A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.

A wealthy man in Chicago suddenly learns about the untimely death of a poor woman he'd been dating. Confronted with her child, whom he'd begun to develop a bond with, he must determine to what extent he will allow his greed to overcome his compassion.

Two sisters, both Sociology professors, find themselves summering husbandless in their rickety childhood home with their bastion of six children, their ornery mother, and their paralyzed father. They swap between stories of their upbringing and their present task of preparing for a fatal hurricane which will challenge their quaint way of life.

A working class man who wants his children to have everything their rich friends have purchases "Semplica Girls" — girls formerly living in poverty who sign contracts to hang as ornaments in people's yards — for his older daughter's birthday. When his younger daughter frees the Semplica Girls, the family is plunged into financial disaster.

A middle aged upper class woman and her family live in an upscale neighborhood. The family's laughter turns malicious when they cannot distinguish between what is comical and what is horrendous and increasingly find amusement at the expense of others.

At the dawn of the Great Depression, an aged Black man returns to the Virginia plantation where he was born a slave 99 years ago. His arrival forces the now-destitute family who once owned him to confront their poverty and their racism alike.

As an old woman revisits her family's quintessentially American history, she finds a way to respect and love her parents, despite the scandals and tragedies they endured.

To earn enough money for college, a high school graduate takes a grueling factory job. He expects his only takeaway from the work to be a paycheck, but a mysterious coworker teaches him about the world and his place in it.

In a society where the top one percent rules the lower classes, a teenage girl is forced out of her home by ethnic cleansing and must turn to a wealthy man in order to survive.

After receiving a substantial promotion at work, a man gleefully returns home to his loving wife and learns his brother is visiting. However, the man’s luck begins to turn once his brother takes them out for a night on the town and dances with his wife.