Dorante, an impoverished young man, is taken on as a secretary by Araminte, a rich widow with whom he is secretly in love. The valet Dubois does all he can to get Araminte to fall in love with Dorante. Following his staging of Marivaux’s comedy at the Odéon theater, Luc Bondy turns the whole theater building into a film studio, placing his actors in the foyer, under the stage, in the kitchens, using the most unusual and unexpected spots to invent a new dynamic between theater and film.

Sebastian, a young man, has decided to follow instructions intended for someone else, without knowing where they will take him. Something else he does not know is that Gerard Dorez, a cop on a knife-edge, is tailing him. When he reaches his destination, Sebastian falls into a degenerate, clandestine world of mental chaos behind closed doors in which men gamble on the lives of others men.

Patterning himself after the American gangster John Dillinger, the criminal (Robert Hossein) is tracked by the inspector (Charles Aznavour), a former childhood friend. Plenty of gunplay and psychology is used to trap the killer. His only tender moments are spent with his girlfriend Stella (Virna Lisi). Dillinger is cornered by the police and kills several innocent victims in a crowd during the shootout. The mob decides to take things into their own hands as they approach the doomed man with a noose when he runs out of bullets.

Paris, 1830. In the heart of the town, Vidocq, a famous detective, disappears as he fights the Alchemist, an assassin that he has been pursuing for a few months. His young biographer, Etienne Boisset, decides to avenge Vidocq's death and takes the investigation on...

Following the disappearance of the glamorous and secretive Evelyne Ducat during a blizzard in the highlands of southern France, the lives of five people inextricably linked to Evelyne are brought together to devastating effect as the local police investigate the case.