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.

A husband and wife detective team takes on the search for a missing inventor and almost get killed for their efforts.

Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane flees across the United States after he is wrongly accused of starting the fire that killed his best friend.

After a demonstration of new PT boats, Navy brass are still unconvinced of their viability in combat, leaving Lt. "Rusty" Ryan frustrated. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, Ryan and his buddy Lt. Brickley are told they can finally take their squadron into battle. The PT boats quickly prove their worth, successfully shooting down Japanese planes, relaying messages between islands, and picking off a multitude of enemy ships.

Gabby, the waitress in an isolated Arizona diner, dreams of a bigger and better life. One day penniless intellectual Alan drifts into the joint and the two strike up a rapport. Soon enough, notorious killer Duke Mantee takes the diner's inhabitants hostage. Surrounded by miles of desert, the patrons and staff are forced to sit tight with Mantee and his gang overnight.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.

Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

A sister and her disturbed twin are implicated in a murder and a police detective must figure out which one's the killer.

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.

In 1918, Elizabeth MacDonald learns that her husband, John Andrew, has been killed in the war. Elizabeth bears John's son and eventually marries her kindly boss. Unknown to her, John has survived but is horribly disfigured and remains in Europe. Years later, on the eve of World War II, Elizabeth refuses to agree to her son's request to enlist and is stunned when an eerily familiar stranger named Kessler arrives from abroad and becomes involved.

Greedy heirs wait in a mansion for a rich cat lover to die, only to learn her cats come first.

A police detective uses his girlfriend to track down a homicidal maniac.

The secretary of an affably suave radio mystery host mysteriously commits suicide after his wealthy young niece disappears.

Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.

A young lawyer is determined to identify who is murdering members of a wealthy New York publishing family.

A young Navy sailor has one night to find out why a woman was killed and he ended up with a bag of money after a drinking blackout.

Dr. John Garth conducting an innovative medical experiment aimed at prolonging life and combating aging. The experiment takes an unexpected turn, placing the doctor in a confrontation with the ethics of his work and the consequences of his research.

Ruby falls in love with small-time con man Eddie. During a botched blackmail scheme, Eddie accidentally kills the man they were setting up. Eddie takes off and Ruby is sent to a reformatory for two years.

An auto engineer and a professor's daughter pose as married servants in a mobster's mansion.