Two impressionable teenage girls fall in with a beatnik crowd that is content to avoid work and have fun. The group lives for today while committing petty crimes and revels in being outside social convention until their adventures take a murderous turn. A young divorcee with a baby feels that life has passed her by as her friends enjoy a carefree time. Another couple with a young child is headed for divorce when their idyllic bubble is burst and they are overwhelmed by reality.

When 'Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater' comes to town, there's bound to be a spectacle. Reading reports of a variety of supernatural disturbances at Vogler's prior performances abroad, the leading townspeople (including the police chief and medical examiner) request that their troupe provide them a sample of their act, before allowing them public audiences. The scientific-minded disbelievers try to expose them as charlatans, but Vogler and his crew prove too clever for them.

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.