The film opens with a long shot of a Liverpool-bound train waiting to depart from Euston station in London. The train leaves with various characters on board.
In the 1870s, residents of the garrison at the Fort Humboldt Army outpost are supposedly suffering from a diphtheria epidemic. A train is heading towards the fort filled with reinforcements and medical supplies. There are also civilian passengers on the train – Nevada Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna) and his fiancée Marica (Jill Ireland), among others.
Two strangers, Jerzy (Leon Niemczyk) and Marta (Lucyna Winnicka), accidentally end up holding tickets for the same sleeping chamber on an overnight train to the Baltic Sea coast. Also on board is Marta's spurned lover, who will not leave her alone. When the police enter the train in search of a murderer on the lam, rumors fly and everything seems to point toward one of the main characters as the culprit.
Jean-Claude (25) and Pierrot (23) are young sociopathic men who travel around France, committing petty crimes and running from the law. After they get in trouble with a hairdresser in Valence for stealing his car, they grab his pistol and kidnap his assistant Marie-Ange, an apathetic girl. When they are bored with unorgasmic Marie-Ange, they decide to find a passionate woman and meet Jeanne Pirolle, a deranged woman in her forties who is just released from prison and had spent ten years in a cell. After a threesome, Jeanne commits suicide and the men return to Marie-Ange. They find Jeanne's psychopathic son Jacques who had been incarcerated as well. Then, the four consider founding a crime family but at their first crime, an attempted robbery, Jacques commits a revenge killing and the others flee. While on the run, they meet a family having a picnic near Col d'Izoard and the delinquent teenage daughter Jacqueline wants to join them. They take Jacqueline and on learning that she is still a virgin, they decide to deflower her. After dropping Jacqueline, the three ride away aimlessly.
In August 1939, a motley group of travellers find themselves in a small hotel in Bavaria, awaiting a delayed train to Switzerland. They include a "much married madcap American heiress", Amanda Metcalf-Midvani-Von Hoffsteader-Kelly, and Robert Condon, a wise-cracking American photographer.
Abordé dans un compartiment de première classe d'un train par une jeune femme désemparée qui s'offre à lui, un garagiste s'installe dans la vie de celle-ci contre son gré.
Alors qu'il va devenir d'un moment a l'autre un heureux papa, Alberto est soudain assailli par un remords qui l'empeche de fermer l'oeil. Il doit a tout prix eponger une dette importante qu'il avait contractee aupres de son pere lorsqu'il etait adolescent a Rome. Or l'echeance est justement le moment precis ou il sera lui-meme papa. Il ne lui reste tout au plus que vingt-quatre heures pour se defaire de sa dette.
Madame Tutli-Putli boards a night train for a mysterious and suspenseful journey. When train robbers cut open a man's stomach and steal his kidneys, she tries to escape.
Barnie aime sa femme, sa maîtresse et son amant. Il travaille à Londres, mais habite en France. Le jour de son anniversaire, il reçoit trois cadeaux identiques, chacun venant respectivement de ses trois amours : trois week-end en amoureux à Venise en Orient-Express, le 1er mai. Pour préserver son mariage, il renvoie les deux billets à ses amoureux clandestins. Cependant, Barnie se trompe en les postant. Ainsi, Mark reçoit l'enveloppe destinée à Margot, et vice-versa. Les deux amants, mécontents se rendent au bureau de Barnie et font connaissance. Ensemble, ils décident de rendre une petite visite à Barnie, en France, où ils rencontrent… sa femme !
The film follows the friends of a recently deceased minor painter Jean-Baptiste Emmerich as they take a train from Paris to Limoges, where he is to be buried, attend his funeral, then gather at the home of his twin brother, Lucien. The mourners include François, who spends the journey listening to a series of taped conversations with the painter; Jean-Marie and Claire, a couple whose marriage has broken down; Emmerich's former lover Lucie; Louis, a close friend of François, and Bruno a young man with whom he has fallen in love. As the train heads south, the travellers watch the car carrying Emmerich's coffin being driven recklessly alongside the train by their friend Thierry.
In Eastern Europe, a group of US college athletes unknowingly board a train that will become one deadly ride. The students are participating in a wrestling championship; they include Todd (Derek Magyer) and his girlfriend Alex (Thora Birch), Sheldon (Kavan Reece), Claire (Gloria Votsis), and young assistant coach Willy (Gideon Emery). After a hard match, they sneak away from their hotel to an underground club. However, the next morning, they return too late for their train to Odessa.