Based on the 2000 book of the same name by Emmanuel Carrère, it is inspired by the real-life story of Jean-Claude Romand. L'Adversaire's protagonist Jean-Marc Faure (Auteuil) pursues an imaginary career as a doctor of medicine in a plot more closely based on Romand's life and Carrère's book than was Laurent Cantet's 2001 film L'Emploi du Temps. The film was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

In Paris, two cops are competing for the vacant job of chief of police, in the middle of the search for a gang of violent thieves. The movie is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years with the French police before creating this story, taken in part from real events of the 1980s.

Two unlikely friends — a supply teacher and a lonely young boy suspended between two estranged parents — embark on a weekend motorcycle voyage full of surprises and unforeseen consequences in this surprisingly tough, unsentimental drama.

Forty-year-old Paul-André is a timid, rather introverted man. Rich but alone, he is deeply bored and ends up concluding that what he needs is a family. Violette, a forty-year-old full of energy, is threatened with eviction and is afraid she'll lose custody of her two children. Paul-André then proposes a totally above the board contract to rent the family in exchange for him paying off Violette's debts. For better and for worse..

What happens when a man and a woman share a common passion? They fall in love. And this is what happens to Jean-René, the boss of a small chocolate factory, and Angélique, a gifted chocolate maker he has just hired. What occurs when a highly emotional man meets a highly emotional woman? They fall in love, and this is what occurs to Jean-René and Angélique who share the same handicap. But being pathologically timid does not make things easy for them. So whether they will manage to get together, join their solitudes and live happily ever after is a guessing matter.

Ariane lives with Simon in his large Paris flat. Simon is obsessed with her: he wants to know everything about her, secretly follows her when she goes out, asks questions all the time, even in the most intimate moments. Ariane seems to take it all in stride, but Simon realises that she's hiding something.

Aging beautician Angèle, already wounded by a long-ago romance, gets awkwardly dumped at a train station. Witnessing how she turns around a humiliating situation, younger sculptor Antoine becomes so smitten that he breaks up with his fiancée and sets out to win Angèle's heart. Meanwhile, Angèle attempts to quash the budding romance of her young co-worker, Marie, and a much older widowed client, despite their obvious rapport.

Under threat in Algeria, Ismahel emigrates to France where he wants to live and work, with the hope that the people he's fleeing from will forget him the time he is away. In the letters that he writes to the daughter that he left behind in his homeland, he tells his own story in the guise of the biblical tale of Jonas and the Whale. Somewhere in France, an elderly farmer has just lost his young son. His three other children help him as much as they can to get through the trial of the funeral, but the ceremony is halted when the old man falls ill. The two stories unfold parallel to each other and are alternated.

Bertrand dutifully visits his terminally ill wife every day, braving the long train and bus ride to and from the hospital. Lorraine not so willingly visits her boyfriend who was diagnosed with colon cancer. They bump into each other during one of their visits and begin to meet for coffee. Coffee turns into Lorraine offering to drive Bertrand to the train station and the two turn to each other in their time of grief and confusion.

Pascale leads a lonely life with her adult sons François and Thierry at a rural estate subsidized by her ex-husband's alimony payments. When Pascale falls for neighbor Jan, she makes plans to move in with him. But Pascale's twin sons -- loafers who treat her like a servant and refuse to accept the responsibilities of adulthood -- won't let her go. The family remains locked in a stalemate until someone makes a startling move.