Anthology film

An anthology film, or omnibus film or portmanteau film is a film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event (often a turning point). The term is derived from the Greek ανθολογία (anthologia), flower-gathering which refers to the collection of poems and epigrams, in Greek culture the flower symbolize the finer sentiments that only poetry can express. Sometimes each one is directed by a different director. Sometimes there is a theme, such as a place (e.g. New York Stories, Paris, je t'aime), a person (e.g. Four Rooms), or a thing (e.g. Twenty Bucks, Coffee and Cigarettes), that is present in each story and serves to bind them together. One of the earliest films to use the form was the 1948 film Quartet based on stories by W. Somerset Maugham. This led to two sequels, Trio (1950) and Encore (1951), as well as imitators like O. Henry's Full House. Sometimes there is one "top-level" story, a framing device...