Fernando Pinkus

Three childhood friends; when they grow up, the poor boy is shut out from the possibility of romancing the girl because of class issues. He leaves town, learns to play pro-level poker, wins a fortune, then goes home to ruin his rival's life.

Mateo Melgarejo is a notary public and scribe for the illiterate people of Santo Domingo, a neighborhood north of Mexico City's Zócalo. A squatter friend asks for his help in negotiating with the land census bureau to regularize a land title. After a great deal of frustration with the government bureaucracy, he writes a letter to the cabinet minister, earning an audience with him. The minister hires Melgarejo to reform the bureau, and the appointee proceeds to lecture the officials on their duties in a democratic society. At the end, he gives up the post, returning to Santo Domingo to help its poor residents.

Family from a farming community move to the capital and lose their moral compass.

Alberto Aguilera arrives from Ciudad Juárez to the capital to pursue a career in music, but in the midst of confusion he is accused of stealing and is sent to prison.

Librado, an unemployed man, lives in a crowded small house with numerous children and relatives, is beaten for stealing a car antenna. His godmother and her children try to settle in his place. She then is arrested at a supermarket for stealing, however, she offers herself and volunteers a friend of hers for sex to the policemen so she can be released. She is a maid of an employee who acts subservient to his boss, a mid-level government employee at once servile who delivers speeches on sexuality in educational texts and then discusses the matter with his brother, a corrupt inspector.

A pilot is called back to his homeland, the Latin American republic of Arepa, by the rich islanders to participate in a complot to kill the dictator known as El León (The Lion).

Spoiled rich boys get into drag-racing and end up in beeg trobbles.