David, George, and Greg, best friends since high school, are “The War Boys”. They used to perch on the US-Mexican border, waiting to spot illegal immigrants who were trying to run into the United States. Sometimes, without a thought for the immigrants, the boys chased them across the wasteland and back across the border – just for fun. It was just one of those games boys played to make themselves feel big. But high school’s over now. David is unexpectedly home from his freshman year of college and the War Boys have been reunited.
Mustafa and his wife Salwa come from two Palestinian villages that are only 200 meters apart, but separated by the wall. Their unusual living situation is starting to affect their otherwise happy marriage, but the couple does what they can to make it work. Every night, Mustafa flashes a light from his balcony to wish his children on the other side a goodnight, and they signal him back. One day Mustafa gets a call that every parent dreads: his son has been in an accident. He rushes to the checkpoint where he must agonisingly wait in line only to find out there is a problem with his fingerprints and is denied entry. Desperate, Mustafa resorts to hiring a smuggler to bring him across. His once 200-meter journey becomes a 200-kilometer odyssey joined by other travellers determined to cross.
An American scientist is sent by the CIA to East Germany to retrieve a secret microfilm from a Soviet scientist interested in defecting to the West but the Stasi secret police's surveillance complicates matters.
Lila suffocates in her brother's hospital room, she his the road. Vintimiglia. Women are loading a truck for a food distribution for refugees who try to cross the border. It's ramadan, they must eat before the prayer. Carrying bread loafs in her arms, Lila meets Youssef. Youssef doesn't speak a word of french and he's starving.
Alpar has his first day of work at the border between Hungary and Serbia. Stationed there to save his country from refugees, he is confronted with the reality of being a border guard and is forced to adapt to the merciless customs.
A recently orphaned boy living in Mexico has one item that would link him to family, an old letter from an uncle with an address in Tucson, AZ. He sets out across the desert and, while temporarily detained at the border, is unwillingly teamed with a runaway chihuahua who follows him as he illegally crosses the border into the United States. The two form a tight bond as they survive the journey fraught with danger.