William Parrish (Sir Anthony Hopkins), media tycoon, loving father, and still a human being, is about to celebrate his 65th birthday. One morning, he is contacted by the inevitable, by hallucination, as he thinks. Later, Death enters his home and his life, personified in a man's body: Joe Black (Brad Pitt) has arrived. His intention was to take William with him, but accidentally, Joe's former host and William's beautiful daughter Susan (Claire Forlani) have already met. Joe begins to develop certain interest in life on Earth, as well as in Susan, who has no clue with whom she's flirting.
Oliveiro is a young poet living in Buenos Aires where sometimes he has to sell his ideas to an advertising agency to make a living or exchange his poems for a steak. In Montevideo, he meets a prostitute, Ana, with whom he falls in love. Back in Buenos Aires, he accepts a contract with a publicity agency to get the money for three days of love with her. Will he get what he's searching for when his ideal of love's pleasure is literally going in levitation while making love?
Death takes a human form and visits Earth to try to find out why humans want so desperately to cling to life. He unexpectedly falls in love with a beautiful young woman.
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
A man and a woman on a motorcycle arrive with a ferry to Assens. They want to catch the next ferry in Nyborg, on the other side of the island, but this ferry will leave in three quarters of an hour and the ferry berth is 70 km away.
After years of questioning why people fear him, Death takes on human form so he can mingle among the mortals and find an answer. However, events soon spiral out of control as he falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia, the only woman not afraid of him. As he falls in love with her, her father sees him for what he is and begs him to return to his duties. Death must decide whether or not to seek his own happiness or sacrifice it so that Grazia may live.
Gwen's family is rich, but her parents ignore her and most of the servants push her around, so she is lonely and unhappy. Her father is concerned only with making money, and her mother cares only about her social position. But one day a servant's irresponsibility creates a crisis that causes everyone to rethink what is important to them.