In France, Madame Souza is raising her grandson Champion, a melancholy orphan. They watch an old variety show on television featuring a trio of singers, the Triplets of Belleville (Rose, Blanche, and Violette). When the program is interrupted, Souza asks Champion if the "film" is finished. The listless Champion does not reply and instead changes the channel to a piano concert. Souza, seeing Champion's interest in the music, pulls out an old piano and tries to amuse him, but Champion remains indifferent. She deduces that Champion is lonely and buys him a dog, Bruno. Neither Bruno nor an electric train set succeed in lifting Champion's spirits, and the dog has no interests apart from eating, sleeping, and barking at trains. While tidying Champion's room, Souza discovers a book filled with photos of cyclists. She buys Champion a
tricycle, and he becomes an obsessive cyclist. Some years later he is competing in the
Tour de France, when he is kidnapped by a pair of
mobsters in a
Citroën van. They take him and two other contestants across the Atlantic, Souza pursuing them on a
pedalo. Arriving in the United States penniless and hungry, Souza and the obese Bruno are adopted by the Triplets of Belleville, now elderly, and taken to their seedy apartment. When dinner is finally served, it consists of frog soup and frog stew, with tadpoles for dessert, collected by Violette using "
expanding bait". Souza joins their band, for which she plays the spokes of a bicycle wheel as a
hammered dulcimer while the Triplets play a wire refrigerator shelf as a harp, a vacuum cleaner as a bagpipe, and newspaper percussion. During the show, Souza spots the kidnappers. With the help of the Triplets, Souza rescues the cyclists, who had been forced to pedal-power a gambling machine; they all escape on the pedaling frame, pursued by the mobsters in
Citroën sedans. In a
flashforward, an older Champion watches the TV again showing their adventure when they are leaving the city and remembers Souza asking once more if the film is finished. Champion turns to the empty bench next to him and says "It's over, Grandma". In a humorous post-credits scene, the boatman who rented Souza the pedalo is seen patiently waiting for his vessel to return. ==Cast==