In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.

Cousins Thomas and David, owners of a mobile restaurant, team up with their friend Moby, a bumbling private detective, to save the beautiful Sylvia, a pickpocket.

Virgil Starkwell is intent on becoming a notorious bank robber. Unfortunately for Virgil and his not-so-budding career, he is completely incompetent.

Poor Betty gets drugged and kidnapped at a teen beach party and finds herself in clutches of a sleazy prostitution ring. After trying to escape, her head is shaved as punishment. Soon enough, she's the star of the stable for all the local bald freaks.

Teresa is a thirty-years-old woman who has a double life: in the morning she goes out of her home dressed as an office employee but she spends her time walking around on the streets with her friend Valentina. In order to not disappoint her father, Teresa hides her second identity from him. After losing all of her seemingly expansive clothes, Teresa is finally determined to tell him the truth.

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.

Wallingford is a con-man whose specialty is taking money from suckers. His partners are Schnozzle, a pickpocket and car thief; and Blackie, who has played the game for years.

In the heart of Manila, a rookie pickpocket crosses paths with Baldo, the so-called "king of pickpockets".

When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

Three freshly graduated adults try to educate young beggars to become street vendors, but are opposed by their fathers.