Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenager living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings. Now seeing the world around her in a different light, Valerie must endure her sexual awakening while attempting to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger and otherworldly carnival folk.

A young couple, Renée and Pierre, take a room at the Hôtel du Nord, in Paris, near the canal Saint-Martin. They want to die together, but after shooting Renée, Pierre lacks the courage to finish the job and flees. Another guest, Monsieur Edmond, rescues her. When Renée gets out of the hospital she is hired as a waitress at the same hotel. Monsieur Edmond falls in love with her, but Renée is still thinking of Pierre.

A young woman joins a theatrical troupe where she slowly believes that the director is involved with a secret group and that he is in grave danger.

Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.

Ruth Sherwood and her sister, Eileen, have moved to 1935 Greenwich Village. They're surrounded by colorful Village characters (including an out-of-work football player known as the Wreck, and Mr. Appopolous, a modern painter and their landlord) and embark on various New York adventures. Ruth, who's trying to make it as a writer, meets up with a sleazy newspaper writer named Chick and a kindly editor named Bob, both of whom take an interest in both her career and her.

It is 1957. A young student is unhappy at school, play hooky frequently and devotes himself to his great interest in music. Together with his girlfriend and other friends he lives a bohemian life in anticipation of becoming an adult.