In Egypt forties and before the 14th of July revolution in 1952, a poor family lives in a prince's palace where the father works as a gardener. The family has two children Ali and Hassan. Ali grows up liking the prince's daughter who loves him too. Now grown ups, they realize how impossible this love story is. Joining the army, Ali fights in Palestine while the brother joins the police and is part of the King's guards. Ali gets back from Palestine and joins the secret military movement that will soon rule Egypt, The Free Officers. The revolution starts and the Free Officers are now in charge, putting Ali against his brother as a guard for the king and also against his lover, the prince's daughter as the revolution will confiscate all her family's wealth.
Zuhra has nothing to do but to runaway after her family forced her to marry an old rich man. She goes to Alexandria where she works in a motel and there she meets people with different ideologies and thoughts about life.
Mahgoub is a villager who moves to Cairo in search of a better life. When he enlists friend Salem's help to find him a job, Salem not only gets him a job at the ministry where he works but he finds him a bride as well.
Set in the suburbs of Cairo in the late 1930s, the story follows a middle-class Egyptian family grappling with the hardships of life after the death of their father, their sole breadwinner.
Rebel Ibrahim Hamdy assassinates a pro-colonial Prime Minister but is arrested and hides with a fellow university student, who initially refuses but eventually accepts him.
Murad Salem is a rich man who is used to getting what he wants whenever he wants it. When he meets a beautiful woman in Alexandria, he wants her as wife number thirteen.
A mad doctor uses patients at his isolated psychiatric institute as subjects in his attempts to create longevity by surgically installing an artificial gland in their skulls.
The only son of Otari’s widow decides to serve in the serf owner’s house, and falls in love with the patron’s daughter for whom he can’t reveal his feelings to.
A young street vendor who is a cockfighting aficionado, attracted by the image of one of them, settles on the ranch of its owner where he falls in love with the foreman's daughter.
