Charles Duchemin (Louis de Funès) is the editor of an internationally known restaurant guide, for which he still personally performs numerous restaurant tests using an assortment of elaborate disguises to escape detection by the restaurant owners. After being appointed to the Académie française, Duchemin decides to retire as a restaurant critic and trains his son Gérard (Coluche) to continue the family business. However, unbeknownst to Charles, Gérard is more interested in his true passion—working as a clown in a small circus which he has co-founded and supports financially. Charles Duchemin is informed that Jacques Tricatel (Julien Guiomar), the owner of a company of mass-produced food, is trying to take over a large number of quality restaurants which had been awarded stars by Duchemin. Duchemin fears that customers will be misled into eating low quality food at Tricatel-owned restaurants. A short time later, an operative hired by Tricatel enters Duchemin's offices and tries to steal the almost finished restaurant guide from this year. Duchemin is able to trick the operative into stealing last year's data and, together with Gérard, follows him to watch him hand over the files to Tricatel's assistant Lambert (Daniel Langlet). Duchemin resolves to fight against Tricatel. First he agrees to appear on a famous talk show hosted by Philippe Bouvard, who had long been trying to get Duchemin on the show, but only under the condition that Tricatel also be invited. He then orders his staff to obtain incriminating information on Tricatel which he plans to use during the talk show confrontation. Charles begins a lengthy tour of France's restaurants to finish up this year's restaurant guide. Gérard decides to come with him because Charles' new young secretary Marguerite (Ann Zacharias) will also attend and Gérard is smitten by her. During the tour, they are followed by Lambert. Since the circus cannot perform without Gérard, it is decided that the circus will follow the Duchemins' journey and Gérard will slip out of the hotel every night to take part in the performance. During one of the nights Gérard is followed by Lambert, who gives this information to Tricatel. He, in turn, informs Charles who secretly attends the next circus performance. During the performance he confronts Gérard and fires him. When Charles returns to the hotel-restaurant alone, he himself is confronted by the manager. The manager once was the owner of a highly rated restaurant but Duchemin had taken away the restaurant's stars a few years ago, which led to his bankruptcy. He had to sell his business to Tricatel which now delivers the disgusting food that is served in the restaurant. The manager forces Charles at gunpoint to eat all the leftovers in the kitchen, leading Charles to become ill. The next day, when recuperating in the hospital, Charles notices that the ordeal has completely taken away his sense of taste. Lambert, who is still shadowing the Duchemins, finds this out and gives the information to Tricatel who plans to humiliate Duchemin by letting him perform a blind tasting during the talk show. He also informs the press of Charles' condition who swarm the hospital. After Charles rehires Gérard, both manage to escape the journalists and lie low in Gérard's circus. On the day of the talk show Charles and Gérard, with Marguerite's help, infiltrate Tricatel's food factory to obtain incriminating evidence. They find out that all the food is made from artificial ingredients, e.g. petroleum and rubber. They are discovered by company security. When this information is brought to Tricatel, who is already in the TV studio, he demands that both be killed discreetly in the factory. The security forces try to chase the Duchemins into a food processing machine where they would be killed without leaving a trace, but Charles notices the trap and they can trick the security forces into believing they have been killed and flee the factory with some of the artificial food as evidence. They return to the talk show at the last minute. Charles lets Gérard perform the blind tasting demanded by Tricatel, who does a good job until the last challenge: a red wine. When Charles sees Gérard struggle, he storms the stage and successfully identifies the wine by simply looking at it in the wine glass. Then the Duchemins let Tricatel perform a taste test with the food they obtained from the factory. When Tricatel is totally disgusted by the food they let everyone know that those are Tricatel's own products. Furthermore, Tricatel's demand to kill the Duchemins had inadvertently been filmed and is now shown to the audience. Tricatel is booed from the stage. The film ends with Gérard handing in his resignation but reconsidering when he finds out that Marguerite will continue to work for the company. The final scene shows the inaugural dinner at the Académie française where vol-au-vent is served. In his dish Duchemin finds the watch he lost in the food factory.

High school student Mark Hunter lives in a sleepy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, and broadcasts an FM pirate radio station from his parents' basement, which functions as his sole outlet for his teenage angst and aggression. The station's theme song is " Everybody Knows " by Leonard Cohen and there are glimpses of cassettes by alternative musicians such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Camper Van Beethoven, Primal Scream, Soundgarden, Ice-T, Bad Brains, Concrete Blonde, Henry Rollins, and Pixies. By day, Mark is a loner who has difficulty socializing. By night, under the nom de plume Happy Harry Hard-on or simply "Hard Harry", he expounds outsider views about problems with American society, expresses teen angst, and exposes the underhanded actions of the faculty. His audience grows from a handful of loyal listeners to the entire student body. Depressed teenager Malcolm Kaiser writes to Harry seeking advice about committing suicide. Harry flippantly expresses disbelief that Malcolm is sincere, saying "Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow." The next day it is discovered that Malcolm committed suicide. Fellow student Nora De Niro deduces that Mark is Hard Harry, and attempts to assuage the guilt he feels over Malcolm. The radio show becomes increasingly popular after Harry apologizes to Malcolm for not telling him not to follow through, and exhorts his listeners to confront their problems instead of surrendering to them through suicide. At the climax of his speech, overachieving student and consistent listener Paige Woodward jams her medals and accolades into a microwave, causing an explosion which injures her face. Unrest at the school increases as students share bootleg tapes re-playing Harry's show. A meeting of faculty and parents concludes that the pirate DJ is responsible for the problems at the school. The police investigate, first cutting off Mark's access to his P.O. Box, and then cutting off the wireless phone that Mark had surreptitiously hooked up at a neighboring house. The FCC begins an investigation. Mark decides to make a final broadcast. He installs his radio station in his mother's Jeep, creating a mobile transmitter so the FCC will have difficulty triangulating the radio signal. Nora drives while Mark broadcasts pursued by the police and the FCC. Harry's broadcast is heard by the entire school who have gathered at the athletics field. Mark's father, school board commissioner Brian Hunter, confronts Principal Loretta Cresswood demanding to know why she systematically expelled students with low test scores. Cresswood insists they were losers and troublemakers and that she did it for the good of the school. Brian immediately suspends Cresswood. The harmonizer Mark uses to disguise his voice breaks, and Mark decides to broadcast his final message as himself. The Jeep drives up to the crowd of students, and Mark tells them that the world belongs to them and that they should make their own future. He encourages them to "steal the air" and begin their own shows to put their thoughts and feelings out into the world. The police arrest Mark and Nora. As they are taken away, students shout their appreciation of "Harry". Mark turns to the students and tells them to "Talk hard!" As the film ends, the voices of students, and even one of the teachers, are heard introducing their own pirate radio shows.

Kenny is a mockumentary that follows the fictional Kenny through his daily life. His work and his personal relationships are explored as Kenny goes about his day-to-day activities and speaks directly to the camera and his audience. Kenny provides a most basic service to the community, portable toilets. The audience sees Kenny interviewing potential clients and involved in major public events. It is important to Kenny to know the kind of food and drink to be served at these events as this will determine the level of service he provides. Never ashamed of his job, despite the disparagement of some (including his own family), Kenny regards himself as a professional. Even at the most prestigious events for which he caters, Kenny realises that the most glamorous will need his portable toilets. He sees life in all of its complexities through the need of his services. Kenny takes his son, Jesse, to visit his father, but is hampered by his ex-wife's obstructiveness and his father's bitterness. When Kenny travels to Nashville to attend a toilet convention, he is thrilled to travel outside his native Melbourne. His ingenuity, friendship and commitment to his profession opens business opportunities in Japan and the potential for a new relationship with Jackie, a flight attendant, but he must return home prematurely when his father suffers a medical emergency. In an attempt at bonding, Kenny, his wealthy brother David, and their father go camping. After half a day, David leaves in disdain. After Kenny tries to defend David, his father tells Kenny to step out of his brother's shadow and stick up for himself, which prompts Kenny to consider his life. He reveals that his success in Nashville has led to the offer of a promotion, and though his father urges him to accept, Kenny is unsure. When Kenny's ex-wife unexpectedly leaves him with Jesse on the day of the Melbourne Cup, his busiest day of the year, Kenny finds his son to be an able and cheerful assistant. However, prejudice against his work again appears, with customers complaining that a child should not be made to clean toilets, prompting Kenny to ask Jesse to stay in the office. When he returns to find Jesse gone, Kenny searches the venue in a panic and eventually finds him at the toilets, wanting to help again. That night, as he is about to drive away in his septic tank truck after a long and exhausting day, Kenny's way is blocked by a luxury car whose driver insensitively brushes off his requests to move. Kenny breaks his longstanding habit of amiability to fill the man's car with human waste, a suggestion that perhaps Kenny has decided to stick up for himself a little bit more. Finally, Kenny declines the opportunity to become an executive and seeks out Jackie to renew their relationship.

Sidney Stratton, a gifted research chemist and former Cambridge scholar, is obsessed with developing a fibre that never wears out and resists dirt. His fixation and insistence on costly laboratory facilities lead to repeated dismissals from jobs at several textile mills across Northern England. At Birnley Mills, where he is employed as a labourer, Stratton secretly gains access to research equipment and, through persistence, succeeds in producing a revolutionary synthetic fibre. A suit is tailored from the material: it is brilliantly white, as it cannot absorb dye, and faintly luminous due to traces of radioactive compounds in its structure. At first, Stratton is celebrated as a scientific pioneer. Mill owners recognise the brilliance of his discovery, and the press hails his work as a breakthrough. However, both management and organised labour quickly grasp the broader consequences. If clothing made from the fibre never wears out, the textile trade will collapse once consumers purchase sufficient garments, leaving thousands unemployed and destroying the profitability of the industry. Industrialists attempt to coerce Stratton into relinquishing his formula, while union leaders also pressure him to suppress the invention. Stratton, proud of his achievement and convinced of its benefit to humanity, refuses to compromise. The mill owner's daughter, Daphne Birnley, is enlisted to persuade Stratton to abandon his work in return for a monetary settlement. Though initially willing, she comes to admire his integrity and instead encourages him to make his discovery public. Stratton, however, slowly realises that his creation has no allies: employers, workers, and even acquaintances oppose its release, fearing economic ruin. The film reaches its climax with Stratton pursued through the streets at night, wearing the glowing white suit. Chased by a mob of industrialists and workers, he appears cornered, but suddenly the fabric begins to fail. The chemical structure of the fibre proves unstable, and the suit disintegrates before the crowd's eyes. Triumphant, the mob strips away the remnants, leaving Stratton in his underclothes. Only Daphne and Bertha, a sympathetic mill worker, express pity for his plight. The following morning, Stratton is dismissed from his position at Birnley Mills. As he gathers his belongings, he examines his laboratory notes. A sudden insight strikes him, and he exclaims, "I see!" He departs with renewed determination, suggesting he will resume his quest elsewhere.

Ali Hassan works for Danka TV in Karachi, Pakistan, and dreams of migrating to the United States, but his visa applications are rejected for seven years straight in the aftermath of September 11 attacks. While covering a local event for his channel, he discovers Noora, a poultry farmer and Osama bin Laden lookalike, and hits upon an idea to make a fake Osama tape. He recruits his assistant Gul, colleague Lateef, makeup artist Zoya and radio jockey Qureishi in his scheme, and tricks Noora into shooting the tape under false pretenses. He then sells the tape to Majeed, the owner of Danka TV, hoping to raise money for the elusive US visa. However, the US government and Pakistani Intelligence get involved once it releases, thwarting his plans and starting a war in Afghanistan. A CIA and Pakistani team, led by Ted Wood and Usman, is formed to investigate Osama's location in Pakistan. Ali decides to defuse the situation by making another tape in which Osama declares a ceasefire with the US, and somehow manages to convince Noora and Qureishi who disapprove of his actions. During the shooting, Noora unwittingly detonates a grenade, which kills his beloved rooster. Depressed, he runs away from the studio with the Osama makeup still on, forcing Ali and the others to follow suit. Meanwhile, Ted Wood and Usman track them down and arrest the entire team. However, during their interrogation, the truth is revealed, and to save Ted's face, Ali convinces him to make his planned tape of Osama declaring a ceasefire. When the second fake tape releases, the United States accepts the offer of a ceasefire, and Ali is at last able to make it to America.

In 2005, unpopular-yet-scholarly student Morton Schmidt and popular-yet-underachieving athlete Greg Jenko miss their school prom, Schmidt being rejected by the girl he was trying to ask to be his date and Jenko being barred from attending due to failing grades. Seven years later, the duo meet again at the police academy and become friends. After graduating, the two become partners assigned to bicycle patrol at the local park. They catch a break when they arrest Domingo, the leader of a one-percenter motorcycle gang for drug possession, but are forced to release him after they fail to read him his Miranda rights. The duo is reassigned to 21 Jump Street, a revived undercover program from the 1980s, which specializes in infiltrating high schools. Captain Dickson assigns them to contain the spread of a newly-made synthetic drug called HFS ("Holy Fucking Shit") at Sagan High School. He gives them new identities and enrolls them as students, giving them class schedules fitting their previous academic performances; Jenko taking mostly arts and humanities, and Schmidt taking mostly science classes, but the duo mix up their identities. Schmidt gets a lead on HFS from classmate Molly, and he and Jenko meet the school's main dealer, popular student Eric. The two take HFS in front of him to maintain their cover, and then rush to the bathroom and attempt to vomit the HFS out of their systems, but are unsuccessful. Eric takes a liking to Schmidt, who develops a romantic interest in Molly. Jenko becomes friends with the students in his AP Chemistry class and finds himself becoming more interested in geeky hobbies and academic pursuits. Schmidt and Jenko throw a party at Schmidt's parents' house, where they are living during the course of their assignment, and invite Eric. During the party, a fight breaks out between Schmidt, Jenko, and some party crashers from another high school. Schmidt wins the fight, impressing Eric and gaining his trust. Jenko's friends hack Eric's phone to enable them to listen in on his conversations. The phone hack reveals information about an upcoming meeting between Eric and his supplier. Jenko happens to overhear conversations between Schmidt and Eric, where he catches Schmidt making disparaging comments about him. A rift between the duo grows and their official police work suffers. Schmidt and Jenko later track Eric to a cash transaction with the distributors of HFS—the motorcycle gang from the park—and a chase ensues on the freeway. They return to school, argue, and eventually begin fighting, which disrupts the school play. They are expelled from school and fired from the Jump Street program. Eric, stressed and terrified, recruits Schmidt and Jenko as security for a deal taking place at the school prom. While dressing for the prom, Schmidt and Jenko rekindle their friendship. At the prom, Schmidt is forced to reveal his identity as a cop, upsetting Molly. When they go to the penthouse, they discover that the supplier is the physical education teacher, Mr. Walters, who created the drug accidentally and started selling it to the students to supplement his teacher's salary and pay alimony to his ex-wife. Having caught Eric smoking marijuana, he was able to persuade him to be his dealer. The motorcycle gang arrives for the deal, but Molly, high on HFS, interrupts them and starts arguing with Schmidt, outing him as a police officer. As a result, gang leader Domingo recognizes Schmidt and Jenko and orders his men to kill them. Two of the gang members then reveal themselves to be undercover DEA agents Tom Hanson and Doug Penhall, former members of the Jump Street program. In an ensuing exchange of gunfire, Hanson and Penhall are both mortally wounded. Mr. Walters and Eric escape with the money and Molly as a hostage; the gang, Schmidt, and Jenko follow close behind. Jenko creates a homemade bomb and uses it to kill the gang. Mr. Walters shoots at Schmidt but Jenko takes the bullet to his arm, sparing Schmidt's life. In response, Schmidt shoots Mr. Walters, unintentionally severing his penis. They arrest Mr. Walters and Eric, successfully reading the former his Miranda rights. Schmidt and Molly share a kiss while Eric and Mr. Walters get arrested. Both officers are congratulated and reinstated in the Jump Street program as Dickson gives them a new assignment: infiltrating a college.

Café owner Kato (Kazunari Tosa) discovers that his computer's monitor shows what will happen two minutes into the future from the perspective of the television in the café, which itself displays what happened two minutes into the past. The computer is brought down to face the television, creating a Droste effect, allowing the characters to see several minutes into the future. Kato's friends and coworkers discover this. Persuaded by a future version of himself, he decides to ask his love interest, Megumi, on a date; she declines, but Kato is forced to pretend to encourage his past self to prevent a paradox. Kato's friends also attempt to take advantage of the time window, getting caught up in a gang rivalry in the process. Kato uses his knowledge of the near future, as well as objects the group obtained throughout the film, to attack the gang members and save Megumi who has been taken upstairs. Returning downstairs, they find that two time cops have sedated everyone except himself and Megumi. The cops try to force the pair to ingest memory-wiping powder, but they sneeze it away, causing the cops to disappear from reality as a result of a paradox. Megumi and Kato sit down and discuss their lives together.

While driving through the Alps, thief Roger Beckerman is murdered by the local Mafia and his body disposed of in the river below. In the United Kingdom, his friend and fellow thief, Charlie Croker, is released from prison. After reuniting with his girlfriend, Lorna, to celebrate his freedom, Croker goes to meet Beckerman to discuss a heist, but is shocked to find only his widow. She insists that Croker continue with Beckerman's final masterpiece: an ambitious heist of $4 million in gold bullion, from a convoy transport in the city of Turin, Italy. Croker breaks back into prison to request financial backing from British nationalist crime lord Mr. Bridger. Initially unconvinced, Bridger soon offers support after confirming the scheme's potential. With Bridger's right-hand man, Camp Freddie, Croker recruits a crew of specialists, including Lorna, professional drivers, and lecherous computer expert Professor Simon Peach. With preparations complete, Bridger stages a funeral ceremony to meet the team in person. He discloses that the Mafia are expecting them, as they killed Beckerman over his planned heist and see the prospect of foreigners stealing Italian gold as an insult to their pride. Travelling through the Alps, Croker splits the team up to avoid raising suspicion. However, Croker's group are confronted by Mafia boss Altabani and his men, who destroy their backup escape cars and warn against continuing the plan. Croker and his men narrowly avoid being killed by threatening Bridger's reprisal against Italians living in the United Kingdom. Undeterred, the team continue to Turin. That night, the team infiltrate the Turin traffic control centre and Peach replaces a magnetic-tape data storage reel with a duplicate designed to sabotage the traffic control system. On the day of the heist, as the gold arrives at Turin airport, Croker sends Lorna to Geneva to keep her safe, promising to meet her there later. Meanwhile, Peach is arrested for molesting a woman on a tram. The convoy begins its journey through Turin, followed by Altabani. One of Croker's men sabotages the city's CCTV surveillance while the traffic control system malfunctions, disabling traffic lights and causing city-wide traffic jams that eventually force the convoy to stop outside the Museo Egizio. The crew intercept the convoy, subdue its police escort, and tow the armoured van carrying the gold into a building. While police ram the door, the crew breach the van and divide the gold between the boots of three Mini Coopers. The remaining crew escape disguised as British football fans, while Croker leads the Mini Cooper drivers out of the city, evading the police and the Mafia using an ingenious route designed by Beckerman that avoids the stalled traffic by taking them over stairs, pedestrian streets, rooftops, and through sewers. Mr. Bridger receives word of the successful heist and celebrates with his fellow inmates and prison staff, as the crew escapes Turin and conceals the Minis in the back of a modified coach. Driving through the Alps, they unload the gold and dispose of the Minis before collecting the remaining crew. During a reckless celebration, the coach driver loses control of the vehicle, resulting in the rear of the coach teetering precariously over a cliff. The crew stands at the front of the coach in an attempt to counterbalance the weight of the gold at the rear. Croker slowly crawls towards the gold which slides ever further from him. Finally, he turns to the crew and declares: "Hang on a minute lads. I've got a great idea."

In Berkeley, California, in 1988, Mark O'Brien is a 38-year-old poet who is forced to live in an iron lung due to complications from polio. Due to his condition, he has never had sex. After unsuccessfully proposing to his caretaker Amanda, and sensing he may be near death, he decides he wants to lose his virginity. After consulting his priest, Father Brendan, he gets in touch with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a professional sex surrogate. She tells him they will have no more than six sessions together. They begin their sessions, but soon it is clear that they are developing romantic feelings for each other. Cheryl's husband, who loves her deeply, fights to suppress his jealousy, at first withholding a love poem that Mark has sent by mail to Cheryl, which she eventually finds. After several attempts, Mark and Cheryl are able to have mutually satisfying sex, but decide to cut the sessions short on account of their burgeoning feelings. One day sometime later, the power goes out in the building in which Mark lives, causing the iron lung to stop functioning and making it necessary for Mark to be rushed to the hospital. However, he survives and meets a young woman named Susan Fernbach. The film then cuts to Mark's funeral, held sometime later in 1999, and attended by four of the women he came to know and care for, including Cheryl. Father Brendan gives the homily and Susan reads the poem he had previously sent Cheryl.

On a public holiday, a young boy watches a travelling fair arrive in his village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre, near the centre of France. Among the locals is François, the amiable and bumbling mailman, whom everybody likes but nobody takes seriously. Marcel and Roger, the two men running the fair, make him their butt and get him drunk. In the cinema tent, people watch a spoof documentary that contrasts the unbelievable efficiency of the US post office with the antiquated French PTT. They decide that François must get up to date and, although he only has a bicycle, must start using transatlantic dash in his delivery. In the end, exhausted by his frantic efforts, he stops to help a family pitchfork their new-mown hay into a horse-drawn cart, while the boy from the opening scene completes the deliveries on François's route.