Just out of prison, the women have no money and no identity cards. They can't rent a hotel room, and they can't travel out of the city. All they can do is hide from the police, who are everywhere. From there, The Circle passes the baton to a different series of women. These include a mother abandoning her daughter at a newsstand in hopes of a better life for the little girl.
Night falls, and the men offering rides and companionship get more insistent.
One last member of the circle is a common whore, picked up in a police's checkpoint. While the cops are shaking down her john, she stands, bored, chewing gum. Suddenly, she spots a woman stealthily escaping from the police. But this moment evaporates, showing us director Panahi's limits. Throughout the film, a wedding party appears and reappears.