L'Alpagueur is a free-lance spy from the French secret agency. He's put on the investigation about L'epervier, a serial-killer who employs young boys to help him robbing banks before killing them.

The film starts in the 13th arrondissement of Paris in 1984. Robert Pinot is a police officer as ordinary as clumsy. One day, he stops a certain Josyane, a young drug addict who is also doubled as a pickpocket, nicknamed Marylou. Having discovered that she comes from the same village, Nanteuil, then him, he takes compassion for the young girl and decides to take her under his wing to keep her away from Tony, a dangerous dealer with whom she is in love.

In this complex chronicle of the evolution of a provincial family's life, the story follows three generations of at least two neighboring families from the 1890s to the 1970s. In one of many related tales, a man who was engaged to the older daughter of a farmer elopes with the younger one. After many years and the birth of five children, the man leaves his wife and family for the bright lights of the city but continues turning up from time to time, until he is finally taken into the home of one of his sons when he is a quite old man. The complex interactions of the legitimate and illegitimate children of a womanizing miner give rise to yet another set of related stories.

Yves Montand, playing himself, returns to his hometown of Marseilles to appear in an autobiographical musical. Once there, he searches for the barmaid he once loved and also encounters young hopeful Marion, giving her the chance of a lifetime.

At 40, Molina is the most famous radio host in France: she hosts a nightly call-in show where she answers questions from callers with sexual and emotional problems. When she decides to look for her mother whom she never knew, she discovers her living in the suburbs.

Gerard has just lost his job and his marital life is falling apart. He accidentally falls off a bridge and meets Sarah who believes he wanted to commit suicide.

Diane of Meridor, aged 23 years, lives a happy country life with her father. For the first time, Diana has her coming out ball, organized by the count of Monsoreau, who, in spite of being much older than her, wants to make her his wife, having a possessive and jealous love for the young woman. The duke of Anjou takes Diana in the ball, and tries to abuse of her exercising his prerogatives of being the brother of the king. Monsoreau will take advantage of this fact in his favor, and kidnaps de lady. He explains her father that Duke of Anjou, a known seducer, has kidnapped her. In order to safe her honor, he offers to marry her. Her father consents to it, with his heart broken by his sorrow. Diana of Meridor is forced to marry the damnable count of Monsoreau. Since then, she will know the Court and will live closely the various plots to betray the king, and discovers all around her the awful taste of deceit...

Two brothers: one of them has become an actor and lives in Paris; he goes back home and meets his sibling who has stayed in the village where he married "la Matiouette", a local girl. The reunion is warm, but they soon discover that now they are worlds apart.little by little, the conversation becomes less friendly, less kind, and regrets, resentment resurface. Their reunion will leave them two broken men.

Whilst driving through rural France, Antoine Bonfils comes across a community of babas - men and women who have turned their back on the modern commercialist world and live, free of constraints, as close to nature as they can. After a tiff with his girlfriend, he decides to swap his comfortable but empty life in Paris for a new life with the babas. Adapting to the new life-style proves to be far from easy...