For his final film, Jacques Tati takes his camera to the circus, where the director himself serves as master of ceremonies. Though it features many spectacles, including clowns, jugglers, acrobats, contortionists, and more, Parade also focuses on the spectators, making this stripped-down work a testament to the communion between audience and entertainment.
"How crazy!" A man and a woman watch episodes from Nils Poppe movies outside a cinema Maxim in Stockholm. Poppe represents, among other things, a poor composer who vainly tries to get a tune adopted by a publisher. The failure makes him depressed, but he is living it up by meeting a good friend Calle, who invites him home. Poppe stays for a few days as a male housewife. Calle has a music store and there the two friends can go crazy among all the instruments.
Knatten and Janne, just released from the prison of Långholmen, meet a romantic Stockholm in the 40s. Knatten tries to earn money while Janne is looking for the music.
The chamberlain Carl Johan Stjärna is a poor aristocrat who has to resort to borrowing money from his manservant Frans to afford champagne and restaurant visits. Frans has told his fiance Irene that he is an aristocrat which leads to some complications, not least because Irene has told Frans she is a rich land owner's daughter, although she is in a housemaid.
A drama about the manager Håkan Dahlin who has just been discharged from a clinic where he was treated for his alcoholism. In an outbreak of jealousy, Dahlin abuses his wife Inga and after that he is forcibly interned again. Inga is a nurse and she is now moving to a mountain village to work at a district clinic. During an emergency visit, she encounters her childhood sweetheart, the doctor Gunnar, and old feelings between them begin to flare up again.
The actor Philip has an accident on the way to his own wedding and the shock makes him lose his voice.
Lisa Larsson, dancer at a theater, witnesses a traffic accident and banker Brenner's private driver asks her to be a witness. When her friends see her talk to the driver, they start to believe that she is Brenner's fiancée. The manager of the theater, Gravander, gives her the leading part in his latest show, in order to befriend Brenner. Larsson plays along in this mistake and when Brenner hears about this he asks to see Larsson, pretending to be a news journalist... Plot by Mattias Thuresson.
Famous chef Carl-Ulrik Johansson (Erik 'Bullen' Berglund) comes home to Sweden after twenty years abroad and finds out he never finished his compulsory military service. Consequently he is forced to join the army as a conscript. He has many fights with his sergeant Göran Persson (Thor Modéen).
Nappe and Johan are two friends who gets cheated by the trickster Johnny.
Lola Brio has a large number of professions. She is partly a revue primadonna and gramophone singer, but the nameplate on her door also reads "Lessons in French and Grace", which of the film's act to judge apparently means that she is partly a luxury prostitute and partly takes care of country girls to give them some posture of polish.