Stressed and overworked, famous French movie star Michel Blanc is beginning to wear down, physically and mentally, from the pressure and demands of fame. Already in a fragile state of mind, strange events start to transpire all around him, and he gradually loses his grip. Taking the advice of a psychiatrist, Blanc retreats to the countryside with his friend Carole Bouquet, but Blanc still has not managed to escape all of his problems.

She was 18. They were in love and lived together for ten years. 20 years later, he receives a letter from her. L is very ill. He grabs hold of his camera and films while trying to make her talk about other things, about cinema and what’s become of those political struggles…

On the day Jean Gabin dies, a kidnaper who also takes a fortune in jewels heisted from Cartiers murders Simon Verini's wife. (Simon was fencing the jewels for a youthful gang who robbed Cartiers; he suspects them of the murder.) He's framed for the theft and spends ten years in prison, writing to his daughter, Marie-Sophie, who's 11 when he's sent away. Released, he reconnects to Marie-Sophie and to the young thieves, seeks revenge, and is quickly arrested again. She doesn't know what to make of her father, retreats to her Swiss fiancé, and is flummoxed when one of the young thieves falls for her. Is resolution possible when crime cuts across families and romance?

In 1856, fresh from life with nuns in an orphanage school, Alexina Barbin comes to a coastal village in La Rochelle to teach the village girls. She is deeply religious. She shares the classroom and a bedroom with the young and vivacious Sara, with whom she falls in love. Alexina has another secret: her gender is mysterious. She and Sara begin a scandalous love affair, but Alexina seeks marriage and social acceptance. She discloses her secrets to the village priest, to her mother, to the bishop, and to the bishop's physician. After the church and court rule on her petition, marriage to Sara becomes Alexina's sole purpose and hope.

A Paris police detective plays rough with a prostitute and her pimp/lover, whom he wants as an informant.

Everybody takes advantage of Fernand who has just come out of prison.

A couple deal with their problems like any other, while actors read Friedrich Engels' "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", and in interviews, the director discusses the status of women in 1978.

A young man is checked into a mental hospital for unexplained reasons.