After a troubled teenager living with his grandparents in southern California gets busted for drugs, he spends the summer with his mother and his new stepfather, where he slowly reforms his behavior.

An aimless, twenty-two-year-old Californian man questions everything—from his job to his ability to take care of a potted plant—as a heat wave sweeps his town. Just when he's about to spiral, a life-changing act of heroism gives him unexpected clarity.

After a man from New York meets a young woman from a Mexican family on a bus to L.A., the two travel across mid-20th century Southern California searching for work, food, and shelter while falling in love. As the travelers struggle to survive on their few remaining dollars, the man wonders how long this adventure can last.

A high school dropout tries to make his dreams of being a rockstar come true in California. There, a mysterious hotel's beautiful guests seem to offer him the trinity of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but he quickly finds himself in an endless cycle of exploitation that's difficult to escape.

While on the run from her crack-cooking boyfriend, a woman feels at odds with her place in life—literally and figuratively.

In 2006, a teenage waiter working in a restaurant on California's Mount Tamalapis handles an erratic, unstable female customer as a favor to another coworker.

Dan and Nancy spend the summer in a remote town Northern California to rekindle their marriage after they discover each other's infidelity, but below the surface, they both know their efforts are in vain.

A young teen in Southern California, after several months of living on the streets, tries to rebuild her life. She suddenly disappears after six months of sobriety, leaving her family to yet again wonder if she has relapsed and returned to live on the streets again.

In California, a young woman reflects on her relationship to her father while working on a novel. Through reading her father’s novel, she understands their relationship through his eyes.

A man, uprooting from his life in San Fransisco, takes on a rider on his long drive towards Denver, but finds they don't get along.