Søstrene Elinor og Marianne kunne ikke være mere forskellige. Storesøster Elinor er pragmatisk og velovervejet, mens Marianne er romantisk og impulsiv. Begge møder kærligheden, men i England omkring år 1800 er der intet vigtigere end penge og social status. Og pigerne mister begge dele, da deres far pludselig dør, og familien må flytte fra sit gods. Emma Thompson fik en Oscar for sit manuskript til Ang Lee's skønne Jane Austen-filmatisering, der også modtog Berlin-festivalens Guldbjørn.
Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.
An impoverished American sailor is fortunate enough to be passing the house of two rich gentlemen who have conceived the crazy idea of distributing a note worth one million pounds. The sailor finds that whenever he tries to use the note to buy something, people treat him like a king and let him have whatever he likes for free. Ultimately, the money proves to be more troublesome than it is worth when it almost costs him his dignity and the woman he loves.
Bad News Johnson, a con artist from Memphis, Tennessee, arrives in Dallas, Texas, accompanied by his dim sidekick July Jones with only twenty-five cents between them. The duo arrange to become boarders at the home of Louella "Mama Lou" Holiday, who is fooled into believing Johnson is an acting teacher from Hollywood. Mrs. Holiday agrees to give the men free room and board if they will provide poise lessons to her daughter, an aspiring beauty queen named Honey Dew.
Kay Parrish, a society girl, finds she is penniless when her father dies. However she persuades Terry Gallagher to give her a hostess job at his New York City clip-joint, which he operates on the theory that if the suckers want it he'll give it to them, albeit he does apply some principles regarding the matter. A Broadway playboy, Greg Emerson, falls in love with Kay and proposes but his high-society parents object strongly. Terry. although he also has fallen in love with Kay and doesn't realize she feels the same about him, sets out to provide a happy ending for the couple.
