Tomorrow is Christmas at Vincent and Beatrice Barand's house. Vincent is happy, it's his favorite day. Unfortunately, the whole family cancels at the last minute. Result: no children, no grandchildren... While Beatrice is looking forward to this intimate evening, he is overwhelmed and can't imagine a Christmas together. So he decides to go to a retirement home to invite a lonely resident to join them and share the Christmas spirit. Monique, 85 years old and obsessed with death, arrives... soon followed by Jeanne, a former prison guard with no filter. For all four of them, this December 24th promises to be as explosive as it is unexpected!
Compulsive spenders Albert and Bruno are in debt up to their necks. While seeking help from community workers to get their lives back on track, they run into a group of young green activists. Lured by the free beer and snacks rather than by the ideals of eco-activists, Albert and Bruno find themselves joining the movement without much conviction.
When the fun loving Marie sets her eyes on brooding comic book artist Paul, it sets off the kind of romantic sparks that quickly culminate in the bedroom. But the next morning brings its share of surprises as Marie crawls out of bed to discover her life flash-forwarded fifteen years down the road: Not only has she been married to Paul all this time, but she’s now the mother of a little boy the head of a powerful multinational investment firm and the proprietor of a fabulous apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Quickly Marie discovers that all her achievements have not brought happiness.
Adrien is a young pianist prodigy. He collapsed psychologically having failed in a renowned competition and henceforth works as a piano tuner. As remedy to this life, he invents a blind person's mask to penetrate into the intimacy of his customers. This subtlety allows Adrien to get back the taste for music. But since he sees things he should not see, Adrien ends up witnessing a murder.
Didier Travolta is a 40-year-old disco music fan who has no job, lives with his mother, and has a son he hasn't seen for a while. The mother of his son refuses to send him their son for the holidays unless he can offer him a real vacation, not just going to bars of the French port city of Le Havre. Penniless, the only way he can see his son is by winning a dance contest organized by his friend Jackson, with the prize of a vacation to Australia for two.
When Camille falls ill, she is forced to live with Philibert and Franck.
This French romantic comedy-drama concerns Claude Langmann, a middle-aged auctioneer, who is in a loving marriage with his second wife of 15 years. Though he is deeply in love with his wife and has remained faithful to her, he finds himself unable to perform in bed. His wife says she is satisfied with Claude's love and tenderness, but he visits a sex specialist anyway. There he learns of Viagra, which is not yet approved in France, though it is available in Switzerland over the counter. Soon Claude is on his way to Geneva, and eager to prove his manhood, tries to bed Agnes, his very attractive and very available assistant. His daughter, who also comes along for the trip, interferes with her own problems.
At the altar where he is marrying Séverine, the groom, Antoine, gets his first glimpse of her mother, Léa, and suffers what the French call a coup de foudre which we know as love at first sight.
After the death of her father, 22-year-old Céline inherits most of his estate, but gives it to her stepmother, causing her greedy fiancé to leave her. Following several failed suicide attempts, Céline is hospitalized and comes to the attention of a nurse, Genevieve, who has struggled with depression. Under her personal care, Céline gradually recovers, and the two women grow close.
Felicie and Charles have a whirlwind holiday romance. Due to a mix-up on addresses they lose contact, and five years later at Christmas-time Felicie is living with her mother in a cold Paris with a daughter as a reminder of that long-ago summer. For male companionship she oscillates between hairdresser Maxence and the intellectual Loic, but seems unable to commit to either as the memory of Charles and what might have been hangs over everything.
After World War II, a small French village struggles to put the war behind as the controlling Communist Party tries to flush out Petain loyalists. The local bar owner, a simple man who likes to write poetry, who only wants to be left alone to do his job, becomes a target for Communist harassment as they try and locate a particular loyalist, and he pushes back.
The life of Camille Claudel, a French sculptor who becomes the apprentice of Auguste Rodin and later his lover. Her passion for her art and Rodin drive her further away from reason and rationality.
Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument over a fly in the Sunday soup escalates into nuclear war. In "Sloth," a movie star would rather pay someone to tie his shoe than bend over to do it himself, and he can't be bothered to accept a starlet's sexual favors. In "Gluttony," a peasant family on its way to the funeral of a relative who died from indigestion stops regularly to eat and drink en route, arriving in time to eat some more. In "Greed," a high-class prostitute refunds the price of a cadet's lottery ticket. In "Pride," an unfaithful wife finds reason to reform. And so on through lust and envy.