On the Nickel

Donald (Barry Primus) promises Sam (Charlie Robinson) the best day of his life. This seems unlikely, given they are both homeless men mired in the bleak landscape of Los Angeles' Skid Row. Moreover, the source of Donald's optimism is a mere $20 bill (called a "Jackson") which he bummed off a passing businessman (Steve Guttenberg) earlier that day. But Donald vows that with it, they can do anything, and drags a reluctant Sam off in search of adventure.

Aaron and Angela, two young adults living in the Harlem ghetto of New York City, are deeply in love with each other. The only thing standing in the way of their love is their families. Aaron is black, while Angela is Puerto Rican, and neither family wants one of their own to associate with the others. As the pair rebel against the prejudices of their families, they soon find the conflict spreading out to their friends and neighbors, until the hatred threatens to spiral out of control.

The story of one night in the lives of a group of young Native American men and women who have left their reservations and are now living in the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles.

A group of friends come of age in the asphalt desert of the San Fernando Valley, as set to a blazing soundtrack and endless drinking, drugs and sex.

Grand Canyon revolved around six residents from different backgrounds whose lives intertwine in modern-day Los Angeles. At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship of two men from different races and classes brought together when one finds himself in jeopardy in the other's rough neighborhood.

The sister of ex-pimp and current Los Angeles Police detective Lyle York was murdered working the streets a few years ago. Since his reform, he has teamed with Officer Russ Garfield to clear the streets of underage girls working in prostitution. Pretty, young runaway Hailey Atkins has been turned out. Down deep she wants to go straight but has had great difficulty escaping her pimp and doesn't even have a place to go. York and Garfield go out on a limb to try and help.

Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.

Evicted from his squat and suddenly alone on the streets, George is a man without a home. Struggling with his demons and desperately trying to connect with the daughter he abandoned, he navigates the system, hustling for change and somewhere safe and quiet to gather his thoughts. But the streets are relentless and soon, George finds himself teetering on the edge, alone and abandoned.

Tweek City is a week in the life of Bill, a potentially closeted, half-Latino, small-time speed dealer in San Francisco's Mission District. Bill is stuck on an endless walk from one empty experience to the next. Only Bill's friend Jerm has the ability to connect and ground him in reality. When Jerm makes an ill-advised stage dive, Bill plunges into a downward spiral that takes him on a nocturnal journey through the streets of San Francisco and ultimately down to Los Angeles where he crashes his high school sweetheart's wedding. From his sleep-deprived, hallucinogenic state, Bill fails miserably in a desperate attempt to reconnect with his first and only love. With nowhere else to go, Bill jacks a car and ends up at the deserted drive-in theater of his childhood where he is forced to confront the ghosts that he had tried to leave behind.

Vietnam veteran Archibald Wright is a house painter hired to work on a Beverly Hills mansion where he becomes involved in the life of the resident family. The owner Elaine left her husband J.P. while he was serving in Vietnam, causing him to become an alcoholic hobo living in downtown Los Angeles. Archibald tries to help their daughter Tory to continue her relationship with her father, even though Elaine is strongly against it.

In search of her estranged husband, a mother brings her 3 children to Los Angeles in the hope of finding him. With no prospects they wander the streets; becoming beggars before long. Things start to turn around for them when the mother meets a Christian missionary.

When his drinking problem takes control of his life, a father tries to leave the bottle behind while putting his and his family's lives back together.

A story about talented homeless and formerly homeless fine arts painters in the worst section of Los Angeles known as Skid Row. People will create art no matter how humble the circumstances.

America Undercover goes to the Madison Hotel in the skid-row section of downtown Los Angeles and talks to some of the desperate people living there. It talks to a prostitute and heroin addict named Becky, a drug dealer and traveler names John, and an heavy drinking alcoholic named Jack Woodrow Wilson.

A group of street kids find that the only way to make it through the day is to hold onto their dreams while their reality is eating out of dumpsters, turning tricks and squatting in abandoned buildings.

When ex-soldier Maya sees her murdered husband on a secret nanny cam, she uncovers a deadly conspiracy that stretches deep into the past.

Will, a street-smart teenager, moves from the tough streets of West Philly to posh Bel-Air to live with his Uncle Philip, Aunt Vivian, his cousins — spoiled Hilary, preppy Carlton and young Ashley — and their sophisticated British butler, Geoffrey. Though Will’s antics and upbringing contrast greatly with the upper-class lifestyle of his extended relatives, he soon finds himself right at home as a loved part of the family.

George raises daughter Carmen and dyslexic son Max with his wife Angie, after surviving a miserable, dysfunctional childhood at the hands of his neglectful alcoholic mother Benny.

Grace Kelly is a tough woman with kids to raise. A recently divorced recovering alcoholic, Grace struggles with the pressures of being a single mother supporting three children. Grace doesn't always handle situations with, well, grace, but she does get results.

Joan Girardi has begun acting a little strange since her family moved to the city of Arcadia. No one knows that various people keep introducing themselves as God, and then giving the teenager specific directions to do things. Unsure of what God wants, and if she's even sane, Joan tentatively begins to follow God's cryptic directives, all the while trying to retain a "normal" teen-aged existence.

The charming and still-single Joey, who has struck out on his own and moved to Hollywood, hoping to truly make it as an actor. After reuniting with his high-strung sister Gina, Joey moves in with Michael, his 20-year-old genius nephew, who unbelievably is literally a rocket scientist. However, what Joey lacks in book smarts he makes up for with people smarts – making him the best new friend his nephew could ask for.

Bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar abandoned his throne and retired to Los Angeles, where he has teamed up with LAPD detective Chloe Decker to take down criminals. But the longer he's away from the underworld, the greater the threat that the worst of humanity could escape.

Aan irreverent and outrageous take on true family love‐and dysfunction. Newly sober single mom Christy struggles to raise two children in a world full of temptations and pitfalls. Testing her sobriety is her formerly estranged mother, now back in Christy's life and eager to share passive-aggressive insights into her daughter's many mistakes.

Los Angeles. 1983. A storm is coming and its name is crack. Set against the infancy of the crack cocaine epidemic and its ultimate radical impact on the culture as we know it, the story follows numerous characters on a violent collision course.

Dr. Craig Huffstodt, a family man and a successful psychiatrist, gets a wake-up call after a tragedy occurs with one of his patients.

A realistic glimpse into the daily lives of the officers and detectives at an urban police station.

Charles Ryder, an agnostic man, becomes involved with members of the Flytes, a Catholic family of aristocrats, over the course of several years between the two world wars.

The Santiagos are a proud East Los Angeles Latino family whose hopes and dreams are rooted in the world of professional boxing.

The history of the rise, rule and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the entire era it encompassed (1920-33). After nearly a century of activism, Prohibition was intended to improve the lives of all citizens by protecting individuals, families and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse; but paradoxically it made millions of people rethink their definition of morality.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's chair of Afro-American Studies, travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.