The future of a group of strangely connected lives is determined on one crucial night at a dinky motel in the desert.
Fresh out of reform school, a bunch of delinquent girls fall in with a gang of crooks and are put to work as "hostesses" in a number of mob-controlled bars and cafes. The girls are expected to string along male customers so that the latter will squander their money on watered-down drinks and fixed poker games. When one gullible New Yorker is clipped to the tune of $18,000 worth of diamonds, the Law closes in.
Escaped Nazi POWs hold the denizens of a California resort hostage.
Nick, a motel owner who has lost faith in more than just the humanity of mankind, is visited by a kindly stranger on Christmas Eve. The motel's guests are only concerned for themselves until a poor man and his wife drive up to the motel, unable to go any further. Out of rooms, Nick's wife prepares a place for them in a shed under a neon star Nick had just finished hanging. Their plight brings out the generosity in everyone, including Nick, who remembers another family almost two thousand years earlier that also found a makeshift room at an inn under another kind of star.
A self-assured businessman murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
In a small motel located next to the highway there's nothing but boredom and laziness, but only until the waiter Raka gets promotion becoming a DE chief (Duty executor) of it. He becomes obsessed with his position in no time, start pushing everybody around and acting like a "Small God", introducing reorganization. The staff prepares their revenge upon the visit of the general manager of all motels to this so-called renovated facility.
The boss of service station, Raka, prevents thieves of stealing money after attempted robbery. But Raka doesn't know what to do with all the millions in his possession, but can't go told to police afraid that they may accuse him of complicity. He somehow manages to get rid of the money and marry Mara, the motel's maid who didn't want to hear about him while he was full of cash.
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.
Young boxer Michel Maudet is sacked by his manager after a series of match defeats and is forced to look for a new job. He is engaged as secretary to a millionaire named Ferchaux who is in a hurry to flee the country when he discovers he has been implicated in a high-profile fraud.
A group of people go on a picnic in the mountains. Longing for some love and understanding, they try to get close to one another, but the barriers are insurmountable. Failing to pull through their nutshells of solitude, they get back to the city, the eternal desert.
While on a business trip, Tom Phillips is in a car accident caused by a reckless driver. Tom survives the accident with a severe chronic back injury which results in him not being able to continue with his current business. The Phillips' buy a motel in the California desert and Tom with his wife Peg and their two children, Tina and Jamie make the long road trip to their new home. As they approach their destination they are terrorized by reckless teenage hot-rodders looking for kicks.
An elderly wanderer, a sexy young girl running away from home and a folk singer looking for stardom hitch-hike their way cross-country, trying to get to California.
Caseli, a young writer and teacher, creates in his imagination characters who would frequent a motel, the subject of the book he is writing. He and Dilma, his student, decide to spend a night in a motel in Rio, where eight couples meet: - Fábio, visual artist and Stefânia, fashion editor of a magazine; - Ferraz, flirtatious dentist and his secretary Cleonice, shy and virgin; - Vera, wife of Ferraz and Kiko, big boy from Ipanema; - Leopoldo and his wife, an elderly couple celebrating their golden anniversary; - Detective Camilo and his assistant Dorô, who try to catch Vera in the act of adultery; - Renato, on vacation from São Paulo and Cláudia, a woman he recently met in Rio; - Gustavo and Lazinha, a couple who use extravagant artifices to achieve sexual fulfillment. In the middle of the night, the corpse of an unknown man appears, and the arrival of the police determines the most diverse outcomes for those who were looking for just one night of love.
A story about prizewinning agriculturist, whose dream is to find his soul mate who would agree to marry him and live in the countryside. In one of his trips to symposium, he's about to share the compartment on a train with nice-looking but hardly approachable girl.
A Vietnam veteran, Charles Rane, returns home after years in a POW camp and is treated as a hero. When thugs invade his home to steal the silver coins he received for his service, they mangle his hand and leave him and his family for dead. Rane survives and becomes obsessed with getting revenge. Aided by his loyal friend Johnny Vohden, Rane, now wielding a hook for a hand, sets out on his mission of vengeance.
Philo Beddoe is your regular, easygoing, truck-driving guy. He's also the best bar-room brawler west of the Rockies. And he lives with a 165-pound orangutan named Clyde. Like other guys, Philo finally falls in love - with a flighty singer who leads him on a screwball chase across the American Southwest. Nothing's in the way except a motorcycle gang, some cops, and legendary brawler Tank Murdock.
The phenomenon of tourism arrives to a remote village. A married couple sells their property to open a motel, which would be a starting point for their daughter Andjelija's singing career. The local radio-amateur (and Andjelija's boyfriend) helps them to achieve these goals, but Andjelija is more interested in her love life than her career.
Honeymooning couple Monica and Mike check into a motel in New Mexico. All seems normal until an ambulance pulls up and abducts Mike. Monica narrowly escapes and, with the help of truck driver Bill, discovers the awful secret of the motel and the ambulance service.
A doctor in a hotel has a lot of problems like a man repeatedly fails to commit suicide, a pair of window washers witness a murder by a hit man, a suspicious wife checks up on her husband who happens to be having an affair with her and many more...