The first of 14 Olsen Gang films presents us with Egon Olsen, head of the gang, and his friends Benny and Kjeld, who want to become the best known gang in Denmark and eventually Europe by stealing a famous Bavarian work of art currently displayed in a Copenhagen museum. Although Egon's plan works out fine, there is only trouble ahead for the little gang.

Egon and his two cronies managed to sneak a fortune with them to Spain. Here they live a life in a whirl of pleasures, but they are not truly happy. While Egon always has the money chained to him, Bøffen still manages to steal them. Egon ends up in jail once again, and when he comes out, he has a brilliant plan.

Egon plans to exploit knowledge gained during his latest term of incarceration. By stealing the unmanipulated financial records of DanInvest he obtains the majority of the stocks in the department store Magasin du Nord, just in time for their closing sale. The attempt to get the red suitcase that will save the day they rob the main vault at the EEC headquarters in Brussels and end up hijacking a tank.

Egon is starting to be a little forgetful; he forgot the zone number, so he fails to open the strongbox. When he gets out of Vridslose State Prison, Kjeld and Benny have become associates of Yvonne's cousin Georg from America. He is not just some old-fashioned strongbox thief that can't remember like Egon, but a young hip IT criminal, that thinks that everyone else is inferior. However, Egon doesn't take lightly to the Georg's patronizing so he sabotages Georg's computer and ruins his cup. This time Egon's ambitions reaches a new high, when he and his gang break in to the World Bank, and they get away with it. Of course, thanks to Yvonne, they aren't rich very long.

At the Næsbygaard estate, the old landowner misses his grandson Martin, who is on a cattle farm in Texas learning about agriculture. The estate's shooter is ill, so the stud master has to take care of his job as well. This comes at a time when he is training hard for the gallop race for the King's honorary prize. To help lift their spirits, they are visited by some children from Copenhagen who are on vacation. When serious problems arise involving poaching on the estate's land, the children help to solve the case. The stud farm manager is injured, and it looks as if the estate's horse will not be able to participate in the big gallop race. But luckily, young Martin returns home from Texas just in time....

Steve is a college freshman who plays tennis for the school. But he falls desperately in love with Shelly, also a tennis player. It's all downhill from there. Steve can't eat, he can't sleep, his grades drop, and he gets kicked off the tennis team. What can he do? Well, his resourceful friend suggest turning Steve into a woman in order to get him close to Shelly who doesn't know he is alive.

Landowner Martin Kaas lives with his grandson Martin at Næsbygård. Martin is an avid horseman. One day, his horse loses a shoe, so Martin goes to see the village blacksmith Mortensen, where he meets the blacksmith's foster daughter Elise. The blacksmith is known to be an honest and religious man, but no one but Elise knows how brutal and cruel he really is. Elise discovers that her foster father, together with the estate's manager Hermansen, is involved in many shady deals that are not in the best interests of the estate. Martin, who often feels lonely, forms a warm friendship with Elise. One day, Martin disappears, and a letter left on his bed reveals that he has been kidnapped and that only a large ransom can bring the boy back.

It's the early 20s, just after World War I. In Sweden, restrictions on alcohol are harder than most people like and so, smuggling is abundant. In this particular little town, smuggling is ruled by one man, who is the king of smugglers. The smugglers who work for him don't get to keep much of the profit themselves, but if they don't work for him, they get in trouble, which his henchmen make sure. However, Albert Jansson arrives in town and starts taking up the competition with the smuggler king. Meanwhile, the police, together the customs office, try to catch the smugglers.

The film is a window into the world of fifteen-year-old Tim, sharing his joys and sorrows and his first encounter with love, during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II.

Combining the exultant sweep of epic period drama with the subtle intimacy of biography in a social perspective, this is a tale of materially impoverished childhood, struggling early manhood and an unrequited first love turned into good musical fortune for Carl Nielsen, one of the great composers of the 20th century. Based on the composer's autobiography, the film itself is designed to soar like a symphony.