The film is in four parts. First, the camera pans the Kremlin and Marshal's Bridge. Sleds are parked in rows. Horse-drawn sleighs run up and down a busy street. Next, we visit the mushroom and fish market where common people work and shop. In Petrovsky Park are the well-to-do. Men are in great coats. A file of six or seven women ski past on a narrow lane. Last, there's a general view of Moscow. A slow pan takes us to a view above the riverfront where the film began.

A group of peasants comes to see Leo Tolstoy and his wife, the Countess, to request some land. Tolstoy must explain to them that it is his wife who has authority over their land-holdings, and she will not help them. Stung by their negative reaction to him, Tolstoy becomes increasingly preoccupied with the problems of the poor. This leads to a number of conflicts with his wife, and then to a deep despondency, as the noted writer continues vainly to search for answers to the sufferings he sees around him.

Russia, 1775. Count Orlov writes a letter to Empress Catherine II the Great in which he denounces Princess Tarakanova as a traitor and pretender to the throne.

In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

A vagabond arrives in a village where he works for a rich landowner, Master Pierre; he seduces one of the girls, gets her pregnant and hits the road again.

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Tells the story of the adventures of the resourceful Scheherazade. Newly married to Shahryar, a deranged monarch who murders his brides after the wedding night, Scheherazade manages to keep her head by entertaining her husband with exciting stories and always trailing off at the most infuriating cliffhangers.