Soldiers Woyzeck and Andres are chopping wood outside the provincial German town where they are stationed. While Andres sings, Woyzeck talks nonsensically about cursed mushrooms. Hearing the sound of trumpets and drums in the distance, the men make their way to town.
In town, Marie holds her and Woyzeck’s child and watches a military procession with her neighbor Margret. When Margret accuses Marie of ogling the brawny drum major leading the parade, Marie gets upset and kicks Margret out. Not long after, Woyzeck returns home and rambles incoherently before leaving suddenly to return to work. He tells Marie he’ll meet her at the fair later.
At the fair, Woyzeck and Marie stand in the crowd and watch animals trained to perform human tasks. A showman remarks on humankind’s true, animal nature and warns his audience that suppressing their animal instincts will lead to dire consequences. The drum major and the sergeant are also at the fair. They notice Marie in the crowd and are struck by her beauty. The drum major remarks that a beautiful, sturdy woman like her could surely produce a whole army of little drum majors.
Sometime later, Marie sits at home, wearing a pair of golden earrings and admiring her reflection in the mirror. Woyzeck enters the room before Marie can hide the earrings. When he confronts her about them, she nervously claims that she found them on the ground. After Woyzeck leaves, Marie scolds herself for her bad behavior.
At the captain’s house later, the captain sits in a chair as Woyzeck shaves him. The captain scolds Woyzeck for rushing. He also criticizes Woyzeck for his supposedly “immoral” behavior. Woyzeck tries to defend himself, arguing that he’d be a good, moral man if only he had more money, but the captain is unmoved.
Sometime later, Marie flirts with the drum major in her room. She eventually relents and allows the drum major to seduce her. After the drum major has left and Woyzeck has returned from work, Woyzeck confronts Marie about her infidelity, which she denies.
Later, Woyzeck goes to see the doctor, who is paying Woyzeck to serve as a research subject in his medical experiments. The doctor reminds Woyzeck that the ongoing experiment requires Woyzeck to eat only peas. Woyzeck mentions some visions he’s been having recently, but the doctor disregards these remarks.
A while later, the captain and the doctor stop Woyzeck as he’s walking down the street and hint at Marie’s affair with the drum major. Woyzeck becomes irate and runs off. His anger and paranoia continue to grow. After he catches Marie and the drum major dancing together at the inn, he is tormented by visions of the couple together, and he starts to hear voices telling him to stab Marie in retaliation. Eventually Woyzeck stops coming by Marie’s place, instead spending his nights with Andres in the barracks. Woyzeck tries to confide in Andres about his struggles, but Andres is unreceptive.
While at the inn one night, Woyzeck gets into a fight with the drum major. The drum major swiftly defeats Woyzeck, humiliating him. Later, Woyzeck enters a shop and purchases a knife.
One night, Woyzeck leads Marie to a pond outside town and stabs her to death in a fit of jealous rage. He heads to the inn afterward but leaves in a panic after someone notices the blood on his hands.
Woyzeck hurriedly returns to the pond to search for his knife, fearing it will be used as evidence against him. He finds the knife and throws it in the pond, then he wades out into the pond to wash the bloodstains from his body.
