First Snow

Toronto, Canada. A few days before Christmas, Miles Cullen, a bored teller working at a bank branch located in a shopping mall, accidentally learns that the place is about to be robbed when he finds a disconcerting note on one of the counters.

A New York drug dealer is kidnapped, and his wife must try to come up with the money and drugs to free him from his abductors before Christmas.

In a society where kissing is punishable by death, and people pay for things by receiving slaps to the face, Angine, an unhappy woman, shops compulsively in a department store. There, she becomes fascinated by a playful salesgirl. Despite the prohibition of kissing, the two become close, raising the suspicions of a jealous colleague.

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Three men case a small town very carefully, with plans to rob the bank on the upcoming Saturday, which turns violent and deadly.

George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.

London, 1843. Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter old man, despises the Christmas holiday. Over the course of Christmas Eve night he is visited by three ghosts to show him his past, present and future.

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

Adam Buckley finds himself in the middle of a convenience store robbery during his last night as a pledge for a college fraternity. When the initiation ritual goes horribly wrong, and every move proves disastrous, Adam is forced to confront a new challenge all together, and he has to take a stand.

Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.

Oakland, California. Young Afro-American Oscar Grant crosses paths with family members, friends, enemies and strangers before facing his fate on the platform at Fruitvale Station, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009.

A union pensioner and his wife are robbed, but find that merely getting the assailants brought to justice is not enough for their consciences.