Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy. When he has learned to adjust his life to these new responsibilities, Joanna resurfaces and wants Billy back. Ted, however, refuses to give him up, so they go to court to fight for the custody of their son. Written by Leon Wolters wolters@strw.LeidenUniv.nl

A retired ex-cop and private detective (Newman) who lives with a rich actor (Hackman) who is dying from cancer and his actress wife (Sarandon) gets mixed up in murder when he is asked to deliver blackmail money. He walks into a 20 year old case involving the mysterious disappearance of the actress's former husband. James Garner appears as another ex-cop who also does occasional errands for the couple. Written by John Sacksteder jsackste@bellsouth.net

Edna Spalding finds herself alone and broke on a small farm in the midst of the Great Depression when her husband the Sheriff is killed in an accident. A wandering black man, Moses, helps her to plant cotton to try and keep her farm and her kids together. She also takes on a blind boarder, Mr. Will, who lost his sight in the first World War. She must endure storms and harsh labor to try and make her mortgage payment on time. Written by Susan Southall stobchatay@aol.com

Sully is a rascally ne'er-do-well approaching retirement age. While he is pressing a worker's compensation suit for a bad knee, he secretly works for his nemesis, Carl, and flirts with Carl's young wife Toby. Sully's long- forgotten son and family have moved back to town, so Sully faces unfamiliar family responsibilities. Meanwhile, Sully's landlady's banker son plots to push through a new development and evict Sully from his mother's life. Written by Reid Gagle

The Human Stain is the story of Coleman Silk (Hopkins), a classics professor with a terrible secret that is about to shatter his life in a small New England town. When his affair with a young troubled janitor (Kidman) is uncovered, the secret Silk had harbored for over fifty years from his wife, his children and colleague, writer Nathan Zuckerman, fast explodes in a conflagration of devastating consequences. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. Written by lakeshoreentertainment.com

Working in an Austin, Texas, beauty parlour in 1954, Nadine Hightower endeavours to retrieve some 'art studies' she injudiciously had taken. Her visit to the photographer leaves him dead and her in possession of highly valuable plans of a proposed new road. With both the police and the murderous villains after her she enlists the help of her (almost) ex-husband Vernon, the none too successful owner of the Bluebonnet Bar. Fortunately the thugs are as much no-hopers as the Hightowers. Written by Jeremy Perkins jwp@aber.ac.uk

A rustic Oregon town is the backdrop for this tale of men and women touched by love's inescapable spell. From Bradley, the hopeless romantic who looks for love in all the wrong places; to Harry, a local professor with the wisdom and experience to guide those close to him; to young, beautiful Chloe, who defies fate in romancing the troubled Oscar. Written by Anonymous

George Bynum, a patient of Manhattan psychiatrist Dr. Sam Rice, is brutally murdered. Soon afterward, Dr. Rice is visited by Bynum's co-worker and mistress Brooke Reynolds and by the investigating officer Detective Vitucci. As Dr. Rice reviews the case notes on his sessions with Bynum, he starts his own investigation. At the same time, he finds himself falling for enigmatic blonde Brooke, despite her increasingly suspicious behavior. The closer Rice comes to the truth, the more he puts his own life in danger... Written by L. Hamre

Based loosely on the organized crime syndicates of the 20's and 30's, Billy Bathgate is the story of a young man's rise from gopher to right hand man in Dutch Schultz' gang. Having been impressed by the youth, Schultz takes him under his wing so to speak. Billy soon finds himself in a world where wealth and fortune live next door to danger and death. Written by Michael Silva silvamd@cleo.bc.edu

A group of naive boys find that life as desperadoes in the west is more serious that they understood when they embark on abortive careers in bushwhacking. Violence, betrayal, sombre colours and a Beckettsian whimsy mark this ironic western. Written by Keith Loh loh@sfu.ca