Bornholm island in 1880, where quarry worker Johan Jönsson lives a miserable life with his wife and children. He hopes to escape his poverty by winning a lottery ticket. But it doesn't bring him any luck. Instead of spending his little money on a doctor to have his sick child treated, he extends the lottery ticket. The child dies and Johan, plagued by remorse, turns to alcohol. After he has gambled away everything, the lottery ticket brings someone else the main prize. Johan commits suicide, but his son Per has realized that gambling is not the way to change the miserable existence of the workers.
World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart.
A professional poker player whose astounding luck at the table fails to translate into his lonesome love life attempts to win the World Series of Poker while simultaneously earning the affections of a beautiful Las Vegas singer.
Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.
Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense.
Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester.
Jean-Paul is a Frenchman who yearns to live in communist Czechoslovakia. His wish is granted when, mistaken as a masseur of a French boating team, he manages to elude the democratic authorities long enough to scamper over the Czech border.
