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- Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and '80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the '60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre.
- A woman puts an ad in a magazine looking for a man to fulfill her fantasy of a stringless, anonymous pornographic affair.
- Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.
- A tenacious scientist blasts off for the moon in hopes of riches that may be found there.
- A police detective and his team attempt to solve two crimes committed within a day of each other in neighboring apartment rooms.
- A collection of sketches that tells the story of prostitution through the ages.
- The Comte de Gonzague schemes against his cousin, the Duc de Nevers, even though he is the Duke's heir and will inherit his estates. The Count has kept secret the existence of the Duke's bastard, recently born. When the Duke learns of his child, he journeys to wed the mother, a baron's daughter, in her father's isolated chateau. The occupants of the castle are surprised and murdered by the Count and his men. The only ones to escape are the Duke's friend, the skilled swordsman Lagardère, and the infant, a girl, now the rightful heiress to the Duke's vast fortune. The Count believes the pair to have drowned, when in fact they have been concealed by a travelling troupe of Italian players. Twenty years pass. The Count has discovered that the two survive and seeks to have them slain. But Lagardère gains the confidence of the Count, and employment as his bookkeeper, through his clever disguise as a hunch-back...
- It is 1940. Chuchu and Luo Xiaoman are Chinese students who have been sent to study in Moscow, at the international school. She is 13; he is 12. Xiaoman is from Yanan, Mao's base after the long march; Chuchu had seen her father executed by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang. The youngsters fit in well and learn to speak Russian. A large group of students, including Chuchu, leave for summer camp in Byelorussia accompanied by their teacher, Miss Vera. Xiaoman remains behind. The Germans invade the Soviet Union but Moscow remains unoccupied. Xiaoman takes a job delivering condolence letters to soldiers' families. At one apartment, he finds a mother has died and her very young daughter, Nadia, has not realized it. The summer camp is occupied by Germans and Miss Vera is murdered. One of the Soviet boys, Carl, is half-German, and helps the others escape but they are quickly recaptured. Chuchu and several other students are sent by Gen. von Dietrich to work as servants at German headquarters in the Yakovliv Monastery. The general is also a medical doctor with a peculiar hobby, tattooing.
- Lucienne Delamare and Pierre Maury are having an affair. Lucienne's husband Paul is the mayor, and a French deputy. Pierre's wife Clotilde has been weak and sickly for years. Lucienne's husband holds no excitement for her, and he is always away in Paris on business. Pierre is now the vice-mayor, thanks to Paul. Lucienne and Pierre have a secret meeting spot by a lake along a country lane. Pierre's wife dies suddenly, by suicide the town gossips believe. Pierre confesses otherwise to Lucienne. Paul proposes a shady land deal which will "benefit the town", and wants Pierre's political support and collusion. Then Paul discovers proof of his wife's affair...
- Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect "bourgeois elements", a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.
- A travelogue of Valparaiso, Chile, a city built on steep hills. Life is a constant struggle against geography. Neighbourhoods are reached by series of ramps, staircases, and funicular railway elevators. The poorest residents on the hilltops have trouble obtaining water for drinking and washing. There are community dances, a travelling circus, a race course. Boys feed the harbour sealions; a fashionable woman walks her penguin. The ever-present onshore breeze provides fresh air and an ideal environment for kite-flying. The film's second half is in colour, making the switch with the tale of the city's bloody pirate past.
- Cécile and Samira can't pay their expensive Paris rent. Walking down the street the two girls see an art gallery reception and finesse their way in. In attendance are Michel Farnèse, a very well-to-do corporate lawyer, and his wife Viviane, an artist. While Samira overdoes it at the buffet table, Cécile steals some wallets from coats at the coat check. The girls are ejected. Michel notices his wallet is missing... The girls try to rob a Chinese jeweller but there's a scuffle. Cécile escapes; Samira, a Moroccan, is arrested. Cécile needs to find a lawyer. She sees Michel's card in his wallet... Michel agrees to take the case, since Cécile comes from the same poor neighbourhood he worked his way out of. The jealous Viviane suspects her husband has another reason... Cécile's old boyfriend Vincent provides her an alibi for the robbery. His testimony gets Cécile acquitted and he wants her back. Cécile comes to Michel's office to thank him. She leaves, but forgets her sweater. Michel takes it to her himself...
- After years of political agitation, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Leo Jogiches form a revolutionary German party, the Spartacists.
- A gripping, shocking story of the Spanish Inquisition hunting Jews, believed to be the cause of a plague spreading in 16th century colonial Mexico. A monk reports a family practicing Jewish burial rites bringing devastating consequences.
- Two people stand on a road, out of focus. Seen distorted through a glass, they retire upstairs to a bedroom where she undresses. He says, "Adieu." Images: the beautiful girl, a starfish in a jar, city scenes, newspapers, tugboats. More images: starfish, the girl. "How beautiful she is." Repeatedly. He advances up the stair, knife in hand, starfish on the step. Three people stand on a road, out of focus. "How beautiful she was." "How beautiful she is." "Beautiful."
- Set in 1931, Sugar Cane Alley paints a rich impasto of native life under French colonial rules, filtered through the coming-of-age of a bright, sweetly opportunistic boy.
- The story of a group of Sicilian miners and their families, and their hardships as they decide to illegally cross the border to France.
- A long series of unrelated images, revolving, often distorted: lights, flowers, nails. A lightboard appears from time to time carrying the news of the day. Then, an eye. A woman in a car drives along country roads. Farm animals. She descends from the car, again and again. Images: dancing legs, seashore, swimming fish, geometric shapes, cut glass. A man removes his starched collar. It rotates. A girl has garishly painted eyes. No, she's only fooling. Those were her eyelids.
- A separated attorney in Rio sees an English teaching American widow and tries to woo her.
- A young, by-the-book judge is appointed to a Sicilian village controlled by corrupt leaders and the Mafia.
- Two masked men playing dice in a bar leave, get in a car, and drive to the ruins of a castle on a hill. There. they find a modern chateau filled with contemporary furniture and abstract art. Time to roll the dice.
- Vienna in the beginning of the twentieth century. Cavalry Lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer is about to end his affair with Baroness Eggerdorff when he meets the young Christine, the daughter of an opera violinist. Baron Eggerdorff however soon hears of his past misfortune...
- The friends enjoy the charms of nature - and of their guests.
- 'Kurt' claims to be a sales rep. He also claims to be English in spite of his heavy Italian accent. Kurt is an habitual liar and a dangerous driver, at the very least. In the south of France he meets Léa, age 16. Between his increasingly strange dates with Léa, Kurt engages in a number of armed robberies, some successful, some not... The police are perplexed by a series of crimes including disappearances and a murder. They conclude that they are dealing with a madman... After he proposes, Léa breaks up with Kurt. The attempt to find a new girlfriend leads to a shooting by Kurt, now calling himself André. Léa's information identifies Kurt/André as Roberto Succo, psychiatric patient and parental murderer. The police hunt for Roberto covers three countries.
- A criminal escapes from prison, however a betrayal leads to his second arrest.
- The Dordogne, 1869. Pierre Naboulet, a poor tenant farmer, has drawn a lucky number in the French Army draft lottery. He will be exempt from a five-year period of military service. But he sells his number to Florent, a rich merchant, and takes the place of Florent's son, Arnaud, who has been drafted. Woodcutting with his brother, Pierre leaves his axe in a tree to await his return home. He spends his last night in the barn with his redheaded sweetheart, Henriette... Emperor Napoleon III declares war on Prussia, and the Prussians invade. In Alsace, Pierre's regiment fights the invaders in a forest. Many French are killed; Pierre escapes, wounded. He finds a cottage. Inside a boy is hiding. The redheaded boy speaks only the Alsatian dialect of German...
- Andrea Zaccardi has returned home from hunting. He and his wife Luisa are very close. Their young son Giulio develops a cough. The doctor recommends the seaside. Luisa leaves with Giulio for several weeks. Andrea stays to work at the metal shop... While visiting his family, Andrea notices a young woman on the beach with her soldier boyfriend. The weekend over, the girl is on the bus home. Rita recognizes Andrea from the neighbourhood. They talk, walk home, say good night... Rita's brother Gino is trying for a job at the metal shop. Andrea helps him make the grade. Rita comes home to find Gino's new mentor there... Andrea apologizes. Rita tells him she is now engaged. Andrea spends a restless weekend with Luisa... Rita is working late at the office. Andrea appears. They kiss...
- Gaby is expelled from school after a married teacher commits suicide after telling her he can't live without her. Though she has done nothing, she is punished for his act.
- Frédérique's mother has died recently leaving her the family stud farm. She's never met her father, doesn't even know his name. But she finds it on the back of an old photo. She sets off for Paris. She stays with her gay dancer pal Marc. Marc and friends decide to go to their favourite gay bar... but it's men only. So Frédérique becomes Frédéric, an effeminate gay boy... Frédérique follows her father. Pierre Arroux is an art curator - and gay. She introduces herself to him, but as Frédéric. So while Frédéric is quite an awkward young man and an embarrassment to his father, Frédérique is secretly meeting with her old boyfriend now living in Paris...
- Famous TV news anchorman Pierre Nivel left Algiers for France in 1962. That's been a secret; his Paris co-workers have never known that he was formerly an Algerian pied noir. An Algerian delivers an urgent message to Pierre from a Leïla Jalal... Algiers, 1962. The Nivels live in the same apartment building as the Moslem Jalal family. Lycée student Pierre is in love with their daughter, Leïla. The civil unrest in Algeria is heating up and violence is spreading in Algiers. At school, Pierre is friends with a Moslem student, Issam, but he is made fun of for that... Pierre's jet arrives in Algiers. As a celebrity, Pierre is met on arrival by a government official, Nader Mansour. Because of the civil war raging between the government and Islamic terrorists, they drive into the city in a heavily armed convoy. Pierre does not tell Mansour his real reason for returning: Leïla has asked him to help her daughter Amina escape to safety in France. Leïla has been unwillingly married to a terrorist chieftain, now dead, and Amina has been pledged to marry guerrilla leader Samir... Mansour escorts Pierre on a visit to see his former apartment. Pierre slips away and goes to find Leïla... Amina proves to be the very image of her mother 30 years before; Leïla refuses to accompany the two back to the hotel's relative safety. Getting exit documents for Amina is going to be a problem, and Mansour has relocated Pierre. Samir kidnaps Leïla to force the return of her daughter...
- The frogs are bored with their lot, and ask God to give them a king - but God, irritated with their inability to govern themselves, quickly makes them change their minds.
- At a football match, an unscrupulous photographer, Michel Verdier, takes pictures of a celebrity couple. Magazine editors go with the photos even though the dominant figure in them is a chubby football fan. "So let him sue." When the magazine appears, the fan, Franck Bordoni, is fired since he was supposed to be at work. Bordoni comes to the magazine where, by coincidence, he meets Verdier. Verdier says he knows how to make some money. They go to a restaurant where Johnny Hallyday is leaving. Verdier has Bordoni take pictures with a cheap camera. When the celebrity assaults the patsy and smashes his camera ... Verdier gets some very lucrative shots. They get a tip that Isabelle Adjani has left her house. They arrive; Verdier pays off Adjani's neighbour. Verdier searches her garbage. Adjani has left for L.A. Verdier follows her, entrusting his keys to Bordoni. At Verdier's apartment, Bordoni takes a call for someone to shoot vanity photos of a millionaire's party. Bordoni goes there. As a photographer...
- After a shoplifter finds herself unexpectedly released on parole, she pays a call on the judge at her flat. The judge, Carole Rewinsky, does not tell Tina that her elease was only a clerical error. The two find they share things in common other than the judicial system, like a mutual interest in shoes. Carole allows Tina to crash on her chesterfield... Carole spots a pimp trolling for young girls at a café. Carole failed to put him away the last time, but now, with Tina agreeing to be the bait, she has a chance for better luck... The two find they complement one another well, like champagne and cassis. Carole needs to go to Annecy to crack a crooked casino case. Annecy happens to be Tina's home town...
- A spiral design spins dizzily. It's replaced by a spinning disk. These two continue in perfect alternation until the end: a spiral design, a disk. Each disk is labelled and can be read as it rotates. The messages, in French, feature puns and whimsical rhymes and alliteration. The final message comments on the spiral motif itself.
- The photographers who need to participate in the congress of Lyon get off a boat in Neuville-sur-Saône, dividing to the right and left.
- An actor owes big bucks to the Vegas mob. He's all set to pay them off; he's conned a rich widow into marrying him. But the mobsters blow his cover because they need him for a different scam. The lost heiress to a Vegas casino fortune has been found; she's a truckstop waitress in France. The mobsters' proposition: romance the broad, and get hitched. Or else. Then the crooks can bump her off and keep the casino for themselves...
- Two Argentine sisters, Memé and Aneta, lose their mother in a car crash. Memé, the elder, is also left lame with one badly scarred leg. The orphaned girls go to Uruguay to stay with their aunts. The sisters often bicker, but they are actually very close. Memé flirts but has no luck with boys because of her injury... On their own now, Memé works as a waitress where she gets to know Andy. Returning to Montevideo, they meet Dolores, a friend of their late mother. Memé's affair with a man complicates her relationship with her sister. Then Andy invites the pair to his seaside retreat, a lighthouse...
- Close shots of a railway train underway: track racing underneath, steam escaping, cars coupling, gears ratcheting, signals changing.
- Attracted but also frightened by her sexuality, a teenage girl undergoes a brief therapy with a warm, humorous and competent psychotherapist.
- People start a snowball fight on a street in Lyons, France.
- Two ghosts attend an engagement party, unseen by the other guests. One ghost, Dupont, is the father of the bride-to-be. He looks back on his marriage to her mother. His wife Annette was always very unhappy; business kept him away from home. The doctor recommended indulging her whims for furs and jewels. Then Uncle Émile suggested a trip to Paris. All went well until the day they went to the circus and saw the lion-tamer, Rodrigo the Conqueror. Rodrigo becomes Annette's lover ... and the second ghost... But wait a second. There's a third ghost at the party!
- A tilted figure, consisting largely of right angles at the beginning, grows by accretion, with the addition of short straight lines and curves which sprout from the existing design. The figure vanishes and the process begins again with a new pattern, each cycle lasting one or two seconds. The complete figures are drawn in a vaguely Art Deco style and could be said to resemble any number of things, an ear, a harp, panpipes, a grand piano with trombones, and so on, only highly stylized. The tone is playful and hypnotic.
- Four students in Shanghai have recently finished university. All are unemployed. Xu contemplates suicide but his friend Zhao talks him out of it. Zhao lives in a shabby room with just a flimsy wall of planks separating him from the room behind. Miss Yang, in town to take a factory job, moves in behind. Her nails into the wall knock Zhao's photos down. The unseen neighbours start playing tit for tat... Zhao gets a job as proofreader at a newspaper. He sees that pretty girl on the tram to work every day. He doesn't know her, but it's Miss Yang... Zhao is assigned to cover labour conditions for the paper. He is sent to a factory, the one where Miss Yang works...
- A Jewish radio announcer broadcasts the imminent arrival in France of Allied liberators. US planes, flown by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Popeye, and defended by air gunners Goofy and Felix the Cat, drop bombs killing innocent French civilians.
- In Paris, a woman is making enquiries: Why did leftist Alfred Katz simply disappear in 1938? In that year, Alfred, worker and poet, is politically active in a Parisian Trotskyite cell. Hitler's Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union has heightened the tension between local supporters of Trotsky and Stalin. Alfred attends a wild party being held by surrealists, even though his association with artists creates trouble for him within the cell. There he meets Mila, a glamorous and uninhibited prostitute from the brothel called the "Sphinx". Alfred soon meets Mila's other lover too, Félix... An American comrade and her Belgian companion arrive to establish a direct link between the cell and Trotsky in Mexico. As prominent Trotskyites begin to die or disappear, Alfred and Mila marry. Has an agent of Stalin's secret police infiltrated the group?
- Scenes of life and landscape in Provence where a chilly wind called the Mistral blows down the valley of the Rhône to the Mediterranean. The Provençal terrain is dry and parched; the infrequent clouds dissolve in the sky. Farm animals and townsfolk are accustomed to a struggle with the wind and its effects on a wedding, or mailing a letter. Erecting a palisade can lessen its force but the Mistral is inescapable.
- Soviet solidarity is strong in Germany where the Communist Party (KPD) marches under the clenched fist in spite of police harassment... Radio broadcasts reach all parts of the Soviet Union, including Magnitogorsk. On the steppe near the city, a family of nomads lives in their yurt. The father hears blasting: iron ore for the steelworks. Crushed ore and coke yield molten steel for the ladle. Stop-motion animation shows the bountiful tractor and freight car output of the future... A new blast-furnace is under construction. Accepting jobs at the site are women, ethnic minorities, and the nomad. An English-speaking engineer supervises; a young riveter learns his trade from an old hand... In the Kubass region, miners labour to produce the coal which becomes coke in Magnitogorsk... At last the blast-furnace is complete. Workers celebrate. A cheerful patriotic song is sung. Steel pours forth. The new day reveals a finished plant.
- An industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower begins a more complex tube used in radio broadcasting; it is then turned, fired, and sculpted. Conveyors carry partially completed units. Workers perform their various specific assembly-line tasks. Cases are manufactured and machined, wire harnesses are assembled, loudspeakers are produced. As radios near completion, they are run through a series of tests. Engineers and draughtsmen define future developments. In a closing stop-motion sequence, in a style reminiscent of Norman McLaren, a group of loudspeakers performs a playful dance. The film overall is a poetic depiction of an industrial process.
- Work is hard to come by for Jean and his infrequently employed pals Éric and Karim, friends since childhood. At city hall, Jean grabs a chance to swipe a valuable TV camera left unattended. Jean convinces the others to go to Lyon to sell it. With their fancy equipment the hotshots get some girls, but no sale. Jean has an idea for using the camera to rob a jewellery store, but Karim, the son of a traditional father, has trouble with illegality. On the way home, the three witness a violent carjacking by armed men and get it down on videotape... Éric had taken a shine to Isabelle, one of the girls from Lyon, and now announces they're engaged. But his slip-up back at the crime scene leads to a cordial visit from the carjacking crooks. They are prepared to negotiate, and one of their number, Sergio, is assigned to show the three a good time...
- Quotidian scenes of Paris along the quays beside the River Seine. Fishing, snoozing, cutting hair, washing clothes. Lovers embrace as nuns gaze. Students sketch, models pose. A diver recovers a boy's lost bicycle. C'est la vie. It's "a river like any other". Sprightly accordion music rounds out the atmosphere.