On a tourist trip abroad the passengers on the coach witness an assassination attempt on the President Hurkas. One of the tourists has evidence against the perpetrators, and is killed when the coach reaches Sweden. Another passenger observes how one of the perpetrators is picked up by a yellow car. She is kidnapped and locked up in a mental hospital.
Buster Carell, a talent agent is threatened by bankruptcy when his only real talent, a singing lumberjack, runs off with the company funds. Watching a TV quiz show, Carell discovers a prodigal singer, Isabella Linder, and offers her a contract. But she is unwilling and would like to remain a school teacher.
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
Staffan Stolle becomes the sole heir to a rich and noble family when he is just a little boy. Early on he is engaged to be married to a girl he finds he does not love. Instead he flees the country only to return under a false name, looking for true love.
After 15 years of marriage, David and Marianne have grown apart. David has had an affair with a patient of his and Marianne has got herself involved with her former lover Carl-Adam, who's also David's best friend. When she travels to Copenhagen to meet Carl-Adam, David takes the same train as she does, making it look coincidental. Spending time together remembering their past and talking about their future, they come to understand each other again, which leads to a reconciliation.
Monika from Stockholm falls in love with Harry, a young man on holiday. When she becomes pregnant they are forced into a marriage, which begins to fall apart soon after they take up residence in a cramped little flat.
Atka Natas is a secret agent from the oppressive regime of Liquidatzia. He visits his estranged wife Vera, a chemist who is involved with a group of exiles trying to smuggle their compatriots out of Liquidatzia. Almkvist, a local policeman and former lover of Vera's, contacts her while investigating the death of one of the refugees. Natas has a list of agents operating in the host country and wants to sell them to the Americans. However before he can do so, Vera tries to kill him, after an argument about getting her parents out of Liquidatzia.
After learning that his wife has been killed in an accident, a violinist looks back on their relationship.
"Strange Harbor " - A Swedish cargo ship is in the winter of 1938 at the dock in Gdynia in Poland, waiting to depart with coal to Sweden. In a tavern in the port a Polish dockworkers tries to tell something to the Swedish sailors, but is rudely turned away by the tavern owner. Later in the evening the port worker is found dead. That same evening one of the Swedish sailors, meets a Jewish woman who has fled Nazi Germany.
Because of an accident at a military drill the recruit Bengt loses his eyesight and becomes blind. He gets to live with relatives in the countryside and meets the young Ingrid. She falls in love with him but Bengt's bitterness also makes him blind to her attentions.
A self centered author are having a word feud in a news paper column with a journalist called Sussie. The author has just divorced and now need a new house keeper. Sussie sees her chance to go undercover and takes the job with the intent to dig up some dirt. However, love intervenes.
A Swedish drama from 1939 about the social and political developments in Sweden from 1885 until the dissolution of the union in 1905. The year is 1885, Christina Nilsson sings "Fourteen years I believe certain that I was" in the Grand Hotel's Great Hall . She also sings from the balcony of the hotel and the panic arising among listeners outside the hotel. In Norway, talks about the dissolution of the Union and the Swedish socialists with Hjalmar Branting (Victor Sjöström) is in the lead for independence.
Olof Koskela, the only son is driven from home when he wants to marry the wrong girl. He takes a job as a floater. His reputation as a womanizer goes far and wide. When he meets the proud Kyllikki, he enters into a bet to defeat the mighty rapids standing on a log.