Martin Scorsese narrates this tribute to Val Lewton, the producer of a series of memorable low-budget horror films for RKO Studios. Raised by his mother and his aunt, his films often included strong female characters who find themselves in difficult situations and who have to grow up quickly. He is best remembered for the horror films he made at RKO starting in 1940. Starting with only a title - his first was The Cat People - he would meticulously oversee every aspect of the film's completion. Although categorized as horror films, his films never showed a monster, leaving it all to the viewers imagination, assisted by music, mood and lighting.

Fired for messing up an important contract, Dagwood takes a job as a manual laborer for a construction firm while trying to get his old job back.

A bump on the head sends Hank Martin, 1912 mechanic, to Arthurian Britain, 528 A.D., where he is befriended by Sir Sagramore le Desirous and gains power by judicious use of technology. He and Alisande, the King's niece, fall in love at first sight, which draws unwelcome attention from her fiancée Sir Lancelot; but worse trouble befalls when Hank meddles in the kingdom's politics.

Horace Vendig always gets what he wants. Even as a poor youth, he charmed his way into high society by getting the father of his friend, Martha, to foot the bill for his Harvard education. When Vic, another childhood pal, is invited to Horace's mansion for a party, he brings along Mallory Flagg, who happens to bear a striking resemblance to Martha. As Vic and Horace reunite, old resentments rise to the surface.

Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.

Struggling artist Geoffrey Carroll meets Sally while on holiday in the country. A romance develops, but he doesn't tell her he's already married. Suffering from mental illness, Geoffrey returns home where he paints an impression of his wife as the angel of death and then promptly poisons her. He marries Sally but after a while he finds a strange urge to paint her as the angel of death too and history seems about to repeat itself.

An eight-year-old girl is an unwilling and disturbed witness of parental quarrels in her home, and when the parents finally secure a divorce, the judge decrees that the young girl live with her mother for eight months and her father the other four months. The divided life affects her both mentally and physically.

With a screenplay adapted by Lillian Hellman from her own play, director William Dieterle's 1946 drama stars Robert Young as a U.S. ambassador in Europe in the years before WW2.

Arriving at Medicine Bow, eastern schoolteacher Molly Woods meets two cowboys, irresponsible Steve and the "Virginian," who gets off on the wrong foot with her. To add to his troubles, the Virginian finds that his old pal Steve is mixed up with black-hatted Trampas and his rustlers...then finds himself at the head of a posse after said rustlers; and Molly hates the violent side of frontier life.

Paramount's highly-fictionalized 1945 musical biography of Texas Guinan, the Roaring '20s New York nightclub owner and celebrity with alleged underworld connections who famously greeted her customers with the phrase, "Hello, suckers!"

Amy, the young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed, befriends her father's late first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited and released as "Armored Attack."

A gentle widower, enraged at Nazi atrocities against his peaceful Norwegian fishing village, escapes to Britain and returns leading a commando force against the oppressors.

Rocksford, New England, 1672. Puritan witch hunter Jonathan Wooley is cursed after burning a witch at the stake: his descendants will never find happiness in their marriages. At present, politician Wallace Wooley, who is running for state governor, is about to marry his sponsor's daughter.