As in earlier Oscar Wilde biopics, this version preoccupies itself with the homosexuality scandal involving Lord Alfred Douglas and his lordship's political powerful father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Arrested for corrupting Lord Douglas' morals, Wilde spends a debilitating five years in Reading Gaol, emerging a shattered shell of his former self

When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during World War II, his fiancée falls in love with the local Italian commander.

In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.

In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.

A successful folk singer and his entourage are locked down in a Belfast hotel during the Troubles, as the authorities demand he identifies himself as either a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist.