In metahistorical New York city electrotechnician Lafayette deals with a megalomaniac director of a wax museum of ancient Rome, an italian lonely anarchist, a group of feminist actresses - including Angelica who falls in love with him - and a small adopted chimpanzee.
Pour se rapprocher de ses enfants a la suite de son divorce, Laurent Monier, professeur d'histoire-geographie dans un paisible lycee de province, accepte un poste dans un college sensible de la banlieue parisienne. On lui attribue la classe la plus dure, la quatrieme techno, et il trouve un appartement a la cite des Muriers, un quartier particulierement difficile.
Urban horticulturalist Brontë Mitchell has her eye on a gorgeous apartment, but the building's board will rent it only to a married couple. Georges Fauré, a waiter from France whose visa is expiring, needs to marry an American woman to stay in the country. Their marriage of convenience turns into a burden when they must live together to allay the suspicions of the immigration service, as the polar opposites grate on each other's nerves.
Alain Moreau sings for one of the few remaining dance-bands in Clermont-Ferrand. Though something of an idol amongst his female audience he has a melancholic awareness of the slow disappearance of that audience and of his advancing years. He is completely knocked off balance when he meets strikingly attractive and much younger businesswoman Marion. She seems distant and apparently otherwise involved but soon shows quiet signs of reciprocating his interest.
In 1671, with war brewing with Holland, a penniless prince invites Louis XIV to three days of festivities at a chateau in Chantilly. The prince wants a commission as a general, so the extravagances are to impress the king. In charge of all is the steward, Vatel, a man of honor, talent, and low birth. The prince is craven in his longing for stature: no task is too menial or dishonorable for him to give Vatel. While Vatel tries to sustain dignity, he finds himself attracted to Anne de Montausier, the king's newest mistress. In Vatel, she finds someone who's authentic, living out his principles within the casual cruelties of court politics. Can the two of them escape unscathed?
Mangin, a police inspector in Paris, leans hard on informants to get evidence on three Tunisian brothers who traffic in drugs. He arrests one, Simon, and his girl-friend Noria. Simon's brothers go to their lawyer. He springs Noria, who promptly steals 2 million francs that belong to the Tunisians. They suspect her of the theft; her life as well as the lawyer's is in danger. Meanwhile, Noria is playing with both the lawyer and Mangin's affections. Mangin is mercurial anyway: intimidating and bloodying suspects, falling for a police commission trainee before flipping for Noria, wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Can he save the lawyer and Noria, and can he convince her to love?
An out-of-town heist becomes a nightmare for a crew of French burglars when they mistakenly rob the head of the Chicago mafia. Unaccustomed to the ways of the American underworld, it is not long before they have the mafia, the FBI and a couple of street gangs on their backs as they attempt to make their way back to Paris.
Veronique, living with her divorced mother, is going on holiday to Mauritius with her father. To impress a local boy, Benjamin, she manages to complicate the situation by making up stories about her father. She presents him as her lover, a mercenary and even a secret agent which gets her into trouble and then her father has to start playing along...
Coming out from jail, Lucas has decided to change his life and behave like a good citizen. But when he is taken hostage in a bank by a hare-brained robber, no cops can believe he is not part of the action.