On their way to an afternoon on the lake, husband and wife Andrzej and Krystyna nearly run over a young hitchhiker. Inviting the young man onto the boat with them, Andrzej begins to subtly torment him; the hitchhiker responds by making overtures toward Krystyna. When the hitchhiker is accidentally knocked overboard, the husband's panic results in unexpected consequences.
During the Napoleonic wars, a Spanish officer and an opposing officer find a book written by the former's grandfather.
To convince the prison warden against releasing him, a middle-aged Polish man recounts his life, one he considers to have been characterized by exceptionally bad luck.
Based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem (Solaris). The main character, race car driver Ryszard Fox, is involved in many car accidents. After each car crash he gets a transplant for one or another internal organ. After a while there is a question: Who really is Ryszard Fox?
A shy student falls in love and is involved in a kidnapping plot.
Set in the 19th century Warsaw. The indolence of aristocrats who, secure with their pensions, are too lazy to undertake new business risks, frustrates Wokulski. His ability to make money is respected but his lack of family and social rank is condescended to. Because of his "help" (in secret) to "the doll's" impecunious but influential father, the girl becomes aware of his affection.
In 1668 Polish colonel Michał Wołodyjowski, who recently retired to a monastery, is recalled to active duty and takes charge of Poland's eastern frontier defenses against invading Tatar hordes and Ottoman armies.
Three short segments about love.
Wajda's homage to Zbigniew Cybulski, the "Polish James Dean" who starred in the director's ASHES AND DIAMONDS and died young. The movie follows the tribulations of a director attempting to make a movie with a Cybulski-like star who never shows up.
Love at Twenty unites five directors from five different countries to present their different perspectives on what love really is at the age of 20. The episodes are united with the score of Georges Delerue and still photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson.
A German woman on a ship returning to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she had been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life.
A dream-like meditation on post-industrial life in Communist Poland.
In this WWII drama, Russian soldiers take a break at a scenic farm in Poland, and the unit is able to escape the horrors of war during their brief respite. A Polish farm girl and a Russian officer feel a mutual and unspoken attraction towards each other.
Set at the end of the war. A hot-headed colonel tries to force his men on to heroics although the war is almost over. A war-weary lieutenant tries to muffle his efforts but he keeps on with his men and is killed fighting in the front lines, all his men decide to get his body.
An actress travels from Warsaw to Paris and during the trip reflects on the last few years of her life. It goes back to the German occupation and her hiding of a fellow actor who has supposedly killed a collaborator.
Count Olgierd Łabiński lives with his beloved wife in Paris in a beautiful palace. The Countess recalls her stay in Florence and her insistent admirer Octavius de Saville. Soon, Octavius, arrives in Paris and calls for the famous Dr. Cherbonneau, suspected of being a charlatan. Citing the teachings of the East, Cherbonneau offers the patient an "avatar", a reincarnation of the soul, which takes a different body...
A statue, fashioned in the guise of an anguished woman, is seen in a remote inn, having been recently interred from the ground. The occasion is a wedding attended by the protagonist, an unassuming man who becomes caught up in a bizarre nightmare when the groom unthinkingly sticks his wedding ring on a finger of the statue - and can’t get it off.
The movie consists of two satirical novels based on the same idea: both the "gangsters" and "philanthropists" end up in the courtroom.
At the end of World War Two, Polish people move to the western lands vacated by Germans. But some ruthless profiteers pose as government representatives and intend to make off with loot from a deserted town they took over. One honest man stands up against them because he believes these goods belong to the people.
The wealthy Lord Artur Savile learns from a palm reader that he's destined to become a murderer. Obsessed with the prophecy, he decides to commit the deed as quickly as possible.
