It's the 24th of December: The emergency department of a district hospital is preparing for a turbulent night: head physician Professor Singer, who has lost his wife and is even more involved in the work, and the surgeon Hannah Cornelsen, who talks about the work can forget that she and her husband have dwelt apart. On Christmas Eve, the hospital will become a microcosm in which a wide variety of people and destinies will meet - and for everyone, life will be in a completely different light next morning.
Karen Bender is a plastic surgery expert who will soon be promoted to Senior Physician. Her family life with her husband Christoph and little daughter Kim could hardly be more harmonious. However, when a routine check-up reveals that the seven-year-old is a lethal tumor, Karen is unexpectedly caught up in her past: Professor Victor Novak, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon, is the only one who can save Kim's life. But years ago Karen had an affair with Viktor during a joint engagement in the Balkan war.
When Ruprecht forgets his wife Johanna at the taxi stand and shows no regrets, the well-off architect's wife tries the uprising after 30 years of marriage. Although Christmas is just around the corner, she quickly moves into the apartment of the young taxi driver Ellie, whom she has just met. When it comes to protecting Ellie's home from illegal demolition, Johanna rediscovers her legal talent. But they are fighting strong opponents: an influential real estate speculator and her willing architects - Ruprecht of all people.
Everything is connected: an 1849 diary of an ocean voyage across the Pacific; letters from a composer to his friend; a thriller about a murder at a nuclear power plant; a farce about a publisher in a nursing home; a rebellious clone in futuristic Korea; and the tale of a tribe living in post-apocalyptic Hawaii, far in the future.
After being around for centuries and now living in the modern age, vampire Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is a rockstar who cannot grow accustomed to the new modern world with all of its new technology. While he lives in Detroit, his wife Eve (Tilda Swinton) lives in Tangier, flourishing in the new world. But when she senses Adam's depression with society, she gets on a plane and goes to see him. Shortly after Eve gets there, her little sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), shows up after 87 years and disrupts the couple's idyll reunion.