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Once a successful concert pianist under his birth name Edouard Saroyan, Charlie Koller is now a pianist playing honky-tonk music in a sleazy Paris bar owned and operated by Plyne, most in Charlie's current life who do not know of his past as that concert pianist. This new life, where he is caring for the youngest of his brothers, minor Fido Saroyan, is to escape the pain associated with that past life, which included a marriage to waitress Thérèse Saroyan. Charlie has always been a shy, reserved man, coming out of that concert pianist life which has made him retreat further into his shell where he only feels comfortable behind the keyboard. Besides Fido, the only person of any meaning in Charlie's life is his neighbor, prostitute Clarisse, who, in addition to looking after Fido when needed, is solely there as his paid bed partner in his need for some human connection. Charlie's life becomes more complex with two developments. First, he and Léna, a waitress at Plyne's, start to fall for each other, her interest in him which he first learns from Plyne, who admitted to him that he too was attracted to her but that he knew she would never be attracted to him. And second, Charlie's oldest brother, not very adept criminal Chico Saroyan, comes looking for his help in eluding two criminal associates, Momo and Ernest, who he and their last brother Richard Saroyan bilked in what was their one and only job together.

DJ Zack and pimp Jack end up in prison for being too laid-back to avoid being framed for crimes they didn't commit. They end up sharing a cell with eccentric Italian optimist Roberto, whose limited command of the English language is both entertaining and infuriating. More useful to them is the fact that Roberto knows an escape route.

Tom Ripley has a sweet deal with an art forger. The forger creates the paintings; Tom sells them. But another criminal business associate wants Tom to go in for an even riskier enterprise: murder. Tom suggests his associate ask a local picture framer instead. That man has a fatal disease, or so it's rumored. More, he has a wife and kid that surely he wouldn't want to leave penniless. Let this picture framer be a hit man, and no one will suspect. The terminally ill craftsman may agree to the misdeed, and several more, but he'll end up needing Tom Ripley in a pinch.

Besotted with cheap crime fiction, cinema, and popular culture, bored-to-death English language students Franz and Arthur love to live in a dream world. Indeed, the pair of layabouts fancy themselves to be a gang. But, in the meantime, Franz and Arthur vie for the attention of their romantic classmate Odile, who naively tips them off about a mountain of cash stashed in an unlocked cabinet in Aunt Victoria's suburban house in Joinville-le-Pont. Of course, the amateur criminals take an immediate interest in wide-eyed Odile's incidental mention and start to iron out the details of an audacious robbery, just like in the movies. However, what happens if Arthur's uncle and all-powerful love stand in the way of the perfect heist?

Michel takes up picking pockets as a hobby, and is arrested almost immediately, giving him the chance to reflect on the morality of crime. After his release, though, his mother dies, and he rejects the support of friends Jeanne and Jacques in favour of returning to pickpocketing (after taking lessons from an expert), because he realises that it's the only way he can express himself...

Michel Poiccard, an irresponsible sociopath and small-time thief, steals a car and impulsively murders the motorcycle policeman who pursues him. Now wanted by the authorities, he renews his relationship with Patricia Franchini, a hip American girl studying journalism at the Sorbonne, whom he had met in Nice a few weeks earlier. Before leaving Paris, he plans to collect a debt from an underworld acquaintance and expects her to accompany him on his planned getaway to Italy. Even with his face in the local papers and media, Poiccard seems oblivious to the dragnet that is slowly closing around him as he recklessly pursues his love of American movies and libidinous interest in the beautiful American.

1949, Santa Rosa, California. A laconic, chain-smoking barber with fallen arches tells a story of a man trying to escape a humdrum life. It's a tale of suspected adultery, blackmail, foul play, death, Sacramento city slickers, racial slurs, invented war heroics, shaved legs, a gamine piano player, aliens, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Ed Crane cuts hair in his in-law's shop; his wife drinks and may be having an affair with her boss, Big Dave, who has $10,000 to invest in a second department store. Ed gets wind of a chance to make money in dry cleaning. Blackmail and investment are his opportunity to be more than a man no one notices. Settle in the chair and listen.

Lula's psychopathic mother goes crazy at the thought of Lula being with Sailor, who just got free from jail. Ignoring Sailor's probation, they set out for California. However their mother hires a killer to hunt down Sailor. Unaware of this, the two enjoy their journey and themselves being together... until they witness a young woman dying after a car accident - a bad omen.

In a mid-sized metropolis (population 500,000) in a right-wing military led country, a pacifist organization, which supports the opposition party in the government, is planning on holding an anti-military, nuclear disarmament rally. The organization's charismatic leader - the deputy - is scheduled to arrive in the town from the capital the day of the rally. Beyond the problems arranging the rally due to the probable incitement of violence at such a rally, the organization learns of an unconfirmed report that there will be an attempt on the deputy's life. The rally does happen, after which a three-wheeled kamikaze runs over the deputy, who eventually passes away from his injuries. The official report is that the incident was a drunken accident. In reality, the deputy's death was murder orchestrated by the secret police, the general for who likens the pacifist organization to mildew killing off agricultural crops. A magistrate is assigned to the case. Although he does have political views, he is more interested in finding out the truth, and as such has to wade through the political rhetoric and politically motivated testimony he hears. Thrown into the mix is a photojournalist who too is looking for the truth, as it, he believes, will make a great front page story.

Events in the life of a Hollywood studio executive, unfold with the same unrealistic positive coincidences, ultimately culminating to a "happy ending", much like the movie scripts, with which he works day in and out, after he accidentally murders someone.

A camera crew follows a serial killer/thief around as he exercises his craft. He expounds on art, music, nature, society, and life as he offs mailmen, pensioners, and random people. Slowly he begins involving the camera crew in his activities, and they begin wondering if what they're doing is such a good idea, particularly when the killer kills a rival and the rival's brother sends a threatening letter.

In Paris, Jef Costello is a lonely hit man who works under contract. He is hired to kill the owner of a club and becomes the prime suspect of the murder. However, his perfect alibi drops the accusation against him. His girlfriend Jane, her client and citizen above any suspicion Wiener and Valerie, the pianist of the club and main witness of the crime, provide the necessary evidence of his innocence supporting his alibi. Free, he is betrayed and chased by the gangsters sent by the one who hired him and also by the police, not convinced of his innocence. Jef seeks out who has hired him to revenge.

A meek word processor in New York impulsively travels downtown to Soho for date with an attractive, but apparently disturbed young woman, and finds himself trapped in a nightmarishly surreal vortex of improbable coincidences and farcical circumstances.

It's the late 1950s. Mid-twenty-something Kit is a restless and unfocused young man with a

Nineteen year-old Franco-Algerian Malik El Djebena is just starting his six year prison sentence in Brécourt. Although he has spent the better part of his life in juvenile detention, this stint is his first in an adult prison. Beyond the division of Corsicans and Muslims in the prison (the Corsicans who with their guard connections rule what happens in the prison), he has no known friends or enemies inside. He is just hoping to serve his time in peace and without incident, despite having no prospects once he's out of jail since he's illiterate and has no support outside of the prison. Due to logistics, the head of Corsican inmates, a sadistic mafioso named César Luciani, co-opts Malik as part of the Corsicans' activities, not only regarding what happens inside the prison, but also continued criminal activities outside. The innocent Malik has no idea what to do but cooperate. This move does not sit well with the other Corsicans, who only see Malik as a dirty Algerian, and the Muslims who now mistrust him. But as time goes on, Malik works to save himself while in prison, while setting up his life post prison on his own terms. Both his demon and his salvation in prison is the specter of one of the first people he really got to know during his incarceration.

German journalist Philip Winter has a case of writer's block when trying to write an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and while trying to book a flight, encounters a German woman and her nine year old daughter Alice doing the same. The three become friends (almost out of necessity) and while the mother asks Winter to mind Alice temporarily, it quickly becomes apparent that Alice will be his responsibility for longer than he expected. After returning to Europe, the innocent friendship between Winter and Alice grows as they travel together through various European cities on a quest for Alice's grandmother.

A man wanders out of the desert after a four year absence. His brother finds him, and together they return to L.A. to reunite the man with his young son. Soon after, he and the boy set out to locate the mother of the child, who left shortly after the man disappeared.

Florence Carala and her lover, Julien Tavernier, want to murder her husband - Julien's boss - by faking his suicide. But after Julien's killed him, and had left, he remembers he's forgotten the rope outside the window which could implicate him, and he returns to the building to remove it