When romantic journalist Paolo rescues American photographer Lizzy from a scuffle in an Italian village, his efforts at romance lead nowhere. But when they meet again in San Francisco, Paolo succeeds in wooing her. Can their love overcome the differences between the traditional Italian Communist and the modern, liberated American woman that threaten to tear the two apart?

After a long marriage, Maria and Jeffrey are now in crisis. Trying to keep the family together, she tries to convince their children to attend the birthday of the old grandmother Assunta, owner of the beautiful house in which they live. But their children are going through a rough patch. Francesco is a writer who is ashamed of having achieved fame with a book of literary shoddy, why his wife has lost respect. Marco is a doctor and is happy with his family, but his wife is determined to throw it all away for that to become an actress. Meanwhile, Miriam, a young emancipated, discovers she is pregnant, but does not know which of her lovers is the father.

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace prize winner, is known in the whole world as the banker of the poor, because he pioneered and tested a funding system in Bangladesh: by lending little sums of money to the less well-off with no interest, and returning it by installments gained with their work, people are able to get free from extreme misery. Thus, what can happen if three boys, just graduated, who live in Naples, try to import this funding system that subverts every economic rule?

When the Minister of the Interior accidentally becomes locked inside his computerized, armoured limo following a mechanical failure, it triggers a series of headline-making events, especially as he happens to be in front of his political opponent's home. The event becomes a scandal involving many, including the rival, his feminist daughter, his wife, and her one-time terrorist lover hiding in the basement.

Multiple stories intersect in this satirical look at misogyny, male promiscuity and oppressive behaviour: a wealthy man discovers his wife suffers from kleptomania and decides to help her indulge her vice; a retired circus performer returns to knife-throwing with his once-lovely assistant, even though his vision has deteriorated; and a lecherous college professor attempts to sleep with his attractive female students.

Ester finds herself sexually attracted to her newly divorced friend Adele. When Ester admits another love to her hot-headed husband, he searches manically for the rival, who he never suspects is a woman.

Dominated by men in her youth, Belle Starr now out-shoots and out-gambles them as she makes her way around the West. One man who's her equal is Larry Blackie, with whom she has an on-again, off-again relationship. Together, they become involved in a robbery which goes awry...

Southern Italian workers relocate to Milan and adjust to life in the city, where they reside in a house together. Among the group are country boys Gigi and Carletto, who are overwhelmed by urban living. While some find work at a hectic restaurant, others are employed at a grim slaughterhouse. However, when some of the migrant workers are unable to make ends meet, they resort to theft, worsening their situations.

During the 1994 general elections, a mechanic with a firm belief in communism, fearing that his party is about to lose, journeys to a northern village to instigate. He isn't there long before he encounters a beautiful hairdresser, with whom their debate is fiery as is his growing and impossible-to-hide passion for her. Although she too is intrigued with him, their disparate ideologies threaten to keep them apart.

After Annunziata (Angela Molina) opens up a hostel with her friend Antonio (Daniel Ezralow), she is saved from being raped by a Camorra boss as the gangster is suddenly killed. The killer escapes before Annunziata is able to see who it was. Following this murder are several others, and always with the same “signature” — a syringe in one of the testicles of the victims. As the gangsters continue to be killed off, the identity of the killer – or killers – slowly becomes obvious.

A bureaucratic snafu sends Marco Tullio Sperelli, a portly, middle-aged northern Italian, to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples