Proces

Jozef K., a bank clerk, wakes up on his birthday, arrested by agents Wilhelm and Franz for an unknown crime. He is not taken to prison, but is released with instructions to wait and continue his normal life. He feels surveillance everywhere, kisses his neighbor Fräulein Bürstner, and is summoned for a hearing.

He arrives at a rundown attic-courtroom filled with an audience. The judge accuses him of being late, K. gives a fiery speech against the system, and the scene escalates with public sex between the supervisor and his wife. He realizes that the accusation has not been made public. He returns alone, is seduced by the clerk's wife, but is dragged away by a student. He climbs through a bureaucratic labyrinth, is calmed down by a woman from the office.

In the bank, he sees a whipping man punishing the agents. His uncle takes him to the lawyer Huld, whose mistress Leni seduces him. Huld explains the presumed guilt and the multi-level court. A mysterious clerk appears. The court painter Titorelli offers three outcomes: acquittal (impossible), postponement (eternal), or condemnation.

In the cathedral, the priest tells a parable about a peasant at the door of the law. In the village, he meets a girl and Titorelli. After a year, two men take him to a quarry and kill him with a knife in the heart - "like a dog". The accusation remains a secret, life ends in absurdity.