Get Les Miserables straight once, then move.

Jean Valjean is sentenced to five years in prison for stealing bread to feed his starving nephew. Repeated escape attempts stretch his sentence to nineteen years. When he is finally released, his yellow passport marks him as a dangerous ex-convict everywhere he goes. No one will give him shelter or work. A bishop named Myriel takes him in, and when Valjean steals his silver and is caught by police, the bishop tells the officers it was a gift. He then gives Valjean two silver candlesticks and tells him to use the silver to become an honest man. This act of radical mercy breaks something open in Valjean.

Valjean assumes a new identity as Monsieur Madeleine, builds a successful factory in the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and becomes its mayor. He employs local workers, including Fantine, a young woman hiding the fact that she has an illegitimate daughter named Cosette. When Fantine's secret is exposed, she loses her job. She sends money to the Thénardiers, an innkeeping couple who are supposed to be caring for Cosette but are actually working her like a servant. Fantine sells her hair, then her teeth, then turns to prostitution to keep sending money. She is arrested after a confrontation with a wealthy man who harasses her, and Valjean intervenes to free her. He promises to find Cosette and bring her back. Fantine dies before that happens.

Meanwhile, Inspector Javert, who once worked at the prison where Valjean was held, suspects Madeleine's true identity. When another man is arrested and identified as Valjean, Javert reports this to the authorities. Valjean, rather than let an innocent man be condemned, reveals himself in open court. He is arrested again, escapes, retrieves Cosette from the Thénardiers, and flees with her to Paris.

In Paris, Valjean and Cosette live quietly, moving whenever Javert gets close. Cosette grows up and falls in love with Marius Pontmercy, a young man from a royalist family who has become a republican and joined a student revolutionary group. Marius is also connected to the Thénardiers, who have sunk into criminal life in Paris. The Thénardier daughter Éponine loves Marius but helps him find Cosette anyway, knowing he loves Cosette instead.

The political tension in Paris explodes in June 1832 with the funeral of a popular general. Students build barricades and prepare to fight. Marius joins them. Valjean, who has learned about Marius and wants to protect Cosette's happiness, also goes to the barricade. Javert has infiltrated the rebels as a spy and is captured. Valjean volunteers to execute him but instead lets him go.

The army crushes the uprising. Almost everyone at the barricade dies, including Éponine and the young rebel Gavroche. Marius is badly wounded. Valjean carries him through the Paris sewer system to safety. At the sewer's exit, Thénardier is waiting and lets them through in exchange for money, not realizing who Valjean is. Javert is outside and arrests Valjean, but then releases him so Marius can get medical care. Javert cannot process what he has just done. His entire identity is built on the idea that the law is the only moral authority. Releasing Valjean breaks that identity. He throws himself into the Seine and drowns.