Camille Miralis, Julie Gayet, a young film student, accepts an unusual invitation to visit the nearly 100-year-old Simon Cinéma, a wheelchair-bound cinema legend whose memory is slipping. Cinéma—once an actor, producer, and director—has hired Camille to come to his isolated château just outside Paris every night for 101 days to discuss cinema. He is cared for by his loyal majordomo, Firmin, and Camille soon learns that Cinéma’s mind is “full of stars,” frequently flashing between different identities as he mixes memories with fantasies.
Marcello Mastroianni, [Marcello Mastroianni], Cinéma’s Italian friend, pays a visit and seems unsettled by the old man’s wandering thoughts. Camille tells Marcello that she is writing her thesis about Cinéma, a claim that deepens the peculiar bond developing at the château. The next day, Firmin hints at Vincent, Cinéma’s great-grandson, who supposedly inherits a vast fortune but has not been seen in ten years. Camille and her boyfriend, an aspiring filmmaker known as Mica, hatch a plan to hire an actor to pose as Vincent in order to gain access to Cinéma’s wealth and finance Mica’s project.
The atmosphere thickens as Cinéma’s two ex-wives arrive: Jeanne Moreau and Hanna Schygulla, who compare themselves to the Fates and then suggest the third will soon arrive. A vagabond appears at the gates and is revealed to be Sandrine Bonnaire in disguise, transforming before Cinéma’s eyes as he projects different roles onto her. The scheme intensifies when Mica enlists his friend’s brother—also named Vincent—to impersonate Cinéma’s great-grandson and reclaim a portion of the inheritance.
Alain Delon visits the Château, but Firmin blocks him, insisting that only Vincent can see Cinéma. Japanese tourists soon arrive in numbers, further stirring Cinéma’s already troubled psyche, and Mica becomes part of the crowd—traveling with them as he attempts to manipulate the situation. Camille pushes the illusion forward by arranging for Vincent’s return, while the garden party looms and Marina, an entertainer, captures the guests’ attention—many mistaking her for Elizabeth Taylor. Marina, played by Marina Castelnuovo, ultimately foils the plan by convincing Cinéma to sign his entire fortune over to her.
As Cinéma’s delusions deepen, he imagines himself and Camille at the Cannes Film Festival. He also envisions Catherine Deneuve boating in his lake with Robert De Niro, and later imagines De Niro being shot in the head. Camille takes Cinéma to Mica’s film set; the sight triggers a faint, and Cinéma asks to be taken to Hollywood. There, he encounters Harrison Ford, while Camille and Vincent share a kiss. Back home, Mica reveals he wants Camille back, and Cinéma’s fate remains open to interpretation; in a closing voice-over, he proclaims, “I’m glad to not be with them. I’m like Buñuel. Down with commemorations. Long live anarchy. Down with speeches. Long live desire.”
Some time later, Marcello takes several mementos from the empty château, a quiet coda to the nightmarish, dreamlike interlude that unfolded over those 101 visits. The lines between cinema, memory, and longing blur as the old man’s world slides into a kaleidoscope of stars, fame, and shifting identities, leaving Camille to chart a future that may no longer fit the impossible grammar of Cinéma’s long, starry night.
