Hollywood cinema plays familiar stories in ever-new variations - this is precisely its strength. A film like "Million Dollar Baby" virtuously varies the patterns of classical storytelling, thereby expanding the possibilities of cinematic language. Using prominent examples, Michaela Krützen examines what makes the films of "a slightly different Hollywood" so special and identifies three current strategies through which old stories are recharged: contemporary cinema offers unreliable narratives, non-chronological stories, and multi-stranded plots. Those who have read the vividly written analyses of "The Usual Suspects," "Mulholland Dr.," "Pulp Fiction," "Memento," "Short Cuts," "Twelve Monkeys," "Traffic," "The Hours," or "Adaptation" will want to see these films again, but with new eyes.