Youssef is a hotshot anesthesiologist who often sleeps in his car for privacy. Laila is the careerist host of a late night radio call-in show. These two members of Cairo's elite, lost souls traveling parallel paths of longing and disconnection, are the principal fish in Yousry Nasrallah's The Aquarium, a meditation on the intellectual capital of the Middle East, now bent under the sway of repression in all its forms.
Attia (Yehia al-Fakharani) works as a simple employee, after his mother-in-law threatens to break his engagement from her daughter because of his delay in getting an apartment. He travels to his hometown to sell his inheritance. There he falls in love with Kharyia (Leila Alawi) daughter of Kamal Bey (Farid Shawki) who bought his land.
When Mona marries the seemingly decent police officer Hisham, she finds out there is more into him than what he shows to the people.
Ramzi is a principled musician who lives in his inlaws house. He plays the piano in a resort to make a living. When his sister in law, who hates music, kicks him out, he moves back to his mother's department, and meets Amira, a childhood friend
Journalist Hossam is involved with three different women at the same time. Amira, the charming journalist who's well connected, Reem his rebel revolutionary secretary, and Hanadi the simple lady who's the victim of the collapse of a building.
Reda, a taxi driver, drives the wealthy widow Imane who has just returned from abroad. She lets him drive her to run errands, and he helps her break her sweetheart, the engineer Hassan, out from a mental hospital.
Yousef is a naive employee who goes out on his day off to meet strange characters, including a wretch dressed like Charlie Chaplin and Said Marzouq, an eccentric multi-faceted billionaire, full of contradictions and ambiguity. While trying to find himself ,he becomes accused of murder.
Mabrouk, the village idiot and his sister Fatheya inherit a land after the death of their mother. Bolbol moves to Cairo after suffering from her step mother's treatment and becomes a prostitute, when she returns to the village, she meets Mabrouk who was her childhood sweetheart and their love flourishes again.
Hassan and Tawhida work in the phone company. They listen in on calls and discover many secrets and crimes, which makes them blackmail the callers and report them to the police. After making a lot of money, they get married and Tawhida wants them to leave their old ways behind.
In June 1945, during the final days of WWII, former university professor Gohar meets a young prostitute in a brothel and kills her in a moment of frenzy. Police Detective Noureddine takes on the murder case and tracks down Gohar, hoping to confront him and get a confession to the murder from him. However, both the detective and the killer face startling facts that change the way they think.
