Taking man's inhumanity to man as its central theme, 'Au Hasard Balthazar' traces the life of a donkey, christened Balthazar by a group of young children, from birth to death. Balthazar's story begins on a small farm in a rural district of France. Throughout his life he is owned by many of the locals, returning to some of them more than once, and is set various tasks, from drawing a carriage to performing in a circus, turning a grindstone to acting as a smuggler's means of transport. Some owners find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...