Manusförfattaren och regissören Savage Steve Holland säger att "Lika gärna död" delvis är självbiografisk. Efter att hans stora kärlek på high school dumpade honom, tog han en 8-millimeters kamera och gjorde några sorgsna filmer som hade rakt motsatt effekt på hans vänner - de skrattade. När Lane (John Cusack) dumpas av sin flickvän (Amanda Wyss) för en arrogant skidåkare beslutar han sig för att begå självmord. Hans alltmer tafatta försök leder dock bara till större plågor och fler pinsamheter. Med de värsta tonårsmardrömmarna, en familj man bara måste tycka synd om och en rad fantastiskt roliga personer blir Savage Steve Hollands debut som manusförfattare och regissör en mästerlig skildring av de smärtsamt roliga tonåren.
Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.
A prostitute and a drifter find themselves bound together as they make their way through the rural South, doing what they have to do to survive.
A Texan with a secret past searches Europe with his son after the KGB kidnaps his wife.
Two separate people, a man and a woman, find something very stirring about the sea turtles in their tank at the London Zoo. They meet and form an odd, but sympathetic camaraderie as they plan to steal two of the turtles and free them into the ocean.
Life in the small town of Grandview, Illinois is one that is just like any other city or town. Tim Pearson, soon to be graduating high school wants to go to Florida to study oceanography. He meets Michelle "Mike" Cody and is attracted to her. She runs the local Demolition Derby place. Ernie "Slam" Webster is one of the drivers in the derby whose wife is cheating on him and wants to later on be with Mike. Tim falls for Mike and a big love triangle is about to happen.
A trio of robbers, two brothers and their twisted genius leader, invade a lightship, but don't reckon on the crew fighting back.
J.P. Tannen (Jon Voight) wants a second chance to be a father to his children ... but someone else has taken his place. Determined not to just be a friendly 'uncle' in their lives, he gets permission from his ex-wife Kathleen (Millie Perkins) and her new husband (Richard Crenna) to take the kids on a Mediterranean cruise. On the journey he comes to realise it's not that easy and, feeling overwhelmed, begins to doubt his abilities until a tragedy back home forces him to become the father he always hoped to be.
American housewife Cathy Palmer loses her memory on a trip to Paris after being hit by a car. She wakes up in the hospital believing she's the fictional international spy, Rebecca Ryan.
The lives of a group of young Chicago men, as seen through the eyes of one of them, a writer.
Nick is a writer in New York when he gets posted to a bureau in Greece. He has waited 30 years for this. He wants to know why his mother was killed in the civil war years earlier. In a parallel plot line we see Nick as a young boy and his family as they struggle to survive in the occupied Greek hillside. The plot lines converge as Nick's investigations bring him closer to the answers.