Jean-Joachim Goriot, a merchant who got rich during the Revolution, is obsessed with the love of his two daughters, whose social promotion he wants. He endows them richly, ruins himself to pay their debts, but Delphine and Anastasie do not return his affection and abandon him at the time of his death to run to a big ball.
During the First World War, the crooks Scholef and Krumka sell weapons on the black market. After the collapse of the monarchy they try their hand at speculation on a grand scale.
A fisheries expert is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheik's vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the desert and embarks on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible possible.
After a blacklisted extra actor is kidnapped by a ruthless criminal alongside his secret crush, her movie-star boyfriend, and their director, he must use his decade of ignored film-set experience to navigate a series of deadly traps and save the group.
After interning her insane husband in a remote psychiatric hospital, book editor Helga Pato returns home by train, where she meets a mysterious man who identifies himself as a psychiatrist.
In Nice, a wealthy widow is charmed by a young man who marries her and manages her finances. He soon starts an affair with her secretary, who proves to be even more ruthless than he is.
In a French seaside town, at a boarding house for civil servants recovering from surgery and maladies, the six male residents' lives change dramatically when two women arrive: Catherine, lively, sexually liberated, willing to kiss, dance, and sleep with the men, and Leonie, reserved, formal, conservative.
Jack White throws a big party at which many of the artists he has produced perform. He has had an eventful life in which he has always remained true to his ideals, first as a footballer, then as a pop singer and then as a producer, even in the face of fierce opposition from others.
Paul, a former womanizer, marries the head of the medical department's "unattractive" daughter Christine because he thinks attractive women can't be trusted and make poor wives.
A guardian angel agrees to help Willie Mays win the National League Pennant if Mays agrees to take care of Veronica, a lonely, mischievous orphan girl.