Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

It’s summer, on the beach of this little town in Brittany, a man is building a sand castle. A few people watch him. We will be told the story of three of them: a boy, Jumbo, aged 9; François and his sister Zaza. All of them had to deal with the death of somebody they cherished.

Jeanne Quester is a psychologist-on-the-airwaves in a radio station. She got a raw deal when she was a child.

The son of a French colonialist in Algeria returns to Algeria after learning that his father is ill. Memories from childhood return. He also must deal with some problems involving the Algerian fight for independence.

The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles.

The oddest things come in pairs. In 1989, there were two foreign films on the market whose titles translated to Errors of Youth or Youthful Indiscretion. One was a Russian film, the other was a French picture, originally titled Erreur de Jeunesse. In this one, would-be poet Francis Frappat breezes through a number of relationships. Of paramount importance to Frappat are his attempts to seduce the lovely Géraldine Danon.