Jules and Jim are the best of friends. They meet in their youth in Paris, Jules from Germany and Jim from France. They learn to speak one another’s language and share a deep desire for art and to write and make their mark on the world the way the great artists have influenced them.
Jules then meets Catherine and after a brief courtship decided he wants to propose to her. Then World War I breaks out and Jules is sent to fight for Germany and Jim for France. They fear they may kill one another the entire time. After the war Jim visits Jules and Catherine and their daughter Sabine in Germany, where they now live. Jules reveals that Catherine has had multiple affairs and that he is miserable. Catherine shares the same story with Jim.
Soon Jim and Catherine fall in love and Jules encourages him to marry Catherine and they can all live together. Jules does not want to lose Catherine, regardless of the price. So, they live together and Jim and Catherine try to conceive a child, but are unable to and Catherine wants nothing to do with Jim. He goes back to Paris and receives a letter stating that Catherine is pregnant. Through a series of letters back and forth the couple fall in and out of love over and over until Catherine’s baby dies in the womb; then she only wants silence from Jim.
Jim marries Gilberte and runs into Jules in Paris years later. They go with Catherine for a drive to meet Albert for lunch. She leaves Jules and Jim in order to sleep with Albert. Months late,r Catherine wants Jim back, but he refuses and she pulls a gun on him to shoot him. He takes it from her and escapes.
The final meeting between the trio occurs when they see one another in a movie theater before the start of World War II. They go to lunch and Catherine asks Jim to drive with her, telling Jules to watch them. Catherine drives the car off of a bridge, killing herself and Jim. Jules cremates them; he is filled with mixed emotions, sorrow at the loss of his closest friend and the relief that the burdens of Catherine are put to an end.
