Marta is a romantic and a loser in school. She shares a room with her sister Kasia and grandma, who tells her granddaughters insurgency stories instead of fairy tales. In the room behind the wall, the parents - Tadek and Elżbieta - live their married life. He is an intelligent constantly humiliated by the state, he also makes his own moonshine after work and silently envies his prosperous brother in law. She is the leader of the "Solidarity" union at work, with the need for freedom and a dream to get out of Poland. The real adventure for the family starts when they manage to get their dream orange Fiat 126p. Ela and Tadek discover their appetite for trading and trips abroad, and the growing Marta will fall in love for the first time.
When Marek Niewiadomski gets a proposal, which is the job of another deputy minister in one of the state departments, his current life is changing. All decisions he must make with his wife to be an honest citizen bring him many challenges. There is no cure for deals.
Alfred and Jerzy take part in a brutal incident: during a train ride, a couple of hooligans harass a young woman. Jerzy stands in her defense. Alfred hesitates and becomes a helpless bystander as his younger brother is thrown off the moving train. 'Courage' is about people whose lives get disturbed by a violent act, which forces them to reveal who they really are.
In the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He's expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman's rape; children die; prelates play billiards.