Dokter
Hector's parents sent him to an orphanage in treatment for smallpox but... they never picked him up. 35 years later, he still lives in the orphanage, surrounded by children, his playmates. Till a forgotten aunt remembers that he exists. She'll get him to participate in the bakery of her husband, Achilles, to work. Hector shows his skills on the basis of unexpected inventions. So he helps Jos, the son of Achilles, to accomplish his dream to be a cycling champion. Hector's good humor and childlike manner overcomes all resistance and pulls his entire entourage along on the path to success. From now on he can learn what love is...
Henk
At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.
Kapelaan
A woman and her daughter lives in Oostdijk, a village near Amsterdam. One night when the mother is on her way home, she is killed in a car accident in the street they live in.
Reinders
Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the Dutch 1984 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.
Dutch General
The lives of Erik Lanshof and five of his closest friends take different paths when the German army invades the Netherlands in 1940: fight and resistance, fear and resignation, collaboration and high treason.