Molière, a down-and-out actor-cum-playwright up to his ears in debt. When the wealthy Jourdain offers to cover that debt so that Molière's theatrical talents might help Jourdain win the heart of a certain widowed marquise, hilarity ensues.

A judge is called upon to judge a crime of which he is the guilty party. This case of conscience, whether or not to confess his crime, is the pretext for many improbable acts of boorishness, a ferocious spectacle of human relations, unbearable to watch... if laughter were not there to detach us from it.

Hélène, a Parisian nursery director, navigates her son Paul's hidden heroin addiction, straining their bond in this poignant tale.

As a rowdy team of detectives clashes with their disciplined new boss, they must catch a vicious band of robbers who are wreaking havoc on their city.