Set in San Francisco, Play It Again, Sam begins with the closing scenes of Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Allan Felix watches the film in a cinema. He leaves the cinema depressed that he will never be like Bogart. Apart from apparitions of Bogart, Allan also has frequent flashbacks of conversations with his ex-wife, Nancy, who constantly ridiculed his sexual inadequacy. His best friend, Dick Christie, and Dick's wife, Linda, try to convince him to go out with women again, setting him up on a series of blind dates, all of which end badly. Throughout the film, he is seen receiving dating advice from the ghost of Bogart, who is visible and audible only to Allan. Nancy also makes fantasy appearances, as he imagines conversations with her about the breakdown of their marriage. On one occasion, the fantasy seems to run out of control, with both Bogart and Nancy appearing. When it comes to women, he attempts to become sexy and sophisticated, like his idol, Bogart, only to end up ruining his chances by being too clumsy. He eventually develops feelings for Linda, around whom he is more relaxed and does not have the need to put on the mask. At the point where he finally makes his move on Linda (aided by comments from Bogart), a vision of his ex-wife appears and shoots Bogart, leaving him without advice. He then makes an awkward move. Linda runs off, but then returns, realizing that Allan loves her. However, their relationship is doomed, just as it was for Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca. Dick returns early from Cleveland and confides to Allan that he thinks Linda is having an affair, not realizing her affair is with Allan. Dick expresses to Allan his love for Linda. The final scene is an allusion to Casablanca' s famous ending. Dick is catching a flight to Cleveland, Linda is after him, and Allan is chasing Linda. The fog, the aircraft engine start-ups, the trenchcoats, and the dialogue are all reminiscent of the film, as Allan nobly explains to Linda why she has to go with her husband, rather than stay behind with him. Bogart says that he has learned how to be himself and no longer needs him for advice. The music from the scene in Casablanca resumes the theme, "As Time Goes By", and the film ends.

In 2010, disillusioned screenwriter Gil Pender and his fiancée, Inez, vacation in Paris with Inez's wealthy parents. Gil, struggling to finish his debut novel about a man who works in a nostalgia shop, finds himself drawn to the artistic history of Paris, especially the Lost Generation of the 1920s, and has ambitions to move there, which Inez dismisses. By chance, they meet Inez's old college friend, Paul, and his wife, Carol. Paul speaks with great authority but questionable accuracy on French history, annoying Gil but impressing Inez. Intoxicated after a night of wine tasting, Gil decides to walk back to their hotel, while Inez goes with Paul and Carol by taxi. At midnight, a 1920s car pulls up beside Gil and delivers him to a party for Jean Cocteau, attended by other people of the 1920s Paris art scene. Zelda Fitzgerald, bored, encourages her husband Scott and Gil to leave with her. They head to a cafe where they run into Ernest Hemingway and Juan Belmonte. After Zelda and Scott leave, Gil and Hemingway discuss writing, and Hemingway offers to show Gil's novel to Gertrude Stein. As Gil leaves to fetch his manuscript, he returns to 2010 only to find a laundromat in the cafe's location. The next night, Gil tries to repeat the experience, this time bringing Inez along, but she returns to the hotel before midnight. Subsequently returning to the 1920s, he accompanies Hemingway to visit Gertrude Stein, who is critiquing Pablo Picasso 's new painting of his lover Adriana. Gil becomes drawn to Adriana, a costume designer who also had affairs with Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Braque. Having heard the first line of Gil's novel, Adriana praises it and admits she has always longed for the past. Inez grows jaded with Paris and Gil's continual disappearances, while her father grows suspicious and hires a private detective to follow him. Gil continues to time-travel the following nights. Adriana leaves Picasso and continues to bond with Gil, who is conflicted by his attraction to her. Gil explains his situation to Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, and Luis Buñuel; as surrealists, they do not question his claim of coming from the future. Gil later suggests the plot of The Exterminating Angel to Buñuel. Back in the present, Gil meets Gabrielle, an antique dealer and fellow admirer of the Lost Generation. Later at a book stall he finds Adriana's diary, which reveals that she had been in love with Gil and dreamed of being gifted earrings before having sex with him. Planning to seduce Adriana, Gil plans to take a pair of Inez's earrings but is thwarted by her early return to the hotel room. Gil instead buys new earrings, giving them to Adriana after returning again to the past. Later, a horse-drawn carriage appears and transports them to the Belle Époque, an era Adriana considers Paris's Golden Age. They go to the Moulin Rouge where they meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Edgar Degas, who all agree that Paris's best era was the Renaissance. Adriana is offered a job designing ballet costumes; thrilled, she proposes to Gil that they stay. But he, observing the unhappiness of Adriana and the other artists, realizes that chasing nostalgia is fruitless because the present is always "a little unsatisfying." Adriana decides to stay, and they part ways. Meanwhile, the detective following Gil takes a "wrong turn" and ends up being chased by the palace guards of Louis XVI just before a revolution breaks out. Gil rewrites the first two chapters of his novel and gives his draft to Stein, who praises his rewrite. Still, Hemingway says that on reading the new chapters he does not believe that the protagonist does not realize that his fiancée (based on Inez) is having an affair with the character based on Paul. Gil returns to 2010 and confronts Inez, who admits to having sex with Paul but regarded it as a meaningless fling. Gil breaks up with her and decides to stay in Paris. While walking by the Seine at midnight, no carriage comes by but Gil encounters Gabrielle. As it begins to rain, he offers to walk her home and learns that they share a love for Paris in the rain.

Aspiring architect Tom Hansen works as a writer at a greeting card company in Los Angeles. He meets Summer Finn, his boss Vance's new assistant. They bond over their similar musical tastes, and at a company-sponsored karaoke night, they discuss love, which he believes in, unlike her, as her own parents had divorced. Tom's friend and co-worker drunkenly reveals that Tom likes Summer, which both assert is merely a close friendship. A few days later, Summer spontaneously kisses Tom in the office; Tom agrees to a casual relationship, and that night, they have sex. Over the first few months of their relationship, they grow closer. Tom accompanies Summer to a park bench in the city, his favorite location. Eventually, Tom's friends and work colleagues as well as his adolescent half-sister Rachel urge him to ask Summer about their relationship status, but Summer insists it is unimportant as long as both parties are satisfied. One night, Tom brawls with a man who attempts to make sexual and romantic advances toward Summer in a bar. After an argument, they reconcile and Summer concedes that Tom deserves some certainty but cannot promise to always feel affection for him. Slowly, their relationship becomes less passionate and they begin to continuously argue. After Summer quits her job at the greeting card company and ends things with Tom, citing their unhappiness, Vance transfers him to the consolations department, as his depression is making him unsuitable for happier events. A blind date with a woman named Alison fails, as Tom spends it complaining about Summer. Months later, Tom is invited to attend the marriage of a work colleague named Millie and attempts to avoid Summer on the train heading to the occasion, but she notices him and invites him for coffee. At the ceremony, Summer catches the bouquet thrown by Millie, and dances with Tom at the wedding reception. After she invites him to a party at her apartment, he arrives, hoping to rekindle their romance, but notices her wearing an engagement ring and tearfully departs. Sinking further into depression, Tom secludes himself in his apartment, only emerging for alcohol and junk food. After a few days, he returns to work heavily inebriated and emotionally quits his job on the spot. Rachel criticizes Tom's attitude, explaining that Summer was the wrong woman for him and that his depression stems from focusing solely on happy instances in the relationship. Tom finally reflects on the incompatibilities he'd overlooked. One day, he energetically rededicates himself to architecture, as Summer had encouraged him to do. He assembles a portfolio and secures job interviews. Tom and Summer re-encounter each other at the park bench. She has recently married, and he admits his inability to comprehend it as she never wanted to be serious with anyone. She explains that when she met her now-husband, she was sure of him in a way she wasn't about Tom. When he acknowledges his shortcomings about believing in true love, she reassures him that his beliefs are justified, but stresses their own romantic incompatibility. He wishes her happiness as she departs. On Wednesday, May 23, Tom encounters a young woman who is interviewing for the same position at an architectural firm as him, and they connect over his favorite location. He invites her for coffee once both of them are finished with the interview. She declines, but then changes her mind, revealing that her name is Autumn.

In 1958, 15-year-old Michael Berg becomes sick on a tram ride in an unnamed provincial city. He is helped by 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna Schmitz. Weeks later, Michael has recovered from scarlet fever and at his mother's insistence, he visits Hanna with flowers to thank her for her help. They proceed to have a secret summer love affair, and Hanna often asks Michael to read to her. They have a brief cycling holiday in the country where Michael starts to notice some oddities in Hanna's behaviour. However, as their sexual relationship deepens it grows more tumultuous, when his attempts to form a deeper connection are rebuffed by her secretive nature. As a good reliable worker, Hanna is soon promoted, whereupon she abruptly quits without explanation. Michael visits Hanna to apologize following an argument, but is utterly befuddled and devastated to find her apartment vacant. In 1966, Michael is a student at Heidelberg University Law School and observes a war crime trial of several former female SS guards accused of letting 300 Jewish women and children perish in a burning church during a death march near Kraków in Poland. Michael is horrified to learn Hanna is one of the defendants. Survivor Ilana Mather provides testimony, including that Hanna forced some of the prisoners to read to her. Hanna admits that she and the co-defendants each chose ten women monthly for extermination at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland. Ilana's mother Rose testifies that when the church caught fire during a bombing, the guards refused to unlock the doors. The official SS report stated the guards did not know about the fire until the following day. Hanna reveals the guards in fact kept the doors locked so that the prisoners could not escape. Hanna's co-defendants all state she was in command and wrote the report. Hanna denies this, insisting they agreed on the contents of the report together. When the lead judge asks for a handwriting sample, Hanna quickly condemns herself by admitting she authored the report alone. Recalling their time together, Michael is initially confounded by her testimony, finally deducing that Hanna is deeply ashamed of being illiterate. Michael informs his law professor, who states that Michael should inform the court. Deeply conflicted, Michael attempts to visit Hanna in prison, but changes his mind. Hanna receives a sentence of life imprisonment, while her co-defendants are sentenced to just over four years each. Michael attempts to move on, though haunted by the memories of a relationship that he cannot put to rest. He marries and has a daughter, however, Michael cannot commit fully to the relationship and grows distant from his family, culminating in divorce and estrangement from his daughter, Julia. Throughout the 1980s, Michael records himself on tape reading various books and regularly mails them to Hanna. Borrowing the same books from the prison library, Hanna slowly teaches herself to read and write. She starts writing to Michael, but he never replies. In 1988, a prison official requests Michael's help with Hanna's parole as he has been the only person outside prison to have had contact with her. Michael finally visits Hanna, revealing in the stilted reunion that he has secured her a residence and a job. When Michael arrives for Hanna's release, he is told she hanged herself in her cell and left a crude will asking Michael to give her money to Ilana Mather. Michael finds Ilana in New York City, revealing his connection to Hanna and its long-lasting impact. He tells Ilana about Hanna's illiteracy, but she rebuffs this and refuses to forgive Hanna. Michael gives her Hanna's tea tin filled with cash, but Ilana refuses the money. He suggests it be donated to a Jewish literacy organization in Hanna's name and Ilana agrees. She keeps the tin, placing it next to a photograph of her deceased family. The film ends in 1995 with Michael driving Julia to Hanna's grave, telling her their story.

The story begins in 1994. An outstanding student, Shen Chia-yi, is popular among her teachers and classmates. Ko Ching-teng, a mischievous and poor student, claims that he has no interest in her, despite being her classmate since junior high school. When Chia-yi forgets her textbook, Ching-teng gives her his, pretending that he is the one who forgot, and is punished by the teacher. Touched, Chia-yi prepares practice exams for him to encourage him to get better grades, and they grow closer, with Ching-teng's grades gradually improving. Chia-yi stands up for Ching-teng against a teacher and is punished, earning Ching-teng's and his friends' respect. On graduation, Ching-teng enrolls at the National Chiao Tung University. Chia-Yi, who was ill during examinations and performed poorly, only manages to enter the National Taipei University of Education with her mediocre test results. Depressed and upset, she is consoled by Ching-teng, who calls her long-distance almost every night from his university. During the winter holiday season that year, the two go on their first "date", during which Ching-teng asks Chia-yi if she likes him. However, fearing she would say no, he decides that he would rather not hear her answer. Ching-teng later organizes a fight night and invites Chia-yi to watch, hoping to impress her with his strength, but instead she finds it childish and disturbing. This upsets Ching-teng, sparking a quarrel that causes the two to stop speaking. During the years after their split, Ching-teng has no contact with Chia-yi. He qualifies for a graduate research course at Tunghai University, where he begins writing stories online. The two briefly make contact after the 1999 Jiji earthquake, when Ching-teng calls to see if Chia-yi is okay. They both reflect that they were not fated to become a couple. Ching-teng begins writing a web novel inspired by their relationship. Years later, in 2005, Chia-yi calls Ching-teng to tell him that she is getting married. All of their old friends gather at the wedding, reminiscing about their youth and friendships. When they gather to congratulate the bride and groom, the friends demand to kiss the bride, and the groom jokingly responds that they must kiss him the way they would kiss her. Ching-teng surprises everyone by kissing the groom passionately. While doing so, he imagines sharing the kiss with Chia-yi instead, with all of the bittersweet memories of their youth being flashed back.

In 1815, French prisoner Jean Valjean is released from the Bagne of Toulon after a nineteen-year sentence for stealing bread and attempting to escape the sentence. His paroled status prevents him from finding work or accommodation, but he is sheltered by the kindly Bishop of Digne. Valjean attempts to steal his silverware and is captured, but the bishop claims he gave him the silver and tells him to use it to begin an honest life. Moved, Valjean breaks his parole and assumes a new identity, intending to redeem others. Eight years later, Valjean is a respected factory owner and mayor of Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais. He is startled when Javert, formerly a Toulon prison guard, arrives as his new chief of police. Witnessing Valjean rescue a worker trapped under a cart makes Javert suspect the former's true identity. Meanwhile, one of Valjean's workers, Fantine, is fired by the foreman when she is revealed to have an illegitimate daughter, Cosette, residing with the greedy Thénardier family, to whom Fantine sends her earnings. Out on the streets and increasingly ill, Fantine sells her hair, teeth and eventually her body to support Cosette. Javert arrests her after she physically attacks a sexually abusive client, but Valjean recognises her and takes her to the hospital, much to Javert's suspicion and anger. Learning that a man has been wrongly identified as him, Valjean reveals his identity to the court before returning to the dying Fantine, promising to care for Cosette. Javert arrives to arrest him but he escapes to the Thénardiers' inn. Valjean pays Fantine's debts, then flees from Javert with Cosette. Nine years later, Valjean has become a philanthropist to the poor in Paris. General Lamarque, the only government official sympathetic to the poor, dies, and the revolutionist group Friends of the ABC plot against the monarchy. Marius Pontmercy, a member of the Friends, falls in love with Cosette at first sight and asks his best friend Éponine, the Thénardiers' daughter, to find her. He and Cosette meet and confess their love; Éponine, herself in love with Marius, is heartbroken. Thénardier attempts to rob Valjean's house, but Éponine stops him. Fearing Javert is near, Valjean plans to flee to England with Cosette. Cosette, wanting to stay near Marius, is hesitant about the idea, but when Valjean ignores her pleas, she leaves Marius a letter, which Éponine hides from him. During Lamarque's funeral procession, the revolt begins and barricades are built across Paris. Javert poses as an ally to spy on the rebels, but the street urchin Gavroche exposes him as a policeman. During the first skirmish against the soldiers, Éponine takes a bullet for Marius and dies in his arms, giving him Cosette's letter and confessing her love, leaving Marius devastated and heartbroken over the death of his best friend. Marius's answer to Cosette is intercepted by Valjean, who joins the revolt to protect him. Valjean offers to execute the imprisoned Javert, but releases him instead, pretending he shot him. By dawn, the soldiers storm the barricade and kill everyone except Marius and Valjean, who escape into the sewers. Javert waits for him to exit, but seeing that Marius is close to death, he lets them go. Morally disturbed by the mercy of his nemesis and his own in return, Javert kills himself by throwing himself in the Seine. Marius recovers, traumatized by the death of his friends, especially Éponine. Marius and Cosette are reunited, but Valjean, concerned his past would threaten their happiness, makes plans to leave. He reveals his past to Marius, who promises to remain silent. At Marius and Cosette's wedding, the Thénardiers crash the reception to blackmail him; but instead, realizing that Valjean saved him from the barricade, Marius forces Thénardier to reveal where he is. Cosette and Marius find Valjean, who gives them letters of confession before dying peacefully. His spirit is guided by visions of Fantine and the Bishop to join Éponine, Gavroche, and the Friends of the ABC in the afterlife.

On November 30, 1962, a month after the Cuban Missile Crisis, George Falconer is a middle-aged English college professor living in Los Angeles. George dreams that he encounters the body of his longtime partner, Jim, at the scene of the car accident that took Jim's life eight months earlier. He bends down to kiss his dead lover. After awakening, George delivers a voiceover discussing the pain and depression he has endured since Jim's death and his intention to end his life that evening. George receives a phone call from his dearest friend, Charley, who projects lightheartedness despite also being miserable. George goes about his day putting his affairs in order and focusing on the beauty of isolated events, believing he is seeing things for the last time. At times, he recalls his sixteen-year-long relationship with Jim. During the school day, George comes into contact with a student, Kenny Potter, who shows interest in George and disregards conventional boundaries of student–professor discussion. George also forms an unexpected connection with a Spanish male prostitute, Carlos. That evening, George meets Charley for dinner. Though they initially reminisce and amuse themselves by dancing, Charley's desire for a deeper relationship with George and her failure to understand his relationship with Jim angers George. George goes to a bar and discovers that Kenny has followed him. They get a round of drinks, go skinny dipping, and then return to George's house and continue drinking. George passes out and wakes up in bed with Kenny asleep in another room. While watching Kenny, George discovers that he has fallen asleep holding George's gun to keep George from killing himself. George locks the gun away, burns his suicide notes and in a voiceover explains that he has rediscovered the ability "to feel, rather than think". As he makes peace with his grief, George suffers a heart attack and dies, while envisioning Jim appearing and kissing him.

Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged European professor of French literature, arrives in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, searching for summer accommodation before his professorship begins at Beardsley College, Ohio. Charlotte Haze, a sexually frustrated widow, offers him a room to rent at her house. Initially uninterested, Humbert changes his mind when he sees Charlotte's young daughter Dolores, nicknamed "Lolita", and is immediately smitten with her. Wanting Humbert's time for herself, Charlotte sends Dolores to an all-girl summer camp. After the Hazes depart for camp, the maid gives Humbert a love confession letter from Charlotte demanding that he vacate immediately, unless he reciprocates and marries her. Despite laughing while reading the letter, Humbert stays and marries Charlotte. In Lolita's absence, Humbert becomes withdrawn, and Charlotte grows unfulfilled and upset. She discovers Humbert's diary detailing his passion for Dolores and his contempt for Charlotte. Distraught, she runs outside, is hit by a car and dies. Humbert is visited by Charlotte's friends, who mistake his apathy with suicidal ideation and reveal that she had little time left anyway, since nephritis affected her single kidney. Humbert picks up Dolores from camp, telling her that Charlotte is sick in a hospital. They stay overnight in a hotel hosting police convention attendees, and attract the attention of another guest. While Dolores sleeps upstairs, this stranger insinuates himself upon Humbert, presenting himself as a policeman and cryptically steering the conversation to Humbert and Dolores. The next morning, Dolores suggests to Humbert that they play a "game" she learned at camp, and it is implied that they have sex. Humbert later confesses to Dolores that her mother is dead. Grief-stricken, she stays with Humbert. The two commence a trip cross country, acting publicly as father and daughter. In the fall, Humbert initiates his position at Beardsley College and enrolls Dolores in high school there. A jealous Humbert worries about her involvement with male classmates and the lead she has been offered in the school play, and people grow curious about his protectiveness. One night, he returns home to find a stranger in his darkened living room. Claiming to be Dr. Zempf, the psychologist from Dolores's school, he inquires about her knowledge of " the facts of life " and coerces Humbert into allowing her to participate in the school play. During a performance of the play, Humbert learns that Dolores has been lying about spending Saturday afternoons at piano practice. They have an argument and Humbert decides to take Dolores on the road again. Dolores objects at first, but seemingly changes her mind after making a surreptitious phone call. Once on the road, Humbert realizes that they are being followed by a car. Dolores falls ill and he takes her to the hospital. One night, a mysterious call to his motel room prompts Humbert to visit the hospital in order to discharge Dolores, but he is told that she already left with a man claiming to be her uncle. Humbert is devastated. Three years later, he receives a letter from Dolores, now pregnant, married to an unemployed and half-deaf mechanic, and in need of money. Humbert visits her and asks who had kidnapped her from the hospital. She says that it was Clare Quilty, a famous playwright and the intrusive stranger who kept crossing their path all along, disguising himself as a policeman and later Dr. Zempf. Dolores was infatuated with Quilty ever since his fling with Charlotte years ago, and carried on an affair with him at Beardsley. She left the hospital with him when he promised her a Hollywood contract. Instead, he secluded her in a dude ranch near Santa Fe and demanded that she join his depraved lifestyle and act in his child pornography, which she refused. Humbert begs Dolores to leave with him. She refuses, on account of her new predicament, but apologizes for cheating. Humbert gives Dolores $13,000, her money from the sale of Charlotte's house. He then leaves to confront Quilty in his mansion at gunpoint. A drunk Quilty tries to dodge the situation with bizarre offers (including an invitation to attend executions), but is shot dead by Humbert. A postscript reveals that Humbert later died of coronary thrombosis awaiting trial for Quilty's murder.

At a party, guests are waiting for the married couple Laura and Oliver Bradford to arrive. John Hillgrove, a blind pianist, proceeds to perform his tone poem titled "The Enchanted Cottage," which he wrote in their honor. Laura Pennington cycles to a seaside New England cottage where she meets Hillgrove and his young nephew Danny. Laura had heard fantastical stories about the cottage from her mother before her death. Feeling ostracized for her homely appearance, she is hired as a caretaker by Mrs. Abigail Minnett, a widowed tenant owner. She feels a mutual connection with Laura after losing her husband during World War I. Oliver Bradford, a soon to be called up Army Air Forces pilot, arrives, having rented the cottage with his new fiancée, Beatrice Alexander. Beatrice, however, is displeased with the cottage decor, but Laura reassures her that the cottage is magical, showing her the window where couples have written their names. Later that night, a honeymoon party is planned for the engaged couple, but Oliver sends a letter stating he will be unable to arrive. He has been called back into military service before his wedding. Beatrice subsequently cancels their leasing agreement. One year later, a telegram arrives stating Oliver's intention to rent the cottage indefinitely. Oliver arrives, hiding his face inside his trench coat, and locks himself in his room. During a stormy night, Laura enters his room where Oliver reveals his disfigurement from the war. His face is scarred, and his right arm and hand are disabled after his plane was shot down in the Battle of Java. The next morning, Laura develops a connection with Oliver in the garden. Hillgrove arrives and converses with Oliver, stating that when he became blind, he developed a new lease on life by appreciating music. By nighttime, Oliver receives a letter from his mother, Mrs. Price, but he refuses to see her and his stepfather due to how he looks with his war injuries. Laura finds Oliver by the seashore. In an attempt to keep distance from his mother, Oliver proposes to Laura, and she accepts. After their honeymoon, Laura and Oliver return to the cottage, both feeling transformed. A flashback to before their wedding dinner is shown in which the couple initially reflect on their sham marriage. Laura tries to declare her love for Oliver but is unable to do so. She runs to her bedroom in tears, but Oliver comforts her. He realizes his genuine love for Laura, seeing her as a beautiful, glamorous woman. Laura in return sees him as handsome and unscarred. At the cottage, Oliver's mother and stepfather arrive, and Hillgrove unsuccessfully attempts to notify them about Oliver and Laura's "transformations". However, Mrs. Price mentions Laura's "not being pretty" while complimenting her character before she leaves, which breaks the spell of their mutual illusion, and they're "transformed" back to their former selves. The couple turns to Mrs. Minnett, who gives them her validation of their love, telling them that her beloved late husband made her feel beautiful, because that's how people who are truly in love see each other—and that's the real enchantment of the cottage. She then leaves the room. Oliver and Laura hold hands, then proceed to write their names on the window. Back to the present, the couple arrives at the front door, where they happily embrace and kiss each other as their idealized selves before entering the house.

Prominent Paris art collector Charles Bonnet forges and sells famous artists' paintings. His disapproving daughter, Nicole, constantly fears his being caught. Late one night at their mansion, Nicole encounters a burglar, Simon Dermott, holding her father's forged " Van Gogh ". She threatens him with an antique gun that accidentally fires, slightly wounding his arm. Wanting to avoid an investigation that would uncover her father's fake masterpieces, Nicole does not contact the police, and instead drives the charming Simon to his lavish hotel in his expensive sports car, then takes a cab home. Charles is lending the Kléber-Lafayette Museum his renowned " Cellini " Venus statuette for an exhibition. The statue was actually sculpted by his father. Charles has never sold it, knowing scientific testing would reveal it as a fake, rendering his entire collection suspect. Charles signs the museum's standard insurance policy, unaware it includes a forensic examination. Withdrawing the Venus from the exhibition would raise suspicions. Desperate to protect her father, Nicole asks Simon to steal the Venus before the examination. He claims it is impossible to steal the Venus, but changes his mind upon realizing he has fallen for Nicole. American tycoon Davis Leland, an avid art collector, is obsessed with owning the Venus. He arranges to meet Nicole solely to purchase the statue, but finds her attractive. At their second meeting, Leland proposes marriage to ensure he can obtain the statue, but Nicole hurriedly accepts his ring as she rushes off to the museum for the "heist". Nicole and Simon hide in the museum's utility closet until closing time. After observing the guards' routine, Simon repeatedly sets off the security alarm using a toy boomerang until the "faulty" system is finally disabled. Simon notices Nicole's resemblance to the Venus, and she admits that her grandmother posed for the statue that her grandfather sculpted; Simon admits knowing that the Venus was fake and only agreed to the heist for her. Simon takes the Venus, and Nicole, disguised as a cleaning woman, hides it in a bucket. When the Venus is discovered missing, they escape in the ensuing chaos. Following the robbery, Leland seeks to acquire the Venus by any means. Simon offers to "sell" it to him on condition that it never be displayed to anyone and that he never contact the Bonnet family again; Simon says Leland will be contacted later for payment. Leland runs from Nicole when she tries to return the engagement ring; Simon later secretly adds the ring to boxed statue before giving it to Leland, who immediately leaves the country with it. Nicole meets Simon at the Ritz Hotel to celebrate their success, though she is stunned when he admits it was his first heist. Simon is actually an expert consultant and investigator hired by major art galleries to enhance security and detect forgeries. He was investigating Charles' art collection when Nicole first encountered him. When Charles unexpectedly arrives, Simon assures him that the statue will soon be safely out of the country. Charles is relieved though momentarily disappointed that there will be no $1 Million insurance payment due to the statue never being authenticated. Simon insists Charles give up forgery, to which he agrees. As Nicole and Simon are on their way to get married, a collector who admired Charles's new "Van Gogh" arrives at the Bonnet residence. Nicole tells Simon that it is his father's "cousin". Simon admires her newfound flair for lying, and they drive off to begin their new life together.

Irene Vail decides to divorce her husband, the rich ship owner Bruce Vail. However, Bruce learns that he can prevent the divorce if he can provide evidence that she has been involved with another man. He pays his driver Michael to visit Irene's hotel room in Paris and pretend to be her lover so that a private detective can catch them in a compromising position. However, a man overhears Irene's startled cry upon finding Michael in her room, and a struggle ensues when the man defends Irene, leaving Michael on the floor, unconscious. When Bruce and the detective burst into the room, the man threatens them with a gun, demands Irene's jewelry and takes Irene hostage. Once they are away, the intruder, Paul Dumond, returns Irene's jewelry and invites her to dine with him at the Château Bleu restaurant, where he works as a waiter. They dance and Irene falls in love with him. In the morning, Irene returns to find Vail and the police in her room, as Michael is dead. Vail leads her to believe that Paul is responsible for the murder and blackmails her into coming back to the United States with him in exchange for Paul's freedom. Distraught that he is unable to find Irene, Paul learns that Irene has reunited with her husband and left for the U.S. Sensing something is wrong, he embarks for the U.S. to find her, accompanied by Cesare, his good friend and head chef of Château Bleu. In Manhattan, Paul and Cesare rehabilitate a restaurant, hoping that it will attract Irene. The reunion takes place at last, but Paul learns that Michael is dead and that a man has been arrested in Paris for the murder. Unwilling to let an innocent man pay for what he thinks is his crime, Paul embarks for Paris, and Irene joins him. They travel on the liner Princess Irene, which is owned by Vail and named after her. Vail learns that they are on the ship. In a rage, he orders the captain to travel at full speed, despite the danger of collision with an iceberg, claiming a desire to break the record for fastest crossing. Vail actually hopes that the ship will sink, killing Paul and Irene. The ship does strike an iceberg, and premature news reports state that the ship has sunk with tremendous loss of life. Consumed by guilt, Vail commits suicide and confesses to killing Michael in a note. However, the ship's bulkhead doors contain the water and prevent the ship from sinking. Paul, Irene and the other passengers rejoice when they hear that they are to be rescued.