An expressionist and anti-war drama by the American playwright Irwin Shaw. It dramatizes the refusal of six dead soldiers during an unspecified war—who represent a cross-section of American society—to be buried. Each rises from a mass nameless grave to express his anguish.

A popular singer is found murdered and two police detectives are investigating his past in order to catch the killer.

An eminent Belgrade physician is found murdered. The investigation reveals dark side of his character - illegal abortions and abuse of his wife. The wife's lover becomes the prime suspect. The newspaper reporter, however, starts his own investigation. Besides being a crime story, this movie in quasi-documentary fashion presents alternative cultural scene of Belgrade in late sixties.

At the end of World War II, a French pacifist is arrested for refusing to fight. In prison, he befriends a German priest arrested for murder of a French Resistance fighter. They discuss morality, obedience, and religion.

While carrying the red flag and dynamite all the way up to the church tower, Niksha negligently draws the agents' attention. This prevents him and his female companion Vjeka to leave the tower. Until the morning of May 1st, which brings the highlight of a red flag flying over the occupied Split, Vjeka and Niksha spend the night of their long-awaited rapprochement.

German retaliation expedition burned down the village of Radopolje and killed all the men. When first men appear in the village after the war, Kata Plecas believes they will renew the village. But these men die as well and the question if Radopolje will be the "village of black scarves" again remains.

An influential Serbian poet decides to leave Nazi-occupied Belgrade and join partisans in the country. A young resistance activist, however, is not so thrilled with the idea because the old and womanizing intellectual doesn't fit in with his strict moralistic standards.