Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Florence, Italy, 1925, during the fascist dictatorship. In order to live near his girlfriend Bianca, young Mario moves to a humble street in the old city center, where he befriends Maciste and Ugo, two anti-fascists.

Mario is in Hannover to work as a miner but after losing his job he decides to go back to Italy. When Totonno steals his passport to avoid the police and later on he offers him a new job as "magliaro" (cloth seller), Mario changes his mind and decides to follow Totonno to Hamburg. In Hamburg, Totonno and his friends have to sell Mayer's cloth, but they meet with the hostility of a Polish gang and Mario falls in love with Paula Mayer.

Vito Polara is ambitious and wants to get as more power and money as possible. He decides to leave the cigarette smuggling and try to get the total control of the regional fruit and vegetable distribution considered more profitable. He looks for the help of a rural crime Boss.

During the winter of 1944, the partisans stationed in the Ligurian Apennines must go to a factory in Genoa, in order to pick up a delivery of weapons. Meanwhile, there's a strike in the city and the Nazis are trying to suppress it violently. The factory becomes the scene of fighting between the Germans and the partisans but the latter, aided by the workers, will be able to get the better.

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

A group of illegal immigrants find a job in a French mine and organizes strikes to improve their working condition.

Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.

Four different directors present lighthearted stories about married Italian couples and their dilemmas with jealousy, sex and love. Segment 1: Scandaloso / The Scandal (Franco Rossi) Segment 2: Peccato nel poeriggio / Sin in the Afternoon (Elio Petri) Segment 3: La sospirosa / The Victim (Luciano Salce) Segment 4: Gente moderna / Modern People (Mario Monicelli)

In Venice, a millionaire hires an actor to help him prank three greedy exes into thinking he's dying and leaving his fortune to one of them.