Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) es un ambicioso y joven profesor de tenis con escasos recursos económicos. Gracias a su amistad con Tom Hewett (Mattew Goode), consigue entrar en la alta sociedad londinense y enamorar a su hermana Chloe (Emily Mortimer). Tom, por su parte, sale con Nola Rice (Johansson), una atractiva americana, de la que Chris se encapricha nada más verla. El azar, la pasión y, sobre todo, la ambición llevarán a Chris a cometer acciones que determinarán su vida y la de los demás para siempre.
Tres de las más populares estudiantes del Instituto Reagan matan accidentalmente a la reina del baile de graduación con un caramelo. La broma de cumpleaños se convierte en una tragedia que es descubierta por la empollona de la clase. Para evitar que les delate, la convertirán en la jefa del grupo. Comedia que parodia los filmes de terror ambientados en las High Schools americanas.
Lil works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her.
Diana Scott (Julie Christie) es una joven y atractiva modelo londinense, una mujer ambiciosa dispuesta a todo para ascender en la escala social.
Ulrich Mott es un excéntrico y despiadado oportunista que cree tener unos planes grandiosos acerca de la política exterior de los Estados Unidos. Para ello cuenta con el apoyo de su su mujer, Elsa Brecht, una periodista estratégicamente elegida para situarlo en lo más alto de la sociedad del país. Mott es un genio a la de asumir roles de responsabilidad en cualquier circunstancia, ya sea militar o política: sabe siempre cuándo tiene que adular, y a quién debe hacerlo, para obtener sus propósitos.
"If I had the money, I'd buy me a banjo!" says struggling sales clerk Arthur Kipps. Soon he'll inherit enough to buy a whole bloomin' orchestra. But can his newfound wealth buy happiness?
A social climber charms a debutante, seduces a factory worker and commits murder.
Set in Hong Kong in the 1980s, the film follows a fisherman’s son who rises to become a powerful tai pan.
Count Moffat becomes infatuated with Nana, a presumptuous stage actress, vulgar, hypocritical and promiscuous, willing to do anything to succeed.
An oil heir and the daughter of a social climbing family are set to marry.
Hired actors posing as Russian royalty complicate a social-climbing mother's efforts to fix up her son with the daughter of a wealthy Texas rancher.
In a not so fictional Italy trying to solve the N.Ε.Ε.Τ. problem, the government decides to reintroduce compulsory conscription for one million young people under 30 who are not studying, working or looking for work, who will have only one month to find real employment and thus avoid the entire year of conscription. Facing this doom four guys try to cheat the system by growing hemp and meanwhile really discovering themselves.
A story of an young girl who tries to escape from memories of the past and while doing so she alienates herself from her family. Since she was a little girl, Clarissa has always wanted to get out of the slums that she lives in. She has always been close to her rich god-mother Monina Gardamonte and to Monina's daughter, Therese. Too close in fact that she confides to her god-mother more than to her own mother, Naty and her elder sister, Nancy. Because of her closeness to her god-mother, Clarissa tasted the high life and has always wanted to be a part of it. When she grew up, she became more determined to be a part of high society, and Clarissa takes every opportunity at all cost to achieve her desires.
A young, ambitious man employs every means necessary in order to climb to the top of the social ladder. But the whirlpool of compromises and corruption eventually threatens to render his life meaningless.
A young woman's life has very little going for her, her mother having died and her alcoholic father having abandoned her. Nevertheless, she climbs her way out of the underclass, going from prostitute to wife of a count.