Simon and Dede are best friends: two aimless drunks who spend their days getting sloshed and any other available time getting laid. Simon is living on unemployment benefits in a trailer parked near his sister's apartment. Dede works at a fish-packing plant on the night shift. Neither man is sensitive, young, or good looking. However, their sang-froid (literally, "cold blood," referring to a quality of imperturbability) stands them in good stead as they go about their seedy lives, picking up one woman and having sex with her on the beach, or when Simon calmly has sex with a prostitute in front of the woman's brother. In the past, a bizarre necrophiliac situation led to Simon experiencing his only sense of what it might be to truly love someone.

1982, Budapest. Two 18-year-old Hungarian boys think Hungary is boring so they decide to travel to Poland and have a real adventure. Their plan to escape to Sweden fails and they find themselves in a Polish prison.

Sylvie, a Belgian girl living in London, arrives at her local police station. She starts to tell how she was picked up in a nightclub by the handsome Ajay, and the listening DC Judd realises he is onto a most unusual case

Delphine meets Manuel. Fragile and elusive, the young man escapes him. Manuel leaves the city to flee his illness, a cancer. Delphine goes in pursuit and plunges into a world of dark encounters.

A small circus arrives in a coastal area of the North Sea: the place looks rather eerie and the audience is quite scarce. But despite all of this, the life of the performers is animated by feelings born under the circus tent, and which are often lived out in the secret of their trailers. The ballerina Angèle has an affair with Elliot, the company's clown who is tormented by his conscience; but she is also courted by Heroy, the circus director; he is a cruel and potentially dangerous man who is willing to win her over by resorting to the powers of the magician Zephyr.

On the day Jean Gabin dies, a kidnaper who also takes a fortune in jewels heisted from Cartiers murders Simon Verini's wife. (Simon was fencing the jewels for a youthful gang who robbed Cartiers; he suspects them of the murder.) He's framed for the theft and spends ten years in prison, writing to his daughter, Marie-Sophie, who's 11 when he's sent away. Released, he reconnects to Marie-Sophie and to the young thieves, seeks revenge, and is quickly arrested again. She doesn't know what to make of her father, retreats to her Swiss fiancé, and is flummoxed when one of the young thieves falls for her. Is resolution possible when crime cuts across families and romance?

A short film co-created by Eric Rohmer.

Fred (Vincent Lindon) is a former crane driver who was a victim of the closure of his factory. He takes care of the little boy of his girlfriend (Clotilde Courau), does the housework and sometimes goes to the job center but boredom is inescapable. One day, because he accepted to drive a truck for a friend to a warehouse, he's caught up in a vicious spiral that goes beyond him. It's all the more serious as shady men want to eliminate him an the police is on his back.