In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet mole within his former colleagues at the heart of MI6.

Paris, in the early 1960s. Jean-Louis Joubert is a serious but uptight stockbroker, married to Suzanne, a starchy class-conscious woman and father of two arrogant teenage boys, currently in a boarding school. The affluent man lives a steady yet boring life. At least until, due to fortuitous circumstances, Maria, the charming new maid at the service of Jean-Louis' family, makes him discover the servants' quarter on the sixth floor of the luxury building he owns and lives in. There live a crowd of lively Spanish maids who will help Jean-Louis to open to a new civilization and a new approach of life. In their company - and more precisely in the company of beautiful Maria - Jean-Louis will gradually become another man, a better man.

Isabelle, a beautiful nursing student, is starting her internship at a prestigious hospital. She meets Dr. Philip there, feels atracted to him from the beggining and starts suffering from strange fainting; so he calls her Bambi: her legs don't support her. Patients mysteriously start to dissappear from their rooms; so Bambi and Dr. Philip start a cat vs. mouse paranoid game, in order to catch the probable killer.

In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life.

Convinced that only she can lead France to victory against the invading English, Joan of Arc leaves her childhood home to plead Charles, heir to the French throne, to allow her to guide his troops on the battlefield.

Mise-en-scène of the classic tragedy of Sofocles, carried out by Antoine Vitez in the National Theatre of Chaillot

The wealthy Tombsthays hire a guitar tutor, David Aurphet, for their daughter Vivian. The wife, Julia, begins a passionate affair with David. Edwige, Julia's new neighbour, also takes an interest in David. David is attacked one night on returning home but saved by a mysterious stranger Daniel who reveals himself to be a hired killer. David begins to suspect that his affair is no longer secret.

Following the assassination of President Marc Jarry, a member of the investigation committee refuses to sign off on the committee's final findings.

Marie is nineteen and bored in her little suburban life with no future. In a café, she meets the charismatic and beautiful Gerard. Blinded by adoration, Mary decides to leave her parents and her clerk job to live with the man she considers as the love of her life. But Gerard is a pimp, who soon forces her into prostitution. From within homes to out on the streets, the young woman gradually discovers a world of decay and violence.

Eight years after May '68, they are all in their forties and all met to live in a small village in Provence: Julie, Simon, Alice, Maria, Gustave, Claude and Claudine.