In 1914, sixteen year old Roger returned home from boarding school during vacation to find his puberty hit hard in a house filled with beautiful women. These women have previous engagements with other men who are away, and during this time, Roger impregnates them all, including his aunt and sister, then devises plans to cuckold the men.
A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.
14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence – which is considerable.
French secret service agent Josselin Beaumont is dispatched to take down African warlord N'Jala. But when his assignment is canceled, he's shocked to learn that his government is surrendering him to local authorities. He is given a mock trial and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor. But Beaumont escapes from prison and vows not only to avenge himself against his betrayers but also to finish his original assignment.
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
A millionaire realizes he really wants to live after he has hired an assassin to kill him.
A writer of pulpy book series in which he's the hero and his beautiful English roommate is the love interest attempts to finish his new book in time at the publisher's demand.
Fanfan is a young handsome peasant. He joins the army to escape marriage because a gypsy girl predicted he will get glory and the king's daughter as a wife. But the gypsy girl was in fact Adeline, the daughter of the recruiting officer. Once he has discovered the stratagem, Fanfan refuses to forget this dream and decides to fulfill the destiny of the fake prediction.
In an Arctic village in 1931, British mapmaker Walter Russell selects 12-year-old Eskimo Avik as his guide. When the boy contracts tuberculosis, Walter flies him to a Montreal hospital, where Avik meets Albertine and is infatuated. A decade later, a grown Avik encounters Albertine again in London, where he's serving as a British combat pilot. Despite her relationship with Walter, she and Avik begin an affair.
French military man Adrien Dufourquet gets an eight-day furlough to visit his fiancée, Agnès. But when he arrives in Paris, he learns that her late father's partner, museum curator Professor Catalan, has just been kidnapped by a group of Amazon tribesmen who have also stolen a priceless statue from the museum. Adrien and Agnès pursue the kidnappers to Brazil, where they learn that the statue is the key to a hidden Amazon treasure.
The plot centers on students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in schools. The stage version presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on June 16, 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the school girl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when a policeman shoots several pupils in a classroom. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of act two. In the movie version Sarafina feels shame at her mother's (played by Miriam Makeba in the film) acceptance of her role as domestic servant in a white household in apartheid South Africa, and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masombuka (played by Whoopi Goldberg in the film version) is imprisoned.
Biarritz, 1933. Charm and talent help small-time swindler Serge Alexandre, alias Stavisky, to bribe his way into the centre of French political power. But when his great scam involving millions gets exposed, he brings the government to the verge of collapse and the country to the brink of civil war.
Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece, Pauline, on a vacation to Granville. There, she meets an old love...
Philippe Jordan is a policeman prone to advancing the cause of justice by any means necessary. On his agenda is a powerful drug cartel working out of Paris and Marseilles, with a drug lord who is essentially inaccessible -- but not immortal.
Martinaud, an illustrious notary suspected of being the perpetrator of two horrendous crimes, voluntarily agrees to be questioned by Inspector Gallien on New Year's Eve. What initially is a routine procedure, soon becomes a harsh interrogation that seems to confirm the initial suspicions.
In the 18th century, Louis de Bourguignon is working with the Malichot's gang, but their ways are too 'unethical' for him. He creates his own band, acting under the name of Cartouche, making audacious robberies of the rich people, and even distributing the takings with the poor. Thus, cartouche attracts the people's sympathies, Venus's love, and hate from the Police and Malichot... Cartouche can escape all the traps they set at him - except the entrapments of love. Eventually, he will be saved by a woman, at her own cost.
In 1830s France, pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin is pursued romantically by the determined, individualistic woman who uses the name George Sand.
Assola is an imaginary village on the border between Italy and France and the borderline crosses the village itself. The French customs agent Ferdinand is always trying to catch the Italian smuggler Giuseppe. Giuseppe discovers that Ferdinand was actually born in Italy and therefore he can't be a French customs agent.
Ralf Milan, a hitman, arrives in Montpellier to kill an important witness. He checks in a hotel without knowing that his neighbour has become neurotic after his wife left him.
Louise is dissatisfied with her mundane life in a bleak Parisian new-town. She rents a pied-à-terre in the city so she can experience independence.
