After his training as a policeman, the young, shy Köppe is transferred to a northern German town. Unfortunately, in an area where fox and rabbit say goodnight, there is little for a lawman to do. So Köppe kills time with the search for mysterious cow murderers, flirting with two attractive women and befriending a likeable petty crook.

After a truck accident, Lab crows escape, and provoke a panic in the neighborhood. Alexandra, a young pregnant lady will go to every length to escape the mayhem and raise her neighbors' awareness about the danger.

1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.

On the run from her criminal Italian husband, a young French woman meets a German lover in West Berlin who offers her shelter but who also gets entangled in her threatened life ever deeper.

Conny works at the hospital. But she earns the real money together with her friend Bibi in a telephone sex agency. She has a special relationship with one of her clients who demands more than sex. He exploits her fantasies for his erotic productions. Conny has no idea that this eccentric artist is turning the sex tales into deadly reality. The obsessions increase from call to call. Conny believes he has the client under control. But then two women are found dead...

This is a family story that covers thirty years in the life of the Freytag family (narrated by the grandson, Robert). When his grandfather returns from Russia in 1949, he becomes part of the German "economic miracle" by producing garden gnomes. Klaus, Robert's father, wants to become a writer. He marries Gisela who almost immediately gets pregnant with Robert - but the marriage doesn't work. Both parents abandon the child, and Robert goes on living with both pairs of grand parents. While his father belongs to the 1968 generation that rebels against their fathers he falls in love with the neighbor's's daughter Laura.

Director Gregor Samsa, washed-up and in his late fifties, is reviewing his life. Having wasted it as a cultural worker doesn't exactly add to his joy.

Germany, 1968: The priest's daughters Marianna and Juliane both fight for changes in society, like making abortion legal. However their means are totally different: while Juliane's committed as a reporter, her sister joins a terroristic organization. After she's caught by the police and put into isolation jail, Juliane remains as her last connection to the rest of the world. Although she doesn't accept her sister's arguments and her boyfriend Wolfgang doesn't want her to, Juliane keeps on helping her sister. She begins to question the way her sister is treated.

The young policeman Joachim Krippo likes to occasionally share his bed with a nice married couple. When he is supposed to be guarding the criminal Engel Potraske during a court appearance, the dangerous Engel manages a spectacular escape, but departs minus a toe! Krippo is subsequently suspended from his duties and put with other police officers under the care of an elderly police psychologist. Krippo's professional set-backs are followed by private ones: his grandad - who was actually being well looked-after in an old people's home - is dropped off at his place because the payments due have not been made. He tries to get his grandad out of the flat by pairing him off with the police psychologist. But, in the critical moment, Krippo lunges for the bait himself. At least, this means that he will be discharged from the psychograph tests as being fit for service again...