In September 2011 writer Michel Houellebecq briefly disappeared off the face of the earth. Wild rumours began circulating on the Internet that he’d been abducted by Al-Qaeda or aliens from outer space. Some Twitter users even expressed relief that the controversial author was suddenly no longer around. This film now reveals what really happened: Three tough guys variously with impressive hairstyles and bodybuilder physiques carried off the star intellectual, taking him out of the daily stress of dodging autograph hunters and having his flat renovated and bringing him to a beautiful rural underdog idyll, full of dog grooming, bodybuilding demonstrations, junk cars and Polish sausages. But who was to pay the ransom?

A poll for an advertising agency during a working day resulting in a series of meetings with women and men from different social strata, each one of them with a different problem.

A group of friends listen as one man tells them a story about a time when, in a small cafe, he discovered a peephole into the ladies' bathroom and became addicted to looking through it at female genitals. They ask him questions and come to conclusions about sex. This is a filmed, scripted version. Then, the actual person who this happened to relates the same story; this time, however, it is an unscripted documentary, in which the same things occur as in the scripted one.

Three stories concerning the relationships between adult children, their somewhat distant parent (or parents), and each other: a reclusive father visited by his grown children in the US, sisters visiting their novelist mother in Dublin, and adult twins called back to their Paris apartment to address a family tragedy.

Paul is preparing to leave Tajikistan, while thinking back on his adolescent years. His childhood, his mother's madness, the parties, the trip to the USSR where he lost his virginity, the friend who betrayed him and the love of his life.

Lui, a struggling author with a heart condition, and his wife Elle, a retired psychiatrist, find their idyllic life shattered when Elle begins to succumb to the effects of dementia.

Julia Child and Julie Powell – both of whom wrote memoirs – find their lives intertwined. Though separated by time and space, both women are at loose ends... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

The tragic story of French naïve painter Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis (1864-1942), a humble servant who becomes a gifted self-taught painter. Discovered by prominent critic and collector William Uhde, she came to prominence between the wars grouped with other naïve painters like Henri Rouseau only to descend into madness and obscurity with the onset of the Great Depression and World War II.

A poor miller gets tricked by the Devil and accidentally sells his daughter for a bit of gold. But Satan can't take her because she's too pure and has wept on her hands. So Satan orders the miller to cut her hands off. It's the beginning of the young girl's journey towards freedom.

Marc, a bipolar and paranoid filmmaker, cannot tolerate seeing his current project picked apart by his producers. The clips he’s been able to sneak a look at lead him to fear the worst. With his editor as an accomplice, he manages to spirit away the rushes to his aunt’s place in the Cévennes, to finish the film as he envisions it. Instead, its completion is constantly postponed, as he creates endless diversions and impasses, which alternate between the comic and the downright disturbing.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.

The journey of a young man as he begins an apprenticeship in the French countryside to train as a gardener. There he encounters a trio of men who will prove decisive in both his nascent career as a horticulturist and in unleashing his sexuality.