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Paprika

In the near future, a newly created device called the DC Mini allows users to view people's dreams. The head of the team working on this treatment, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside the research facility by assuming her dream world alter-ego, a detective named Paprika. Atsuko's closest allies are Dr. Toratarō Shima, the chief of the department, and Dr. Kōsaku Tokita, the inventor of the DC Mini.

Paprika counsels a detective named Toshimi Konakawa, who is plagued by a recurring dream regarding an unknown former colleague and a victim in a homicide case he is investigating. She gives Toshimi a card with the name of a website on it, which leads him into a bar where he is able to meet Paprika, who compares the Internet to dreams. In a meeting with the company chairman, Dr. Seijirō Inui, to discuss the theft of three DC Mini prototypes, Toratarō goes on a nonsensical tirade and jumps through a window, nearly killing himself. Upon examining Toratarō's dream, which is a parade of random objects, Kōsaku recognizes his assistant, Kei Himuro, which confirms their suspicion that the theft was an inside job.

While investigating Himuro's home, Atsuko ignores the warnings that Paprika gives her, and accidentally slips into a dream space, which, due to her frequent use of the DC Mini, can now affect her constantly. Atsuko almost dies, after ignoring another warning by Paprika, but is rescued by her co-investigators.

When two other scientists fall victim to the DC Mini, Seijirō bans the use of the device. This fails to hinder the crazed parade, now inside Himuro's dream, which claims Kōsaku. Paprika and Toratarō discover that Himuro is only an empty shell. The real culprit is Seijirō, who believes that he must protect dreams from humankind's influence through dream therapy, with the help of Dr. Morio Osanai. Investigating the demise of the two scientists, Toshimi meets with Atsuko, Toratarō, and Kōsaku. Leaving the meeting, he has an anxiety attack. In an emergency session with Paprika, she reveals the scenes in his dreams each correspond to genres of movies. The parade bursts into Toshimi's dream, prompting Paprika to leave the session to help Kōsaku in Himuro's dream.

Paprika is captured by Seijirō and Morio, who obsessively confesses his love for Atsuko and peels away Paprika's skin to reveal Atsuko underneath. However, he is interrupted by the outraged Seijirō, who demands that they finish off Atsuko. Meanwhile in his dream at the bar, Toshimi learns his recurring dream is based in anxiety over the illness and death of his colleague from his youth whose memory he'd repressed, with whom he aspired to be a film director. Resolving his anxieties, Toshimi finds and enters Himuro's dream and flees with Atsuko back into his own dream. Morio gives chase, which ends in Toshimi shooting Morio. The act kills Morio's physical body in the real world.

Dreams and reality begin to merge. The dream parade runs amok in the city, and reality starts to unravel. Toratarō is nearly killed by a giant doll, but is saved by Paprika, who now appears as a fully separate entity from Atsuko. Amidst the chaos, Kōsaku, in the form of a giant robot, eats Atsuko and prepares to do the same to Paprika. Seijirō, in a megalomaniacal delirium, returns in the form of a giant humanoid nightmare and threatens to darken the world with his delusions. Paprika throws herself into Kōsaku's body. A baby emerges from the robotic shell and consumes Seijirō, aging into a fully-grown combination of Atsuko and Paprika as she does so, then fades away, ending the nightmare.

In the real world, Atsuko sits at Kōsaku's bedside as he wakes up. Toshimi later visits the website from Paprika's card and receives a message from Paprika, suggesting the film Dreaming Kids to him. He enters a cinema and purchases a ticket for Dreaming Kids.