In the tense dramatic situation of a June night in 1815, a few hours before a battle that seems lost in advance, Napoleon has a choice: either go into battle and risk not winning it, or not go into battle, which of course means abdicating. To give up absolute power and offer his military experience to the people, to the republic...

A former aircraft mechanic wants to start a new life in a small border village after a stint in prison and working in the mines. But things don't work out as he would have liked and bad luck follows him. By an unfortunate coincidence, he even falls under suspicion of double murder...

A young veterinarian, Jiří Klimeš, returns to his native village after graduation.

Student Eva is dashing up a steep slope to try to catch a bus, but she twists her ankle and the bus doesn't wait. There won't be another bus until the next day, and so Eva returns to her parents' cottage where she has been studying by herself for several days. She finds the door open, and inside a young man, Dusan, who behaves as if he were at home. Eva is a little scared and so she pretends to be a chance passerby who can't go any further because of her injured ankle. The boy offers her a bed for the night. He also fetches some plum brandy, they drink toasts to each other, and Eva starts to play Patience.

It is 1955 and the government in Czechoslovakia has declared an amnesty for post-war emigrants. Many of them returned to their families, only young Pavel Kocián's single mother waits in vain for him. Despite her protests, Tomáš Stach, an assembler, is accommodated in her flat as a lodger. Until recently, his fiancée Jana was also waiting for Pavel's return, but she has given up hope and visits Mrs Kocián only out of pity. One evening, an unknown man who introduces himself as Jonáš and claims to know Pavel visits her.

Krabat, a beggar boy, is lured to become an apprentice to an evil, one-eyed sorcerer. With a number of other boys, he works at the sorcerer's mill while learning black magic. Every Christmas one of the boys has to face the master in a magical duel, where the boy never stands a chance because the master is the only person who is allowed to use a secret spell: The Koraktor.