This entry in MGM's Passing Parade series looks at the meaning of dreams, including one by Abraham Lincoln that foretold his death.
John Nesbitt
as Narrator (voice)
Peter Cushing
as First Dreamer
Johnny Arthur
as Second Dreamer (uncredited)
Simon is an eight-year-old boy who seems to have everything from life. He’s a handsome child, he’s rich yet unhappy. He senses that there’s something wrong with his life and this leads him to wander off thanks to his fervid imagination. His greatest wish is to leave the materialistic world behind since he isn’t fond of it. That’s why the only present he wants for Christmas is for Santa Claus to take him away to live in his fairyland toy factory. At the same time, a secret that his family has been keeping for a long time suddenly comes to the surface and it is feared that the worst might happen soon. The expectation for the stroke of midnight on the night before Christmas is transformed into reality for everyone on the eve of something truly different. Something terrible that might happen.
A lost and lonely artist drowns in a collection of her dreams in search of her estranged sister.
A teen girl disappears after trying to meet men online in order to escape her small town. Apparently, only her best friend worries enough to investigate the mystery.
Anna dreams of her life after high school, to move away and become an actress, despite her mother Jaya's expectations for her to become a doctor. On the day of Anna's big audition, Jaya organises Anna a scholarship interview, forcing her to choose between family or ambition.
A woman with a taste for expensive clothing has four nightmares. An impoverished disabled girl sells her hair, a trapper finds he has an unfaithful wife, the wife of a dying weaver finds she cannot work the loom, and a model harassed by her boss is driven to murder.
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.
A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.
A biopic of writer Truman Capote and his assignment for The New Yorker to write the non-fiction book "In Cold Blood".
George, host of a television show focusing on literature, receives videos shot on the sly that feature his family, along with disturbing drawings that are difficult to interpret. He has no idea who has made and sent him the videos. Progressively, the contents of the videos become more personal, indicating that the sender has known George for a long time.
A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.
County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds -- with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk -- that it might be possible for him to take human form.
Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.
A young social outcast in Australia steals money from her parents to finance a vacation where she hopes to find happiness, and perhaps love.
A mysterious man arrives at the offices of an FBI agent and recounts his childhood: how his religious fanatic father received visions telling him to kill people who were in fact "demons."
Past/present story of a young man who lives in a fantasy world of aeronautics to escape a more challenging reality.
An alcoholic former horse-trainer perceives in a fifteen-year-old boy a unique gift of horsemanship and makes it possible for the boy to conceive his dream and pursue it.