Malcolm Rivers has been convicted as the perpetrator of several murders and is sentenced to death. An eleventh hour defense by his lawyers and psychiatrist that Malcolm is insane based on new evidence has resulted in them meeting with the prosecutors and the judge to discuss if the verdict should be overturned. Meanwhile, on a dark night during a torrential rainstorm in the Nevada desert, a series of chain reaction events results in several people needing to stay at an out of the way motel managed by Larry. They are: ex-cop now limo driver Ed, and his client Caroline, a diva of a once famous actress; quiet adolescent Timmy, his stepfather George, and his mother Alice, who was seriously injured when Ed accidentally ran over her as she watched George change their flat tire; prostitute Paris, who was the unwitting cause of George's flat tire; newlyweds Lou and Ginny, whose marriage is based on a lie; and Police Officer Rhodes, who was en route escorting prisoner Robert to his new ...

In the mid-70s, near Reno, Grace Bontempo runs the Love Ranch, a legal brothel. Her husband Charlie, with big dreams, a felony record, and an aptitude for spending and infidelity, is the brothel's public face. On the day Grace's doctor tells her she has cancer in an advanced state, Charlie takes on new client, Argentine boxer Armando Bruza, Charlie's ticket to fame: he hopes to promote a fight with Ali. Because of Charlie's felonies, Grace is Bruza's titular manager. With the IRS and the church ladies circling the business, Grace takes the manager's role seriously and, along the way, Bruza charms her. Secrets play out: is there love at the Love Ranch? How will Charlie respond?

Three showgirls on their way to Las Vegas have car trouble and are stuck all night out in the desert. The next morning cheerful Andre offers them help in fixing their car. However, Andre is really a maniac with a lot of family problems; his mother ran out on him when he was a child so now he keeps kidnapped women chained up in his barn and trains them to perform circus tricks. Andre's father is still around of course, but because the old homestead is next to a nuclear test site he has been transformed into a raving homicidal mutant that Andre keeps locked up in a shed.

Elizabeth's heart is broken. For solace, she drops in late at night a few times at Jeremy's diner for blueberry pie a la mode; they talk. Once, he watchers her sleep, her head on the counter. Abruptly, she leaves New York City to get away from her pain. She works a couple of jobs in Memphis. There, a heart-broken cop is drinking himself into oblivion, his ex occasionally showing up where he drinks and Lizzy works. Then, she's in Nevada, working at a casino where she uses her savings (she wants a car) to stake Leslie, a busted gambler, in a high rollers' game. After, Beth drives Leslie to Vegas where Leslie's estranged father lives. Broken relationships. What about Jeremy?

When a sheriff arrests a writer, a family, a couple, and a hitchiker and throws them in a jail cell in the deserted town of Desperation, they must fight for their lives.

Two drifters are passing through a Western town, when news comes in that a local farmer has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The townspeople, joined by the drifters, form a posse to catch the perpetrators. They find three men in possession of the cattle, and are determined to see justice done on the spot.