In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.

Women have joined the military in Denmark but may still not serve in the navy. This makes the lives of the sailors difficult when three women get trapped on board of a navy vessel do to an surprise exercise at sea. Trying to hide the three women leads to comical situations.

An elegant and humorous film—in the guise of a serious anthropological treatise—spotlights "The Perfect Human," a model of the modern Dane created by our wishful thinking.

A German scientist works on a way of quelling overly aggressive soldiers by developing implants that directly stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain.

The vineyard is facing demolition. It has been 30 years since Uncle Olsen died, and after 30 years, the farm must be sold if no one in the Martin family wants to buy it. When a Danish-American arrives in the small town, Jacobsen sends Nicoline to investigate the stranger's room. Erik Hein, born Martin, tries to buy the vineyard but is prevented from doing so. Instead, he buys Sophienberg. Many years ago, Erik's father signed a confession of embezzlement against the vineyard. Erik believes in his father's innocence and gets help from some of the town's righteous residents to prove his father's innocence.

Jeppe is a bedraggled day laborer whose great vice is brandy. And when he falls down drunk in the field, a passing baron is tempted to play a prank on Jeppe. The baron's lackeys carry the sleeping Jeppe up to the castle, dress him in the baron's finest bedclothes, and lay him in the baron's bed. When Jeppe wakes up, he thinks he is dead and has gone to heaven. But gradually, the baron's persistent lackeys manage to convince him that he is actually the baron himself. Jeppe soon takes advantage of this to take revenge on old enemies and indulge in old vices...

At The Kingdom, Denmark's most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin occurring, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. A ghostly ambulance appears and disappears, the voice of a little girl calls to a patient in an elevator shaft, and a doctor's fetus begins growing at an alarming rate.

The mutant fetus is born. Dr. Helmer comes under heavy scrutiny for a botched operation that left a patient braindead, and begins to dabble in the dark arts in order to ward off those seeking an end to his career. Hypochondriac Mrs. Drusse finally does have something bad happen to her medically when an ambulance hits her.

In the not too distant future, an overpopulated Earth government makes it illegal to have children for a generation. One couple, unsatisfied with their substitute robot baby, breaks the rules.