers. Bernard offers to take the McKennas to dinner, but cancels when a suspicious-looking man knocks at the McKennas' hotel-room door. At a restaurant, the McKennas meet friendly English couple Lucy and Edward Drayton. The McKennas are surprised to see Bernard arrive and sit elsewhere, apparently ignoring them. The next day, visiting the local marketplace with the Draytons, the McKennas see a man chased by police. After being stabbed in the back, the man approaches Ben, who discovers he is Bernard in disguise. The dying Bernard whispers that a foreign statesman will be assassinated in London and that Ben must tell the authorities about "Ambrose Chappell". Lucy returns Hank to the hotel while Ben, Jo and Edward go to a police station for questioning about Bernard's death. An officer explains that Bernard was a French Intelligence agent. Ben receives a phone call at the police station; Hank has been kidnapped but will not be harmed if the McKennas say nothing to the police about Bernard's warning. Knowing Hank was left in Lucy's care, Ben dispatches Edward to locate him. When Ben and Jo return to the hotel, they discover Edward checked out. Ben realizes the Draytons are the couple Bernard was looking for and are involved in Hank's abduction. When he learns the Draytons are from London, he decides he and Jo should go there and try to find them through Ambrose Chappell. In London, Scotland Yard 's Inspector Buchanan tells Jo and Ben that Bernard was in Morocco to uncover an assassination plot; they are instructed to contact him if they hear from the kidnappers. Leaving Jo's friends in their hotel suite, the McKennas search for a person named Ambrose Chappell. Jo realizes that "Ambrose Chapel" is a place, and the McKennas arrive at the chapel to find Edward leading a service. Jo leaves the chapel to call the police. After Edward sends his congregation home, Ben confronts him and is knocked out and locked inside. Jo arrives with the police, but they cannot enter without a warrant. Jo learns that Buchanan has gone to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and asks the police to take her there. Once the police and Jo leave, the Draytons take Hank to a foreign embassy. In the Royal Albert Hall lobby, Jo sees the man who came to her door in Marrakesh. When he threatens to harm Hank if she interferes, she realizes he is the assassin sent to kill the foreign prime minister. Ben escapes the chapel through its bell tower and reaches the Royal Albert Hall, where Jo points out the assassin. Ben searches the balcony boxes for the killer, who is waiting for a cymbal crash to mask his gunshot. Just before the cymbals crash, Jo screams and the assassin misses his mark, only wounding his target. Ben struggles with the would-be killer, who falls to his death. Concluding that Hank is likely to be at the embassy, but that it is sovereign and exempt from an investigation, the McKennas secure an invitation from the grateful prime minister. The ambassador organized the plot to kill the prime minister, and blames the failed attempt on the Draytons. Knowing that Hank can testify against them, he orders the Draytons to kill the boy. The prime minister asks Jo to sing. She loudly performs " Que Sera, Sera ", so that Hank will hear her. Lucy, who is guarding Hank while Edward prepares to murder him, is distressed at the prospect of killing a child, so she encourages the boy to whistle along with the song. Ben finds Hank. Edward tries escaping with them at gunpoint, but when Ben hits him, he falls down the stairs to his death. The McKennas return to their hotel suite. Ben explains to Jo's now-sleeping friends, "I'm sorry we were gone so long, but we had to go over and pick up Hank."

Joseph (Jan Nowicki) travels through a dream-like world, taking a dilapidated train to visit his dying father, Jacob, in a sanatorium. When he arrives at the hospital, he finds the entire facility is going to ruin and no one seems to be in charge or even caring for the patients. Time appears to behave in unpredictable ways, reanimating the past in an elaborate artificial caprice. Though Joseph is always shown as an adult, his behavior and the people around often depict him as a child. He befriends Rudolf, a young boy who owns a postage stamp album. The names of the stamps trigger a wealth of association and adventure in Joseph. Among the many occurrences in this visually potent phantasmagoria include Joseph re-entering childhood episodes with his wildly eccentric father (who lives with birds in an attic), being arrested by a mysterious unit of soldiers for having a dream that was severely criticized in high places, reflecting on a girl he fantasized about in his boyhood and commandeering a group of historic wax mannequins. Throughout his strange journey, an ominous blind train conductor reappears like a death figure. He also has a series of reflections on the Holocaust that were not present in the original texts, reading Schulz's prose through the prism of the author's death during World War II and the demise of the world he described.

In 1958 New York City, shipbuilding magnate Herbert Greenleaf, believing Tom Ripley attended Princeton with his son, Dickie, pays Tom $1,000 to travel to Italy and persuade him to return to the United States. Taking an ocean liner first-class, Tom pretends to be Dickie and befriends American socialite Meredith Logue. In the seaside village of Mongibello, Tom befriends Dickie and his American girlfriend, Marge Sherwood, claiming to be a former Princeton classmate. He enjoys Dickie's extravagant lifestyle and becomes obsessed with Dickie himself, but Dickie's wealthy friend Freddie Miles distrusts Tom and treats him with contempt. Returning from Rome, Dickie becomes increasingly annoyed by Tom. Dickie has impregnated and then spurns Silvana, a local woman who then drowns herself. Tom promises a guilt-ridden Dickie to keep the death a secret. After Herbert cuts off Tom's travel funds, Dickie cancels a trip to Venice and tells Tom that they should part ways. However, Dickie convinces Tom to take a final trip with him to San Remo. Aboard a small boat, Dickie says he is tired of Tom and is going to marry Marge, while Tom tells Dickie he is selfish and hurting everyone. Their argument becomes physical, and while the two get into a fight, Tom ends up killing Dickie by repeatedly striking him with an oar. Tom takes Dickie's belongings and scuttles the boat. Realizing that locals frequently mistake him for Dickie, Tom assumes his identity. He forges a letter to Marge, convincing her that Dickie has left her and moved to Rome. Tom creates the illusion that Dickie is still alive by checking into one hotel as Dickie and another as himself, then fabricating an exchange of communications between the two. Through forgery, he is able to draw on Dickie's allowance on which he can live lavishly. In Rome, Tom runs into Meredith, who still knows him as Dickie, and attends an opera with her family. His ruse is threatened when he unexpectedly runs into Marge and her friend, Peter Smith-Kingsley at the same opera. Tom rushes Meredith out of the opera house and rejects her advances. Later, Freddie shows up at Tom's apartment looking for Dickie. When the landlady addresses Tom as Dickie, Freddie realizes the fraud, so Tom fatally bludgeons him with a bust and disposes of his body. When Freddie's body is found, police visit the apartment to question "Dickie". Tom forges a suicide note for Dickie that claims responsibility for Freddie's death. Under his real name, Tom travels to Venice, where he again encounters Peter. Herbert Greenleaf arrives in Italy, accompanied by private detective Alvin MacCarron. Tom is about to kill Marge after she discovers he has Dickie's ring, but Peter arrives and interrupts them. Marge is certain that Tom is culpable, but Herbert dismisses Marge's suspicions. MacCarron tells Tom the police are convinced that Dickie, who had a history of violence, murdered Freddie before killing himself. MacCarron also tells Tom that Herbert intends to bequeath a large portion of Dickie's trust fund to him, to reward his loyalty to Dickie and ensure his silence. Cleared of his crimes, and with the income to finally live Dickie's lifestyle as himself, Tom boards a liner to Greece with Peter, who is implied to be Tom's lover. During the voyage, Tom runs into Meredith, who is sailing with family members. Tom kisses her and promises to talk later. Tom goes to Peter's cabin. Peter says he saw Tom kissing Meredith and demands answers. After apologizing for lying, a sobbing Tom strangles Peter and returns to his cabin, alone.