"Regina Coeli" is the nickname with which inmates call Regina, voluntary assistant in Rome's Rebibbia jail, very involved in solidarity but lonely in his private life. The jail director entrusts her with the task to try re-educating Graziano, a young Sardinian sentenced for a kidnapping of which he always proclaimed himself to be innocent. Regina is way too much mature and lonely not to feel intrigued by the mysterious personality of the illiterate shepherd, who expresses himself only in his almost unintelligible Sardinian dialect.
Marguerite receives as a gift from a filmmaker friend: a very modern, automatic camera, complete with remote control. Her life will change dramatically, as the machine reveals to her not only her husband's betrayal with her best friend, but also the desolation of her own existence.
Giacinto lives with his wife, their ten children and various other family members in a shack on the hills of Rome. Some time ago he has lost his left eye while at work, and got a consistent sum of money from the insurance company, which he keeps hidden from the rest of the family. His whole life is now based on defending the money he sees as his own, while the rest of the family tries to kill him.
Paulina, sister of Napoleon I, is married to Camillo Borghese, presented as a helpless coward. She is eager to offer herself to all the young people that propose to her, and performs naked in front of the Roman people flocking to the walls of Villa Borghese, which she turned into a private residence. She also poses half naked for the famous statue of Canova, who is also presented as a effeminate and scoundrel. When her reputation as a depraved spreads, on the advice of the Pope, she is segregated away from all the men. when the French troops deport from Rome the Pope and the cardinals as well, Paulina sees prostitution as the only way to find herself some "fresh meat". Finally after seven years villa Borghese is reopened to the public, as Paulina goes back to Paris, to the great relief of the Roman people and the clerical circles.