An old woman finds a baby in her cabbage patch and raises him. After her death, the boy grows up in an orphanage and later joins the homeless in post-war Milan, helping them build a shanty town. When they discover oil, he receives a magical dove from a vision of his adoptive mother that grants wishes.

Luca Cupiello lives with the wife Concetta, the son Tommasino, and a brother, Pasquale. The son is wild, living by gimmicks and stealing from his uncle; the daughter Ninuccia does not get along with her husband Nicolino and plans to run away with her lover Vittorio; the wife tries to hide her family's troubles from her husband. Luca, who silently suffers the family situation, takes refuge in setting up the Nativity scene.

Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?

Aunt Agatha writes to Toto, informing him that she won't send him another penny until he is married.

Paolo Sanseviero is a professor at a German university and more married to his profession than to his wife. Martina decides to leave her husband. But it happens differently.

Friends Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo travel from north to south for Giacomo's wedding, carrying a precious item: the father of the bride, a tyrannical rich man who is both their boss and father-in-law (also Aldo and Giovanni married his daughters), has entrusted them with a wooden leg, the work of a famous artist.

Based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, "300" is very loosely based the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where the King of Sparta led his army against the advancing Persians; the battle is said to have inspired all of Greece to band together against the Persians, and helped usher in the world's first democracy.