Max is a Paris detective, aloof, independently wealthy, and frustrated by gangs of robbers whom he cannot catch. To re-establish his stature and save face, he decides to inveigle a group of petty thieves (led by an old acquaintance) to rob a bank. A reluctant captain provides Max intelligence and Max starts spending evenings with Lilly, a prostitute who's the girlfriend of the group's leader. He poses as a rich banker with money to burn and encourages Lilly to think about her future. He hints at a payroll that comes through his bank. The plot works, the petty thieves think they're ready for a big score, and the cops are in place. What could go wrong with Max's cold plan? Who's entrapped?

The mind of Pierre Bérard, a successful middle-aged architect, is torn between his unstable present with Hélène, his younger lover, and his happy memories of the past with Catherine, his ex-wife; but his true destiny awaits him at a crossroads on his way to Rennes…

Marina and her boyfriend have an argument while on a trip in France. While driving with the car among the cliffs, he starts speeding and the car falls into the sea. Marina can jump out of the car, but her boyfriend seems to be drowned. She gets to know his brother and he falls in love with her. But why does she always feel watched? What reasons are behind her strange behaviour anyway? Did she really murder her boyfriend? But is he dead anyway?

A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.

Lyons, France. Michel Descombes is a watchmaker who lives alone with his teenage son Bernard. When the police visit and informs him that Bernard killed a man and is on the run with a girl, Michel realizes that he knew far less about his son than he thought .

The relationship between a middle-aged French widow and a young drifter takes a turn when her young niece pays a visit.

A neurosurgeon with a cheating wife takes an amnesiac into his home and conditions him to believe that the cheating wife is his own and to take the "appropriate" action.

Henry Roubier, a French promoter, and Enrico Mazzini, an Italian, have signed an agreement guaranteeing them a stranglehold on European highways. While driving on the roads of the south, Roubier takes two young hitchhikers, but an unfortunate swerve the car rushes by Henri and its occupants on the top of a pine tree onto the side of a cliff.

The film story depicts Emile Buisson, following the death of his wife and child, escaping from a psychiatric institution in 1947 and returning to Paris. Buisson, who three years later would become France's public enemy number one, begins a murderous rampage through the French capital.

"Le Crabe Tambour" ("Drummer Crab") is the nickname for the mysterious central character, Willsdorff (Jacques Perrin), an Alsatian, whose doomed, out-of-date career is recalled through the tales of three naval officers currently serving aboard a French supply ship in the North Atlantic.

On a beach in Nice, François meets the mysterious Peggy and falls in love with her. Following her to a villa, he meets Marc, a lawyer who has a strange relationship with the girl.

France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier attempts to shoot his love who refused to marry him and to commit suicide. Upon release from the filthy asylum where he was placed, with bullets still remaining in his head, he wanders the country roads and rapes and murders many teenagers over years. The judge Rousseau captures him, but to serve his ambition seeks to avoid that Bouvier is simply declared insane.

A young Frenchwoman fleeing her Italian fiancé in Caracas thrusts herself and those around her into madcap events.

Marseilles, 1919. Georges Sarret is a distinguished and respected lawyer, recently honoured for his services in the First World War. He takes as his lover Philomène Schmidt, a young German woman, who has just lost her job and home. To enable Philomène to remain in France, Georges finds her a husband – who dies conveniently of natural causes a month after the wedding. Georges repeats the trick with Philomène's sister, Catherine – marrying her off to an old man who dies suddenly so that the scheming trio can profit from his life insurance. When an accomplice in the scheme, Marcel Chambon, threatens to blackmail them, Georges and his two lovers have no option but to kill him and his mistress...

Two people, a Frenchman Julien Maroyeur and a Jewish German woman (Anna Kupfer) met on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits from the misfortunes of those who are ruthlessly persecuted, discovers by chance that there is another Robert Klein, apparently a Jewish man; someone with whom he could be mistakenly identified, something dangerous in such harsh times.

A mob hitman wants to retire, but his bosses don't think that's a good idea. Complications - and many bloody shootouts - ensue.

The body of a young woman is discovered near a farm. The judge, Larcher is in charge and thinks that the farmers have something to do with the murder.

Claude is in his last year of high-school, but he doesn't care much for school. Instead all his thoughts circle around girls and getting laid. But since he doesn't look very studly, he has a hard time realizing his fantasies. When he's finally got an invitation to a steamy afternoon by Carole, his father intercepts the letter...

Julien est envoyé par son patron à l'île Maurice, où il fait la connaissance d'Henri, un chômeur professionnel. Un soir de beuverie, les deux hommes se soulagent au pied d'une statue sacrée. Offensés par ce sacrilège, les dieux les punissent en leur ôtant leur reflet et en les faisant léviter. Si cette situation leur paraît au début invivable, les deux hommes finissent cependant par tirer parti de ces désavantages pour régler leurs problèmes personnels.