At the beginning of the film we meet Frédérick Lemaître, a young aspiring actor and inveterate womanizer who dreams of becoming a star.  He meets and sweet talks Garance, a beautiful woman who earns her living by exhibiting her physical charms (modestly) in a carnival show.  Garance staves off Frédérick’s advances and goes to visit one of her acquaintances, Lacenaire, an anarchist in revolt against society.  Lacenaire is a proud, dangerous individual who works as a public writer to cover various and sundry shady activities.  Shortly thereafter, Garance is accused of stealing a man’s watch while she is listening to a barker (Baptiste’s father) in front of the Funambules Theater.  Lacenaire is in fact the guilty party.  Baptiste, dressed up as Pierrot, saves her from the police by silently acting out the theft, which he has just witnessed.  He reveals a great talent, a veritable vocation for pantomime, but also falls immediately and irremediably in love with Garance.

Baptiste’s father is one of the stars at the Funambules.  The daughter of the theater director, Nathalie, who is a mime also, is deeply in love with Baptiste.  Before the performance that evening a used clothes peddler named Jericho reads in her palm that she will marry the man she loves.  The old peddler, a suspicious, repugnant character, appears at critical moments throughout the film, moments which are usually related to the future of the other characters.  When a fight breaks out that evening between two rival clans of actors, Baptiste and Frédérick manage to calm the crowd down by improvising a mime act, thus saving the day’s receipts.  The most enthusiastic of the spectators are those seated in “paradise,” that is, on the top floor of the balcony where the cheapest seats are located.

Later that night Baptiste catches sight of Garance with Lacenaire and his accomplices in a seedy restaurant, “The Robin.”  When he invites Garance to dance, he is thrown out of the restaurant by Avril, Lacenaire’s partner.  He turns the situation around and leaves with Garance, for whom he finds a room at the same boarding house (The Great Post House) where he and Frédérick live.  After declaring his love, Baptiste flees Garance’s room, despite her clear invitation to stay.  Frédérick doesn’t have the same scruples.  When he hears Garance singing in her room, which is next to his, he quickly joins her.

Baptiste has become the star of the Funambules, performing pantomime numbers with Garance and Frédéric, who have become lovers.  Baptiste is tormented by their affair, while Nathalie, who is convinced that she and Baptiste are “made for each other,” suffers from his lack of love for her.  Garance is visited in her dressing room by the Count Edouard de Montray, a wealthy and cynical dandy who offers her his fortune if she will agree to become his mistress.  Garance is repelled by him and mockingly rejects his proposition.  The count nonetheless offers her his protection if the need were to arise.  She is later unjustly suspected of complicity in an abortive theft and murder attempt by Lacenaire and Avril.  To avoid arrest she is forced to appeal to the count for protection.  The first part of the film comes to an end with this development.

“The Man in White,” the second epoch of the film, begins several years later.  Frédérick has become famous as the star of the Grand Theater.  A man about town and a spendthrift, he is covered with debts — which doesn’t prevent him from devastating the mediocre play in which he currently has the main role by exposing it to ridicule on opening night.  Outraged, the play’s authors challenge him to a duel.  When he returns to his dressing room, Frédérick is confronted by Lacenaire, who intends to rob and kill him.  However, the anarchist is an amateur playwright and strikes up a friendship with the actor instead.  He serves as Frédérick’s second the next morning, when the actor goes to his duel dead drunk.

Baptiste is still enjoying great success as a mime at the Funambules.  When Frédérick goes to a performance the day after the duel, he finds himself in the same box as Garance.  His former mistress has returned to Paris after having traveled throughout the world with the Count de Montray, who now keeps her.  She has been attending the Funambules every night incognito to watch Baptiste perform.  She is still in love with him.  Frédérick suddenly finds himself jealous for the first time in his life.  While the feeling is highly unpleasant, he realizes that his jealousy will help him as an actor.  He will finally be able to play the role of Othello, having now experienced the emotions which motivate the character.  Garance asks Frédérick to tell Baptiste of her presence, but Nathalie, now Baptiste’s wife, is first informed by Jericho.  She sends their small son to Garance’s box to speak to her of their family’s happiness.  When Baptiste arrives, the box is empty. 

When Garance returns to the count’s luxurious house, she finds Lacenaire waiting for her.  The count is irritated to see such an individual in his home and tries to condescend to him.  Lacenaire reacts with threats, showing a knife at his belt.  After the anarchist’s departure, Garance declares to the count that she will never love him since she is already in love with another man.

Frédérick finally plays the role of Othello.  The Count de Montray, who attends the performance with Garance, is convinced that the actor is the man she loves.  At the end of the play, the count mocks Frédérick, trying to provoke him into a duel.  When Lacenaire takes Frédérick’s side, the count insults him.  Lacenaire takes revenge by calling him a cuckhold and, pulling aside a curtain, reveals Garance in Baptiste’s embrace on the balcony.  The two lovers spend the night together in Garance’s former room at the Grand Post House.

The next morning, at a Turkish bath, Lacenaire assassinates the count for humiliating him the night before by having him thrown out of the theater.  He then sends for the police himself to meet his “destiny,” which is to die on the scaffold.  Nathalie has gone to the hotel, where she surprises Baptiste with Garance.  Having decided to leave Paris, Garance gets into a carriage which moves off into the frantic Carnaval crowd, a sea of bobbing masks and white pierrots.  Baptiste is swept away by the crowd and separated from Garance forever.