Georg, a self-confident man of 40, feels it as a heavy defeat when his wife suddenly leaves him. He has always been the superior man, to whom his wife now reacts with speechless contempt. In numerous contacts with people for whom he feels affection, he tries to catch himself.

The painter Dubedat is seriously ill with tuberculosis. His attractive wife, Jennifer, begs the famous doctor Sir Colenso Ridgeon—who has just been knighted—to help her husband, especially since the doctor has a remedy that only he knows how to administer properly. But Sir Colenso’s clinic is overcrowded, and the doctor faces the dilemma of whether to save the brilliant painter while condemning a “less valuable” person to certain death.

The young Armand Duval falls in love with the attractive noble courtesan Marguerite Gautier, and she also develops increasingly strong feelings for him. However, Armand's father disapproves of his son's relationship with Marguerite and, behind Armand's back, ensures that she breaks up with him. Armand is bitterly disappointed by her supposed betrayal of love. What he does not yet know is that Marguerite is terminally ill and does not have long to live...

The painter Edgar flees from Wittenberg to East Berlin. The rebel finds a shelter in a gazebo. On the loo, Edgar discovers a strange reading: "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe.

In 1923 Berlin, following the suicide of his brother, an American acrobat struggles to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism, and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.