A family have become disillusioned with one another. The father has an affair and is caught by his daughter, who has already hooked up with the free-love hippies who live next door. When her mother realizes, she too travels next door.

At the end of the year 1961, three young students, Denys Arcand, Denis Héroux and Stéphane Venne, decide to direct a feature-length film centered on the perks of student life. The film mixes fiction and reality in the style of cinéma vérité. "Alone or with others" is often considered the first indepent film of Québec.