Married couple Jock & Nora are visiting the town of Litan during Litan's Day, with its carnivalesque atmosphere. When Nora wakes that morning from dreaming the bizarre death of her husband, she sets out across town to find him and warn him. But as she does, she encounters stranger and stranger people and events erupting into a frenzy in front of her. Now, she and Jock must elude all of the impediments in their way of reaching safety on the outskirts of town.
After dumping a bucket of water on a beautiful young woman from the window of a train car, wealthy Frenchman Mathieu, regales his fellow passengers with the story of the dysfunctional relationship between himself and the young woman in question, a fiery 19-year-old flamenco dancer named Conchita. What follows is a tale of cruelty, depravity and lies -- the very building blocks of love.
The head of a failing French family thinks that fate has smiled down on him when the daughter of a wealthy man agrees to be married to his son. The daughter and her aunt then travel out to the French countryside to meet with the family, unaware that a mysterious 'beast' is stalking the vicinity.
The friends who attended the same boarding school meet and take turns telling their recent romantic experiences. These turn out to be as varied as they are crisp, from the initiation of a student by a teacher to the misunderstanding in the company of a lord, through the false English but true seducer, the swimmer obsessed with his physical condition and, obviously, love in a group (Le Chat Qui Fume).
Three friends navigate mid-life crises: a blocked writer, a disillusioned doctor, and a charming man facing bankruptcy and divorce. As their struggles strain friendships, a younger man captures the attention of one friend's wife, complicating their lives further.
Jeanne lives in Paris and believes she is the reincarnation of Don Juan. She visits a priest and tells him she has killed a man. He comes to her elegant flat - her father has died leaving her rich - and she tells the priest stories about men she has seduced. The seduction is easy, she tells him, it's destruction that takes planning. We watch her with an upright elected official, a wealthy boor, and a folk singer. She describes herself as a spider. Her friend Léporella tries to be Jeanne's conscience. What does Jeanne want?
During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.
Renee Saccard is a pampered, selfish young wife of a middle-aged Parisian businessman who falls in love with her stepson but is driven to the point of madness when her husband tricks the stepson into betraying her.
Monsieur Feydeau has writer's block, and he needs a new play. But he takes an opportunity to observe the upper class of 1900 Paris - Monsieur Boniface with a domineering wife, and the next-door neglectful husband Henri with a beautiful but ignored wife, Marcelle. Henri traces architectural anomalies (most ghost sounds are drains) and plans a night at the Hotel Paradiso, but this hotel is the assignation spot of Marcelle and Boniface. One wife, two husbands, a nephew, and the perky Boniface maid, all at this 'by the hour' hotel and consummation of the affair is, to say the least, severely compromised (not the least by a police raid). All of this is under Feydeau's eye, and his play is the 'success fou' of the next season.
An IRA operative escapes to the Americas and teams up with a circus singer to create a popular vaudeville act. When the singer falls for a rebel, they leave the circus behind to become fierce revolutionaries.
A Russian spy is sent out to steal sensitive information from NATO about military mobilization. Without much intelligence of his own, the distrusted agent of Soviet intelligence needs all the help he can get from his "talented" partner Penelope Lightfeather as they scatter around the French countryside for secret rendez-vous' while trying to avoid being caught by counter intelligence agents and distrustful communist operatives.
A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a picture of the kind of relationship the two used to share.
The seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Childhood, 2 - Adolescence, 3 - Virginity, 4 - Marriage, 5 - Adultery, 6 - Divorce, 7 - The Single Woman.
Married French lawyer Andre defends succesfully the case of Yvette, who committed a robbery. He falls in love with her, but she isn't true to him.
Nightclub entertainer Jean Clery discovers too late that the 'baby' he agreed to take care of is a wild, shapely sex kitten.