A group of British retirees decide to "outsource" their retirement to less expensive and seemingly exotic India. Enticed by advertisements for the newly restored Marigold Hotel, they arrive to find the palace a shell of its former self.

At the age of forty Dame Margot Fonteyn is considered to be past her best as a prima ballerina and Ninette de Valois is reducing her roles at the Royal Ballet. Then the exciting young Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev, a recent defector to the West, comes into her life and her bed and revitalizes her career. Frederick Aashton creates a new ballet for them and they become the golden couple of the ballet world. However, Margot is married to Roberto 'Tito' Arias, a Panamanian politician of dubious repute who is not sympathetic to her calling and is probably faithless. When he is shot and paralyzed for life Margot must carry on dancing well into her sixties in order to pay for his costly treatment though she still collaborates with Rudolf in the occasional ballet.

Donald Woods is chief editor at the liberal newspaper Daily Dispatch in South Africa. He has written several editorials critical of the views of Steve Biko. But after having met him for the first time, he changes his views. They meet several times, and this means that Woods and his family get attention from the security police. When Steve Biko dies in police custody, he writes a book about Biko. The only way to get it published is for Woods himself to illegally escape the country.

Iris, based on the life of revered British writer and philosopher Iris Murdoch, is a story of unlikely yet enduring love. As a young academic, teaching philosophy at Oxford, Murdoch meets and eventually falls in love with fellow professor John Bayley, a man whose awkwardness seems in stark opposition to the spirited self-confidence of his future wife. The story unfolds as snippets of time, seen through Bayley's eyes. He recalls their first encounter over 40 years ago, activities they enjoyed doing together, and Iris' charismatic and individualistic personality. These images portray Murdoch as a vibrant young woman with great intellect and are contrasted with the novelist's later life, after the effects of Alzheimer's disease have ravaged her. Murdoch's great mind deteriorates until she is reduced to a mere vestige of her former self, unable to perform simple tasks and completely reliant on her at times frustrated yet devoted husband.

A Women's Institute chapter's fundraising effort for a local hospital by posing nude for a calendar becomes a media sensation.

Chris Wilton is a former tennis pro, looking to find work as an instructor. He meets Tom Hewett, a well-off pretty boy. Tom's sister Chloe falls in love with Chris but Chris has his eyes on Tom's fiancée, the luscious Nola. Both Chris and Nola know it's wrong but what could be more right than love? Chris tries to juggle both women but at some point, he must choose between them...

In 1980s Britain, a group of young men at Cutlers' Grammar School all have the brains, and the will to earn the chance of getting accepted in the finest universities in the nation, Oxford and Cambridge. Despite the fine teaching by excellent professionals like Mrs Lintott in history and the intellectually enthusiastic Hector in General Studies, the Headmaster is not satisfied. He signs on the young Irwin to polish the students' style to give them the best chance. In this mix of intellectualism and creative spirit that guides a rigorous preparation regime for that ultimate educational brass ring, the lives of the randy students and the ostensibly restrained faculty intertwine that would change their lives forever.