When a Japanese pilot crash-lands on the tiny remote Hawaiian island of Ni'ihau, he is met with courtesy and traditional Hawaiian hospitality from the locals - until they discover he was part of the recent attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon the community is split between those of Japanese ancestry who support the pilot and those of Hawaiian ancestry who oppose them.

Charley Partanna is a hitman who works for the Prizzis, one of the richest crime families in the US. When he sees Irene Walker, it's love at first sight. But he soon finds that she, too, is a killer for hire. Charley can overlook his suspicions, but he can't turn off his heart. And the couple must remember that even if they love each other, the Prizzis love only money.

An impressionable young man finds himself literally enslaved by a modern-day religious cult. In an effort to bring him back to reality, the boy's parents hire a deprogrammer to kidnap him and return him to his family.

An unemployed teacher becomes a counselor at a summer camp for severely disabled children.

The historic federal-state controversy over the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, as seen through the eyes of Elizabeth Huckaby, one of the teachers and girls' vice principal.