A lonely housewife hears a man’s footsteps in the apartment above her late at night. The upstairs neighbor insists it is her husband who has returned from business but her explanations are soon contradicted. The woman begins to think her neighbor has murdered her husband.

José is an unemployed 18-year-old living in a cramped apartment in the slums of Madrid. Marginalized by poverty, José spends his time with his friend Antonio. However, when Antonio gets his girlfriend, Rosario, pregnant, the two friends try anything to get the money to pay for her to have an abortion.

Paco, the teenage son of a Civil Guard commander in Basque Country, becomes addicted to heroin.

Leandro, an unemployed mason and his friend, Tocho, attempt to rob a tobacconist in the Vallecas district of Madrid, but Mrs. Justa, the tobacconist, impedes it alerting the neighbors who notify police. Inside the shop, the confrontation between the two friends and their 'hostages', the tobacconist and her niece Angeles, is relaxing, and a budding sympathy arises between them.