In September 1939, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish-Jewish pianist, is playing live on the radio in Warsaw when the station is bombed during Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland which caused the outbreak of World War II. Hoping for a quick victory, Szpilman celebrates with his posh family at home when learning that Britain and France have declared war on Germany. German troops soon enter Warsaw and the Nazi authorities implement measures to identify, isolate, financially ruin and reduce the Jewish population in Warsaw. Jews are ordered to provide their own identifying armbands with the Star of David.
The story is told in medias res as a series of flashbacks. Max Tooney, a musician, enters a secondhand music shop just before closing time, broke and badly in need of money. He has only a Conn trumpet, which he sells for less than he had hoped. Clearly torn at parting from his prized possession, he asks to play it one last time. The shopkeeper agrees, and as the musician plays, the shopkeeper immediately recognizes the song from a broken record matrix he found inside a recently acquired secondhand piano. He asks who the piece is by, and Max tells him the story of 1900.
In Vienna in the early twentieth century, Lisa (Joan Fontaine), a teenager living in an apartment complex, becomes fascinated by a new tenant, concert pianist Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdan). Stefan is making a name for himself through energetic performances. Lisa becomes obsessed with Stefan, staying up late to listen to him play, and sneaking into his apartment and admiring him from a distance. Despite her actions, they only meet once and Stefan takes little notice of her.
A man (Geoffrey Rush) wanders through a heavy rainstorm finding his way into a restaurant. The restaurant's employees try to determine if he needs help. Despite his manic mode of speech being difficult to understand, Sylvia learns that his name is David Helfgott and that he is staying at a local hotel. She returns him to the hotel and despite his attempts to engage her with his musical knowledge and ownership of various musical scores, she leaves.
Vitus, played by Teo Gheorghiu, is a highly gifted pianist at the age of 12. His parents mean well, but are over-protective, so Vitus rebels and seeks refuge with his grandfather (Bruno Ganz), who loves flying. After faking a head injury, Vitus secretly amasses a fortune on the stock market. The money allows his grandfather to purchase a Pilatus PC-6 and his father to return triumphantly to the company that had fired him previously. Vitus pursues his former babysitter, Isabel, but she prefers someone older and does not return his affections.
A mute Scotswoman named Ada McGrath is sold by her father into marriage to a New Zealand frontiersman named Alisdair Stewart, bringing her young daughter Flora with her. The voice that the audience hears in the opening narration is "not her speaking voice, but her mind's voice". Ada has not spoken a word since she was six years old and no one, including herself, knows why. She expresses herself through her piano playing and through sign language, for which her daughter has served as the interpreter. Flora later dramatically tells two women in New Zealand that her mother has not spoken since the death of her husband who died as a result of being struck by lightning. Ada cares little for the mundane world, occupying herself for hours every day with the piano. Flora, it is later learned, is the product of a relationship with a teacher with whom Ada believed she could communicate through her mind, but who "became frightened and stopped listening," and thus left her.
Erika Kohut is a piano professor at a Vienna music conservatory. Although already in her forties, she still lives in an apartment with her domineering mother; her father is a long-standing resident in a psychiatric asylum.
Tokyo Sonata is about a middle-class family in Tokyo, the Sasakis, which consists of Ryūhei Sasaki, his wife Megumi, and their two sons Takashi and Kenji.
A washed-up classical pianist, Charlie Kohler/Edouard Saroyan (Charles Aznavour), bottoms out after his wife's suicide — stroking the keys in a Parisian dive bar. The waitress, Lena (Marie Dubois), is falling in love with Charlie, who it turns out is not who he says he is. When his brothers get in trouble with gangsters, Charlie inadvertently gets dragged into the chaos and is forced to rejoin the family he once fled.
Ancien boxeur lessivé, Jo-ha (Lee Byung-hun) doit retourner vivre chez sa mère (Yoon Yeo-jeong ) qui l'avait abandonné et il fait la rencontre de son petit frère, Jin-Tae (Park Jung-min ), un pianiste d’un talent exceptionnel soufrant du syndrome du savant, qu'il ne connaît pas.
The collaborative work between Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Stefan Knüpfer is at the centre of the film. Bach's The Art of Fugue is to be recorded. Pierre-Laurent Aimard has decided in favour of concert grand piano Nr. 109 for the Bach recording. The film begins one year before the recording.
Traude Krueger (Bleibtreu) is working as a piano teacher in a women's prison. While selecting new students, she meets Jenny Von Loeben (Herzsprung). When she tells her she can't take any lessons because her hands are too rough and she is uncooperative, Jenny becomes enraged and almost kills the prison guard, Mütze (Pippig), also one of Krueger's students. Then she starts playing the piano. Krueger listens from the hallway and, impressed by her talent, later offers Jenny lessons, but requires absolute obedience, including eating a sheet of paper. She tells Jenny never to play 'that kind of negro-music' again.
Intense young "tough" Thomas Seyr is a 28-year-old real estate broker involved in shady business deals. His business partners, Fabrice and Sami, spend much of their time ruthlessly chasing squatters and illegal immigrants out of the buildings they have procured and trying to work their way around government housing regulations. Thomas is born to this kind of work; his father, Robert, is also involved in dodgy enterprises and sometimes calls upon Thomas to beat up people who refuse to pay. Tom shows a protective and defensive attitude toward his father who doesn't always appreciate what his son does for him–so much so that when his father introduces his new girlfriend to Tom, Tom undermines her to her face, and insults her to his father, insisting she is an opportunistic "whore." Later, when he tries to enlist her help to watch over his father, she tells him they broke up due to Robert changing his attitude and she is aware of Tom's backstabbing because Robert told her. Robert by this time is in danger from a Russian gangster, Minskov (Anton Yakovlev) who scammed him out of 300,000 Euros and Tom is worried for his safety.
Dans les années 60, Mère Augustine dirige un couvent catholique québécois qui abrite une école de jeunes filles. Passionnée de musique, elle a donné aux cours de musique une grande place dans l'enseignement des pensionnaires. Le calme du pensionnat est soudainement brisé par l'arrivée en cours d'année de la nièce de Mère Augustine, Alice Champagne, une pianiste brillante mais une élève turbulente. Et, pour ne rien arranger, le pensionnat est menacé par l'ouverture au Québec de nombreuses écoles publiques gratuites. Mais les sœurs ne comptent pas rester oisives face à la situation.
Shûhei Amamiya est un garçon de bonne famille dont le rêve est de devenir un grand pianiste, comme son père. Un jour, il déménage de Tokyo pour aller vivre quelque temps chez sa grand-mère malade. Là, il y rencontre Kaï Ichinose, un jeune garçon issu d'une famille pauvre et devient son ami. Dans leur classe, pour être respecté, il faut aller jouer d'un piano abandonné dans la forêt et que l'on dit cassé. Kaï, qui se dit propriétaire du piano, se révèle être le seul à pouvoir en jouer et est de surcroît très doué. Cette rencontre marque le début de l'apprentissage du piano entre deux enfants talentueux : l'un fils de bonne famille, l'autre, enfant des rues mais ayant en commun une passion : le piano. Tous deux se préparent et participent à un concours musical, montré à la fin de ce dessin animé, dont le morceau imposé est la Sonate pour Piano n°8 K.310 de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.