Set in Vienna in 1900, it shows ten amorous encounters across the social spectrum, from a street prostitute to the nobility, with each scene involving one character from the previous episode.

[2] The master of ceremonies opens the proceedings by telling the audience that they will see various episodes in the endless waltz of love.

The poet has a heated discussion with an actress in her dressing room after a performance of his play, in which she is starring, about where they will spend the night.

Although, at the time the film was made, his son was still abiding by his explicit wish that his play Reigen should never be performed or adapted, Ophuls was able to secure the rights to make a film adaptation in French because Schnitzler had willed the rights to the French translation of the play (titled La Ronde) to his French-language translator, who granted permission.

At the end of 1953, the film's producers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and, in 1954, La Ronde was approved for exhibition in New York without any cuts.