Although based on a novel by Georges Simenon, director (and songwriter) Serge Gainsbourg has superimposed several dark emotions and a subtle brutality over the weak plot about a man's trip to Africa and his unfortunate passion for a murderess whose amorality sends the disillusioned fellow back to Europe. Sometimes described as frustrating and self-centered, reactions to this film swing across a broad spectrum of complaints -- not the least might be whether or not Gainsbourg is using a clichéd and stereotypical view of "dark Africa" to convey what he sees in his characters.

In this drama, an American art student is trapped amidst the political turmoil of war-torn Europe while visiting Paris and staying at the fabulous Ritz hotel. Rather than cope constructively with it all, the fellow opts to ignore it and continue living the high-life for as long as possible.

A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.

American housewife Cathy Palmer loses her memory on a trip to Paris after being hit by a car. She wakes up in the hospital believing she's the fictional international spy, Rebecca Ryan.

Master Zacharius, the village watchmaker, dreams of giving a soul to the automatons he manufactures. A mysterious young man bursts in and seems to want to charm the watchmaker's daughter. After his passage, all the clocks go haywire, causing trouble. How far is Zacharius willing to go to get what he wants?

Israeli attorney Hanna Kaufman's beliefs are challenged when she's appointed to the defense of Selim Bakri. Kaufman, born in the United States to survivors of the Holocaust, has always accepted Israel's right to exist. However, she bears witness to some of its sovereign costs when she meets Bakri, a dispossessed Palestinian man facing serious criminal charges who wants the same thing as his supposed enemies: to reclaim his family home.

Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In order to stop the diabolical plot, an American agent must infiltrate Soviet intelligence and obtain information from a Russian computer.

Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love.

A P.I. is obsessed with a cute woman, who seduces and kills rich men around W. Europe.

In the USSR, political prisoners who were scientists were not always sent to GULAG, but also to The First Circle (named after Dante's Inferno), a special incarceration unit near Moscow where they could work for the government.