The story is set in the stifling atmosphere of the 1950s. The highly politicized everyday life of the period unfolds from the perspective of a young man coming from a poor peasant background who wins entry to the humanities faculty in Budapest. The film shows how politics interferes in and corrodes the private lives of people.

Set in the 1890s on the Hungarian plains, a group of farm workers go on strike in which they face harsh reprisals and the reality of revolt, oppression, morality and violence.

Three thirtysomething chemical scientists, Laci, Gyuri and Kati celebrate the success of their development program before New Year's Eve with drinking for several days. But the morning of New Year's Eve does not bring the expected recognition, because the nice, bald, old director is replaced by a young, bald, but disagreeable one. In a sodden atmosphere it becomes clear that everybody has an axe to grind in the informative discussions.

Allegory of the suppression of the 1919 revolution and the advent of fascism in Hungary; in the countryside, a unit of the revolutionary army spares the life of father Vargha, a fanatical priest. He comes back and leads massacres. A new force, represented by Feher, apparently avenges the people, but only to impose a different, more refined and effective kind of repression.

The Tóth family resides in Northern Hungary. The couple has a daughter and a son, the latter a member of the armed forces. When his weary major is ordered to take a vacation, the son talks him into a visit to his family home. Hilarity ensues when the Tóths go overboard trying to make things pleasant for the visiting major in hopes of an easier life for their son, the soldier.

Juli, who works in a brick factory, begins a romantic relationship with her boss, to whom she hides the fact that she has a son.

Juli is a 17-year-old student who takes a summer job in a local chemical factory. She is befriended by Piri, a girl with an unsavory reputation who has worked there before. The two friends are ogled by male workers who have overactive libidos and imaginations. Juli spurns the advances of a deluded Romeo while Piri continues to work and endure open hostility from the older female workers while her slothful parents sink deeper into alcoholism.