Unhappy in her marriage, expectant mother Rose (Dana Delany) flees to a home for unwed mothers in rural Tennessee in this adaptation of Ann Patchett's novel. When she stays on after her baby is born, Rose becomes friends with an elderly nun (Sada Thompson) and begins a relationship with the local handyman, Son (Clancy Brown). Everything seems fine until Rose's first husband tracks her down and she's forced to relive her troubled past.

In 1870s Florida, a rural family struggles to survive. A lonely twelve-year-old son, Jody (Wil Horneff), the lone surviving child, against his mother's better judgment eventually persuades his parents to allow him a pet fawn, which Jody grows to love deeply. Tragic conflict arises when the fawn begins eating the family's food crops.

A father experiences strange apparitions after his daughter is killed in a car accident.

Amidst her own personality crisis, southern housewife Evelyn Couch meets Ninny, an outgoing old woman who tells her the story of Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, two young women who experienced hardships and love in Whistle Stop, Alabama in the 1920s.

A troubled man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her in the process.

Two women, black and white, in 1955 Montgomery Alabama, must decide what they are going to do in response to the famous bus boycott led by Martin Luther King.