Summary:

During the opening credits, the camera slowly pans over the myriad medications for Marvin (Hume Cronyn), the elderly, bedridden invalid cared for round-the-clock by his daughter, Bessie (Diane Keaton). The film opens with Bessie visiting Dr. Wally (Robert DeNiro), a pathologist cum primary care physician, for diagnostic tests which show that she has leukemia.

Bessie also takes care of her Aunt Ruth, whose electric unit for pain relief and penchant for soap operas provide comic relief in this bittersweet drama about families and responsibilities. Because Bessie's best chance for survival is a bone marrow transplant, she contacts her sister, Lee (Meryl Streep), estranged since their father's first stroke and Lee's decision not to help care for him.

Lee's oldest son, Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a troubled seventeen-year-old who sets fire to their home and is hospitalized in a mental institution. Released for this special trip to visit his Aunt Bessie, Hank continues his rebellion by refusing to be tested as a possible donor. Lee is a dysfunctional mother: she does not respond to her son's apology regarding the arson, she has her younger son light cigarettes, and she confuses discipline with control.

The family unites in and around Marvin's room. Reunions are never as smooth as planned, and tensions, stored bitterness, and anger erupt. The sisters confront each other in their failures as sisters--Bessie had never contacted her nephews in any way and Lee had never looked back. But through it all, love and caring emerge: the sisters come to a new understanding, Bessie's reaching out to rebellious Hank is reciprocated, and Lee even learns to communicate caring to her son.

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Summary:

Noah Praetorius (Cary Grant) is a physician who cares for patients as human beings and not just bodies. His unorthodox methods are being challenged by Dr. Elwell (Hume Cronyn), who wishes to discredit Praetorius by exposing the secrets of his past. While Elwell investigates, Praetorius cares for a pregnant, unwed student (Jeanne Crain), who on learning of her condition, tries to commit suicide.

In order to give her hope, Praetorius tells the student that he was mistaken about her pregnancy and eventually marries her. In the conclusion, Praetorius reveals to a committee his secret life, which includes the historical questionable necessity of procuring his own cadaver for anatomy study, and wins the day.

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Summary:

Sam (Hume Cronyn) and Cora Peek (Jessica Tandy) dance to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, surrounded by friends and children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Not long after this party, Cora dies suddenly, and Sam is left alone and depressed. His anxious, protective children try to manage his life, down to what he eats, but Sam wants to be left alone. There is a classic, often comic conflict between the stubborn, independent old father and his worried, controlling children.

To help Sam, his wife returns from the dead as a white dog which he feeds and cares for, but she keeps hiding when the other family members appear, so they think Sam is hallucinating and demented. When Sam has a stroke, however, the white dog runs to a family member's house and barks for help, saving Sam's life. Later, as Sam recovers and walks using a walker, the white dog "dances" with him by putting her front paws on top of the walker. She also saves his life another time when she leads family members to a stream where Sam has fallen. Mostly she is there as his loving companion, leaving only when Sam dies.

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