The Franchise

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.

In New York City, six-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle between her self-absorbed parents—an aging rock singer mother and a distracted art dealer father. As both quickly marry new partners to strengthen their legal standing, Maisie is shuttled back and forth in an endless game of emotional point-scoring. Yet amid the chaos and upheaval, Maisie begins to find true comfort and affection in her new step-parents.

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

American retired Judge Randall Nemes and his hired gun, Gaspar, track down a con man posing as a priest in a small Colombian town only to be thrown off-course by a scrappy 16-year-old girl intent on reuniting with her sister in the United States.

A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.

Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.

Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

Carrying on with the antique business of her deceased father, Jacqueline Nevers is asked to catalog James Desboro's collection. When they fall in love, it induces the jealousy of Elena Clydesdale, a married woman who is also in love with James.

Henry Sanford, contracted to build a lighthouse at Keyport, is attracted to Kate, the wife of wealthy Morgan Leroy, who becomes jealous of Henry.

When Mamie Lee's father, Sam Corwin, is sentenced to jail for forgery, the sheriff, Ed Cass, offers to cover the debt in return for Mamie Lee's hand in marriage. The distraught daughter agrees, and Cass robs the saloon to obtain the money, placing the blame on Jim Kane, his rival for Mamie's affections. Jim is sent to jail an embittered man.

Due to her parents' coldness and constant struggle for social recognition, Marcia Van Arsdale grows into womanhood despising love. When mine owner Robert Jardine comes to New York, he causes the near bankruptcy of Marcia's father by manipulating the copper market. Marcia's parents bring about a marriage between their daughter and Robert, although Marcia makes it clear that she can never love.

American surveyor William MacDonald visits an Ojibway village in the Canadian Northwest. He seduces a local half-breed girl named Annette while her fiancé Baptiste and half-brother Jules are away trapping. MacDonald then abandons her. When Annette realizes she is pregnant, she wanders into the forest while delirious and is killed by wolves. Jules and Baptiste seek revenge. They track MacDonald to the cabin of a cruel Scotsman, Andrew MacTavish, whose daughter Hilda is loved by Jules. MacDonald tries to convince MacTavish to let him take Hilda to America. Hilda falls in love with Jules instead. When Hilda, Jules, and Baptiste try to escape in a canoe, MacDonald follows them. Jules fights MacDonald in a duel with guns and knives, killing MacDonald before leaving for Montreal with Hilda.

Ne'er-do-well Joe Louden scandalizes his small town and especially the proper Judge Pike. But through the love of young Ariel Taber, Joe shows the town who the real scoundrel is.

When Cindy Lane becomes pregnant, Mark Brierson, the father, refuses to marry her. Instead, Brierson romances Azalia Deering, whose father, General Deering, owns the town bank. Brierson misuses bank funds, but the bank is saved by Jack Rose, a wealthy farmer. Cindy's father Zeb vows to kill her lover, but she refuses to reveal the man's identity.

Sir Philip Randall, a prominent judge, is fed up with the antics of James, his scapegrace son, and tosses him out of the house. The conflict between father and son leaves Mrs. Randall heartbroken, and when she dies, she makes her husband swear to help James if he ever needs it. When Joe Merrion, a bookmaker, is found dead, circumstantial evidence points to Squire William Rufford. Although Randall can't believe he committed the crime, he is forced to convict him and sentence him to prison. But later, when James, whose wild ways have left him penniless, comes to his father for help, Randall discovers that he was the killer.

Unscrupulous gambler and drug addict Dunstan Leech has embezzled money entrusted to him. Hoping to cover the theft he plans to wed his mother’s ward Kate Heathcote, who is tutor to his disabled brother Cecil, only to discover she loves Richard Blunt. Unhinged, due to his drug use, he poisons his brother’s food to clear the way to an inheritance while his equally dishonest mother Mrs. Jelf attempts to frame Blunt for theft. That plan fails and Kate & Richard marry departing for the diamond mines of South Africa. Obsessed, Leech follows and kidnaps Kate and the couple’s child fleeing back to England pursued by Richard. Held hostage at Leech’s estate, his dying mother gives Kate the evidence to prove Dunstan’s culpability in Cecil’s slaying but driven mad with guilt and haunted by Cecil’s spirit he commits suicide, and the young family are reunited.

A story of treachery and intrigue, with the outcome of the story contingent upon a packet of "secret papers."

One man squanders a fortune and loses his house and sweetheart to another who strikes it rich.

An orphaned young woman rejects her appointed suitor and falls in love with her guardian.

Gennaro, the son of Lucretia Borgia, lives unaware of the identity of his mother, who has married the Duke of Ferrara. After Lucretia's brother is killed by five conspirators, the fathers of Gennaro's dearest friends, Lucretia tortures the old men to death. Later, Gennaro and his companions journey to Lucretia's domain, and she sees her son for the first time. The Duke, who believes him to be her lover, poisons him, but Lucretia administers the antidote in time and saves his life. Then she schemes to poison her sons' five friends for their fathers' mistake.

In the valley the world's best "eternal triangle" is being worked between a husband, a much younger wife and "one who covets." On the heights, the shepherd hears the call and for the nonce becomes a wanderer, and descends into the valley of Passions and Pain. It is the gentle, unfelt, almost unseen influence of the wanderer that stops a maddened husband from first murder and then suicide; exposes the frailty of a wife to her own consideration, and points out to her the grim consequences of a moment's folly, and finally takes the "one who covets" away from the born passions of the valley a far journey up the heights, and disaster to three souls.

Steve, a young college chap who has been unfortunate in his business career, after a life of dissipation, concludes that life is not worth living and contemplates suicide.

After his wife has run off with another man, New Yorker Bide Bennington decides to stay in Europe. After hearing of his wife's death years later, he returns home but finds it lonely there and heads West. While he is gone his house is robbed, and the leader of the crooks, Richard Glendo, leaves Bennington's coat and identification on an East River pier. The newspapers pick up on this and announce Bennington's "suicide." Since he is now officially deceased, Bennington decides to start life all over again -- but first he must foil a scheme by a gang of con artists, who have forced pretty Constance Brent to pose as Bennington's widow so that they can lay claim to his estate.

Heroine Laura suffers spectacularly as her romance with her soldier sweetheart is destroyed by malicious gossip.

Although laborer Joe Mercer loves factory girl Katinka Jenkins, she agrees to become the mistress of Lindsay, the mill owner, in order to escape dire poverty and cruel parents. Katinka sends Lindsay's money to her family, but eventually, he finds himself unable to pay his employees, and only under Joe's influence are the men prevented from striking. Reformer John Strong, who loves Katinka's sister Olivia, visits Katinka to request that she cease her disgraceful dance performances, but he soon submits to her charms and is passionately embracing her when Olivia enters the room. Katinka then learns of the situation at the mill and realizes that the compromise of her honor has ruined more lives than her own.

Judge Randolph Legarde becomes a dual personality when he is kicked in the head by a horse.

A Man of Iron is a 1925 silent film drama.