Delicatessen

In a dilapidated apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, food is scarce and grain acts as currency. Clapet, the landlord, runs the ground-floor butcher shop and posts job opportunities in the newspaper to lure victims into the building. He murders the victims and butchers them to sell meat to the tenants as a cheap resource.

The last worker is killed and the unemployed circus clown Louison applies for the vacant position. Louison proves to be a superb worker and his spectacular knife trick earns him wary respect from Clapet, who is reluctant to kill him quickly. This uneasy mercy foreshadows the danger simmering in the building.

During routine maintenance, Louison acquires a package dropped by a mailman. He delivers the package to Clapet's daughter Julie, who claims it contains confections and invites him to her that evening. Their exchange seeds a budding connection between them.

Louison's relationship with Julie blossoms into romance. Meanwhile, several tenants are charmed by his boyish charm, which creates anxiety among others who fear for their own safety should he require meat. The mood in the building grows more volatile as sympathy and fear clash.

Clapet tells tenant Marcel Tapioca that his rent is late and he must give up his mother-in-law as payment. That evening Julie begs her father to spare Louison, knowing Clapet is killing tenants for meat. The family’s quiet life is choking on fear and exploitation.

Julie unwraps a newspaper in her refrigerator and reads about the Troglodistes, a group of vegetarian rebels who live underground. She descends into the sewers to contact them and persuades the Troglodistes to help rescue Louison. Her search links the surface dwellers to the underground resistance.

Following the apparent butchering of Tapioca's mother-in-law, the Troglodistes go through the sewer pipes to capture Louison, but end up mistakenly capturing tenant Mademoiselle Plusse instead. The plan to free Louison collapses into a mix-up that exacerbates the danger in the building.

As Julie and Louison watch television, Clapet ascends to the roof and shakes the television antenna to lure Louison up to fix it. Attacking Louison with a cleaver, Clapet's plan is foiled by an unexpected electrical explosion in one of the apartments.

Clapet, along with some tenants, storms Louison's room in another attempt to murder him. Louison and Julie take refuge in a bathroom and flood it, floor to ceiling, until Clapet opens the door, releasing the flood and washing the attackers away.

Mademoiselle Plusse escapes the sewers, finds Louison's boomerang knife, and brings it to Clapet. This exchange sets up the climactic moment that follows.

Clapet throws the knife toward Louison, but inadvertently kills himself. The immediate threat to the tenants collapses with his death, leaving the building to face a fragile, uneasy calm.

With the butcher's shop closed for good, Louison and Julie play music together on the roof of the now peaceful apartment building. Their relationship survives the trial, and the community glimpses a calmer future among the ruins.