Linguist Louise Banks's daughter Hannah dies at the age of twelve from an incurable illness. Twelve extraterrestrial spacecraft hover over various locations around the Earth. In the ensuing widespread panic, affected nations send military and scientific experts to monitor and study them. In the United States, US Army Colonel Weber recruits Banks and physicist Ian Donnelly to study the craft above Montana. On board, Banks and Donnelly make contact with two cephalopod -like, seven-limbed aliens, whom they call "heptapods"; Donnelly nicknames them Abbott and Costello. Banks and Donnelly research the complex written language of the heptapods, consisting of phrases written with logograms, and share the results with other nations. As Banks studies the language, she starts to have flashback-like visions of her daughter. When Banks is able to establish sufficient shared vocabulary to ask why the heptapods have come, they answer with a statement that could be translated as "offer weapon". China interprets this as "use weapon", prompting them to break off communications, and other nations follow. Banks argues that the symbol interpreted as "weapon" can be more abstractly related to the concepts of "means" or "tool"; China's translation likely results from interacting with the heptapods using mahjong, a highly competitive game. Meanwhile, the Russian team receives a message that they translate as "there is no time," which they interpret as a possible threat. Rogue soldiers plant a bomb in the Montana craft. Unaware, Banks and Donnelly reenter the alien vessel, and the aliens give them a more complex message. Just before the bomb explodes, one of the aliens ejects Donnelly and Banks from the vessel, knocking them unconscious. When they wake, the heptapod craft has moved beyond reach and the US military is preparing to evacuate in case of retaliation. General Shang of China issues an ultimatum to the alien craft in China, demanding that it leave within 24 hours. Russia, Pakistan, and Sudan follow suit; communications between the international research teams are terminated as worldwide panic sets in. Donnelly discovers that the symbol for time is present throughout the message and that the writing occupies exactly one-twelfth of the 3D space into which it is projected. Banks suggests that the full message is split between the twelve craft and that the heptapods want all the nations to collaborate in order to decipher it. Banks goes alone to the Montana craft, which sends down a transport pod. Abbott has been mortally injured as a result of the explosion. Costello explains that they have come to help humanity, because in 3,000 years' time they will need humanity's help in return. Banks realizes the "weapon" is their language. Learning the language alters humans' linear perception of time, allowing them to experience memories of future events. Banks's visions of her daughter are revealed to be premonitions; her daughter will not be born until sometime in the future. Banks returns to the camp as it is being evacuated and tells Donnelly that the aliens' language is the "tool" that was meant by the word "weapon". She experiences a premonition of a United Nations event celebrating global unity achieved by finally deciphering the heptapods' language. At the event, General Shang thanks Banks for persuading him to stop the attack when she called his private number and recited his wife's dying words. He then shows her his private number and whispers his wife's words into her ear. In the present, Banks takes CIA agent Halpern's satellite phone from a table and calls Shang's private number to recite the words. The Chinese announce that they are standing down and releasing their twelfth of the message. The other countries follow suit, and the twelve spacecraft depart. From what she has learned, Banks writes and publishes a book called The Universal Language, a guide to the heptapod language, which will eventually teach humanity to perceive time the same way as the heptapods. During the evacuation, Donnelly expresses his love for Banks. They talk about their life choices and whether he would change them if he could see his life from beginning to end. Banks knows that she will agree to have a child with him despite knowing their fate: that Hannah will die from an incurable disease and that Donnelly will leave them both as a result of her revealing that she knew this.

On his wedding night in 1953, an errant champagne cork renders Detroit college engineering professor Robert Kearns almost completely blind in his left eye. Ten years later, he is happily married to Phyllis and the father of six children. As he drives his Ford Galaxie through a light rain, the constant movement of the windshield wipers irritates his troubled vision. The incident inspires him to create a wiper blade mechanism modeled on the human eye, which blinks every few seconds rather than continuously. With financial support from Gil Previck, Kearns converts his basement into a laboratory and develops a prototype he tests in a fish tank before installing it in his car. He patents his invention and demonstrates it for Ford researchers, who had been working on a similar project without success. Kearns refuses to explain how his mechanism works until he hammers out a favorable deal with the corporation. Impressed with Kearns' results, executive Macklin Tyler asks him to prepare a business plan detailing the cost of the individual units, which Kearns intends to manufacture himself. Considering this to be sufficient commitment from the company, Kearns rents a warehouse he plans to use as a factory and forges ahead. He presents Ford with the pricing information it requested along with a sample unit, and then waits for their response. Time passes, and when nobody contacts Kearns, he begins placing phone calls that are never returned. Frustrated, Kearns attends a Ford dealers' convention at which the latest model of the Mustang is unveiled, promoting the intermittent wiper as a selling point. Realizing the company has used his idea without giving him credit or payment for it, Kearns begins his descent into a despair so deep he boards a Greyhound bus and heads for Washington, D.C., where he apparently hopes to find legal recourse. Instead, Maryland state troopers remove him from the bus and escort him to a psychiatric hospital, where he is treated for a nervous breakdown. Finally released when doctors decide his obsession has subsided, he returns home a broken man, determined to receive public acknowledgement for his accomplishment. Thus begins years of legal battles, during which time his wife leaves him, and he becomes estranged from his children. At trial, Kearns represents himself after attorney Gregory Lawson withdraws from the case, because Kearns refuses to settle. Eventually Kearns' ex-wife and children support him in his endeavor. Toward the end of the trial, Ford offers Kearns a $30 million settlement, but without admitting wrongdoing. Kearns decides to leave his fate in the hands of the jury, who determine that Ford infringed his patents, but that the infringement was not deliberate. The jury awards him $10.1 million. The closing credits indicate that Kearns later wins an $18.7 million judgement from Chrysler Corporation as well.

A man named Alderson awakens in a room that has hatches on each wall and floor, each leading to other rooms. He enters another room and is killed by a hidden wiretrap. Five different people all meet in another room: three men (Quentin, Rennes, and Worth), and two women (Leaven and Holloway). Quentin warns the group that he has seen traps in some of the other rooms. Leaven notices each hatch has plates with three sets of numbers etched into them. Rennes tests his theory that each trap could be triggered by detectors by throwing his boot into a room, and starts moving through the safe rooms. This works for motion detectors and pressure sensors, but fails to trigger the trap in one of the rooms and he is killed by an acid trap. Quentin believes each person was chosen to be there. Leaven hypothesizes that rooms whose plates contain prime numbers are traps. They encounter a mentally disabled man named Kazan, whom Holloway insists be brought along. Tension rises among the group, as well as the mystery of the maze's purpose. Worth admits to Quentin he was hired to design the maze’s shell and guesses that The Cube was created accidentally by a bureaucracy, and that its original purpose has been forgotten and that they have been placed inside only to justify its existence. Worth's knowledge of the exterior dimensions allows Leaven to calculate that the Cube has 17,576 rooms, plus a "bridge" room that would connect to the shell, and thus, the exit. She realizes that the numbers may indicate each room's coordinates. The group travels to the edge but realize every room there is a trap. They successfully traverse a room with a trap. Holloway defends Kazan from Quentin's threats. The group reaches the edge, but can see no exit. Holloway tries to swing over to the shell using a rope made of clothing. The Cube shakes, causing the rope to slip; Quentin catches it at the last second and pulls her up, but then deliberately drops her to her death, telling the others that she slipped. Quentin picks up Leaven and carries her to a different room in her sleep, intending to abandon Kazan and Worth. He tries to assault her, but Worth follows and attacks him. Quentin counters savagely, then throws Worth down a hatch to a different room. Upon landing, Worth starts laughing hysterically; Rennes's corpse is in the room, proving they have moved in a circle. Quentin is horrified, but Worth realizes the room Rennes died in has now moved to the edge of the maze, meaning they haven't gone in a circle at all. Instead, the rooms are moving, and will eventually line up with the exit. Leaven deduces that traps are not tagged by prime numbers, but by powers of prime numbers. Kazan is revealed as a savant who can calculate factorizations in his head instantaneously. Leaven and Kazan guide the group through the cube to the bridge. Worth then traps Quentin in a hatch. He catches up and attempts to attack them, but Worth opens a hatch under him from the room below. All but Quentin travel to the bridge where they open the hatch, revealing a bright light. Quentin reappears and, using a detached door lever, severely injures Leaven and Worth. As Quentin pursues Kazan through the exit, Worth grabs Quentin's legs, trapping him in the bridge’s doorway. The bridge moves, killing Quentin. As the bridge returns to the recesses of the cube, Worth crawls to a fallen Leaven as he too bleeds out. Kazan wanders out into the light.

In 2018, an American crewed mission lands on the Moon. The lander carries two astronauts, one of them an African-American model, James Washington, specifically chosen to aid the U.S. President's re-election (various "Black to the Moon" posters are seen, extolling the new landing). Upon landing on the far side of the Moon, they encounter the descendants of Nazis who escaped to the Moon. Washington is taken captive after the other astronaut is killed. Nazi mad scientist Doktor Richter examines Washington and obtains his smartphone, which he later recognizes as having more computing power than their 1940s-style computers, enabling its use as a control unit to complete their space battleship Götterdämmerung. When Richter strives to demonstrate his Wunderwaffe to the current Führer, Wolfgang Kortzfleisch, the phone's battery is quickly exhausted. Nazi commander Klaus Adler, seeking to marry Richter's daughter Renate, an Earth specialist, embarks in a flying saucer to collect more such computers on Earth. He takes with him Washington, who has been " Aryanized " by Doktor Richter using an " albinizing " drug. Upon landing in New York City, they discover that Renate has stowed away with them. They abandon Washington after he connects them with the President's campaign adviser, Vivian Wagner, who, in a parody of a scene from Downfall had raged at her staff for their inability to create effective marketing to improve The President's ratings. Adler and Renate energize the President's re-election campaign using Nazi-style rhetoric. Renate is unaware of Adler's ambition to rule the world. Later, Kortzfleisch interprets Adler's lack of communication as treachery. He commands a much larger fleet of flying saucers and giant Zeppelin -like spacecraft called Siegfrieds which tow asteroids as missiles. Renate finds a now homeless Washington on the street, and together they watch The Great Dictator. From this, Renate realizes the Nazis' true intentions and that Adler intends global genocide. Kortzfleisch lands on Earth and confronts Adler, but is killed by Adler and Vivian, who were beginning an intimate relationship. Adler declares himself the new Führer before returning to orbit in Kortzfleisch's flying saucer, deserting Vivian but taking her iPad. Afterwards, the Moon Nazis launch a blitzkrieg on New York City. The U.S. Air Force engage the flying saucers with some success. The United Nations assembles to discuss the Moon Nazi threat. The President appoints Vivian as commander of the secretly militarised spacecraft USS George W. Bush, which carries nuclear and directed-energy weapons, in blatant violation of the Outer Space Treaty. Vivian intends to get revenge on Adler, but is quickly outgunned, only to discover that every other nation (except Finland) has also broken the treaty and secretly armed their spacecraft. They dispatch them against the Nazi fleet and wipe out the Siegfrieds. Adler arrives in Kortzfleisch's flying saucer with the iPad to activate the Götterdämmerung. Renate and Washington travel in Adler's flying saucer, where Washington goes to disable the engines while Renate seeks out Adler. Meanwhile, the international space fleet damage the Nazis' Moon base and approach the Götterdämmerung which dwarfs them all. Commanding the Götterdämmerung, Adler destroys parts of the Moon to expose Earth to his line-of-fire. During the battle, Washington disconnects Vivian's iPad from the control panel of the Götterdämmerung, while Renate kills Adler before he can fire at Earth. Renate and Washington separately escape as the Götterdämmerung crashes into the Moon. The U.S. president congratulates Vivian from the UN session; whereupon Vivian discloses the presence of large tanks of helium-3 on the Moon, of which the President immediately claims on grounds that it ensures a millennium-long supply of energy. This enrages the other UN members, one of whom throws his shoes at her, inciting a large brawl. Meanwhile, the international space fleet turns on each other and every ship is destroyed in the process. At the damaged Moon base, Renate reunites with Washington, who has reverted his pigmentation back to normal. They kiss before a confused group of Nazi survivors. The final moments of the film show the Earth apparently during an international nuclear war. At the very end of the credits, the planet Mars is revealed with an artificial satellite in orbit.

Dom Cobb and Arthur are "extractors" who perform corporate espionage using experimental dream-sharing technology to infiltrate their targets' subconscious and extract information. Their latest target, Saito, is impressed with Cobb's ability to layer multiple dreams within each other. He offers to hire Cobb for the ostensibly impossible job of implanting an idea into a person's subconscious; performing "inception" on Robert Fischer, the son of Saito's competitor Maurice Fischer, with the idea to dissolve his father's company. In return, Saito promises to clear Cobb's criminal status, allowing him to return home to his children. Cobb accepts the offer and assembles his team: a forger named Eames, a chemist named Yusuf, and a college student named Ariadne. Ariadne is tasked with designing the dream's architecture, something Cobb himself cannot do for fear of being sabotaged by his mind's projection of his late wife, Mal. Maurice Fischer dies, and the team sedates Robert Fischer into a three-layer shared dream on an airplane to America bought by Saito. Time on each layer runs slower than the layer above, with one member staying behind on each to perform a music-synchronized " kick " (using the French song " Non, je ne regrette rien ") to awaken dreamers on all three levels simultaneously. The team abducts Robert in a city on the first level, but unknown to any team member, his subconscious projections, trained to anticipate such a scenario, attack them. After Saito is wounded, Cobb reveals that while dying in the dream would usually awaken dreamers, Yusuf's sedatives will instead send them into " Limbo ": a world of infinite subconscious. Eames impersonates Robert's godfather, Peter Browning, to introduce the idea of an alternate will to dissolve the company. Cobb explains to Ariadne that he and Mal entered Limbo while experimenting with dream-sharing, experiencing fifty years in one night due to the time dilation with reality. After waking up, Mal still believed she was dreaming. Attempting to "wake up," she committed suicide and framed Cobb for her murder to force him to do the same. Cobb fled the U.S., leaving his children behind. Yusuf drives the team around the first level as they are sedated into the second level, a hotel dreamed by Arthur. Cobb persuades Robert that Browning has kidnapped him to stop the dissolution and that Cobb is a defensive projection, leading Robert to another third level deeper as part of a ruse to enter Robert's subconscious. In the third level, the team infiltrates an alpine fortress with a projection of Maurice inside, where the inception itself can be performed. However, Yusuf performs his kick too soon by driving off a bridge, forcing Arthur and Eames to improvise a new set of kicks synchronized with them hitting the water by rigging an elevator and the fortress, respectively, with explosives. Mal then appears and kills Robert before he can be subjected to the inception; he and Saito are subsequently lost in Limbo, forcing Cobb and Ariadne to rescue them in time for Robert's inception and Eames's kick. Cobb reveals that during their time in Limbo, Mal refused to return to reality; Cobb had to convince her it was only a dream, accidentally incepting in her the belief that the real world was still a dream. Cobb makes peace with his part in Mal's death. Ariadne kills Mal's projection and wakes Robert up with a kick. Revived into the third level, Robert discovers the planted idea: his dying father telling him to create something for himself. While Cobb searches for Saito in Limbo, the others ride the synced kicks back to reality. Cobb finds an aged Saito and reminds him of their agreement. The dreamers all awaken on the plane, and Saito makes a phone call. Arriving in Los Angeles, Cobb passes the immigration checkpoint, and his father-in-law accompanies him to his home. Cobb uses Mal's "totem" – a top that spins indefinitely in a dream – to test if he is indeed in the real world, but he chooses not to observe the result and instead joins his children.

After 32 people mysteriously drop dead in Boston, the U.S. government calls in scientists Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes and Dr. Serge Leveque. They determine that each person had a pacemaker and that electrical interference has caused them to malfunction. Other incidents involving the Earth's magnetic field lead Josh and Dr. Conrad Zimsky to the conclusion that the Earth's inner core has stopped rotating. Unless it is restarted, the magnetic field will continue to degrade and eventually collapse, exposing the Earth to devastating solar radiation. The U.S. government devises a plan to detonate nuclear weapons within the Earth's outer core to restart the rotation. They bring on Zimsky's former partner, Dr. Ed "Braz" Brazzelton, to build a vessel to deliver the bombs. The vessel, named Virgil, is made of unobtainium, a material that Braz developed to withstand extreme pressure. NASA pilots Commander Robert Iverson and Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs are enlisted to pilot Virgil and computer hacker Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch is recruited to avoid general panic by keeping news of further disasters and Virgil 's mission off the internet. Virgil is launched through the Marianas Trench and enters the crust using a laser-based drilling array. After entering the mantle, Virgil drills and falls into a gigantic empty geode, damaging the drilling array. While working to free the vessel from the outside, Iverson is killed by a falling shard. They escape before the geode is flooded with magma. As Virgil passes through a field of diamond formations, one of them breaches the compartment housing the weapons-control module. Serge sacrifices himself to get the team the information and tools they need to detonate the nukes before the compartment is sealed and jettisoned. The team reaches the outer core and realizes that it is much less dense than previously believed, meaning that their nuclear payload is too small for their current plan. Zimsky shares this with mission leader Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell and reveals to the team his work on DESTINI, a U.S. tectonic weapon that likely stopped the core's rotation. Purcell orders them to return, as he plans to try to use DESTINI to restart the core. However, Josh argues that doing so could permanently destabilize it and trigger massive natural disasters. The team elects to continue over Zimsky and Purcell's objections. A burst of ultraviolet rays destroys the Golden Gate Bridge and causes power outages along the West Coast. Concerned about further power outages preventing DESTINI from being fired, Purcell gives the order to do so. Josh communicates with Rat about DESTINI and the latter prevents Purcell from firing the weapon by redirecting power away from it. The team devises a plan to place a bomb in each of Virgil 's remaining compartments, jettison them, and stagger the detonations, using constructive wave interference to increase the force of the bombs. Braz sacrifices himself, going into the uncooled crawlspace of the ship and activating the control so they can manually detach compartments. As they set the charges, Josh and Zimsky realize that the last bomb needs more explosive power than the others. The bomb in the second-to-last compartment falls on Zimsky's leg and he is unable to escape before the compartment is ejected. Josh uses the nuclear fuel rods from Virgil 's reactor to provide the additional energy for the final detonation. The main compartment is left powerless as the bombs begin to detonate, killing Zimsky, and successfully restarting the core's rotation. Josh recalls that unobtainium can convert heat and pressure to energy and the two restore Virgil 's power in time to ride the pressure wave from the explosions out of the core. Eventually they breach the ocean floor near Hawaii, but lose power due to the cold water. Purcell and the U.S. Navy conducted search operations for them until Rat realized that the Virgil crew is using low-power ultrasound to draw whales to them, leading to Josh and Beck being rescued. Shortly afterward, Rat uploads information about Virgil, its team, and DESTINI to the internet, leading to worldwide news reports and tributes to the lost team members.

"Cutters" edit the collected memories of the recently deceased into feature-length memorials that are viewed by loved ones at funerals. The "cutters code" forbids them to mix footage from implants, to sell memories, and to have the implant themselves. Ten-year-old Alan Hakman, while visiting a city with his parents, meets another boy, Louis, and the two bond as they play together. Louis reluctantly joins Hakman in exploring an abandoned factory, and Hakman crosses a wooden plank suspended high above the ground. Goaded by Hakman, Louis also attempts to cross the plank, but he loses his confidence and falls. Hakman races to the ground and panics when he steps in what he thinks is Louis's blood. Hakman flees the scene and tells no one what has happened. Later that day, he leaves the city with his parents. Years later, the adult Hakman has become a skilled cutter who specializes in editing the memories of controversial people into flattering life stories. When Fletcher, a former cutter, confronts him at a funeral, Hakman describes himself as a sin-eater, who brings redemption to the immoral. Fletcher offers him $500,000 for the memories of his latest client, wealthy businessman Charles Bannister, but Hakman refuses. In a meeting, Fletcher demands the memory recordings so that he can use Bannister, who he suspects was a pedophile, as a scandal to shut down EYE Tech, the implant manufacturer. Hakman again refuses and, worried for his safety, uses his knowledge from memory tapes to shake down a shady criminal for a pistol. As Hakman works through Bannister's memories, he encounters a scene that implies that Bannister was molesting his daughter Isabel, and Hakman wordlessly deletes it. He eventually comes across a person who he is convinced must be his childhood friend Louis. Excited, he sets up a meeting with Bannister's family to find out more information. Bannister's wife Jennifer is dismissive, but Isabel reveals that the man, recently dead of a car crash, was a teacher named Louis Hunt. Hoping that Hunt had an implant, Hakman organizes a break-in at EYE Tech, but they have no record of Hunt. However, Hakman surprisingly finds a file on himself that contains documentation of his parents' purchase of an implant for him. In his distress, Hakman turns to his lover, Delila. At his apartment, he shows her the equipment that he uses to view memories, and he demonstrates surreal footage from a defective implant. He leaves her alone as he seeks help from anti-implant protestors, who have discovered a way to block the implant through specialized body modification. When he returns to find his apartment in disarray, he assumes that Fletcher has broken in; instead, Delila confronts him, having found memory tapes that document her prior relationship. She accuses him of voyeurism and angrily destroys his memory viewer, which results in Bannister's files also being damaged. Fletcher and his associate finally break in, but they find nothing. Hakman tells Bannister's wife that the erased footage was lost in an accident, and she feigns disappointment, content to let dirty secrets stay hidden. Hakman asks his colleagues to recover live footage from his own implant, a potentially deadly process. They agree but admonish him that he can never cut memories again; a cutter with an implant is a violation of the "Cutter's code". The recorded memories show that Hakman had attempted to dissuade Louis from crossing the plank, and that he had stepped in red paint, not blood. Hakman, relieved, visits Hunt's grave but is confronted again by Fletcher, who has learned about Hakman's implant. After chasing Hakman through the graveyard, he hesitates and seems willing to let Hakman go; however, Fletcher's associate kills Hakman. Fletcher loads Hakman's memories (which contain the memories of everyone he had viewed as a cutter) into a viewer and promises to use them for the greater good. As he pages through Hakman's memories, looking for evidence of Bannister's guilt, he sees the young Hakman looking in a mirror.

In 1890s London, Robert Angier, Alfred Borden, and Angier's wife, Julia, work as magician's assistants under the mentorship of John Cutter. During a water tank trick, Julia drowns after Borden incorrectly ties her wrists. Angier blames Borden, and the two men become bitter rivals. Both men pursue separate careers in magic. Borden, a gifted inventor of illusions, marries a woman named Sarah, with whom he has a daughter named Jess, and hires an enigmatic assistant, Fallon. Angier, whose strength lies more in showmanship, continues working with Cutter and takes on a new assistant, Olivia. The feud escalates as Angier and Borden visit and sabotage each other's acts. Borden loses two fingers after being shot by Angier during a pistol trick, and Borden violently thwarts Angier's bird act in front of a live audience. Borden next debuts a spectacular illusion, The Transported Man, in which he appears to teleport from one side of the stage to the other almost instantly. Angier becomes obsessed with discovering the trick's secret and, with Cutter's help, roughly recreates the act using a lookalike named Root, a failed actor. Though Angier's version is successful, he resents remaining hidden beneath the stage while Root takes the applause. Desperate to outdo Borden, he sends Olivia to spy on him, but she falls in love with Borden and defects, and passes Borden's coded diary to Angier. Borden reveals to Angier that the key word, TESLA, supposedly decrypts the diary and reveals his method. Seeking answers, Angier travels to Colorado Springs to meet the inventor Nikola Tesla. Believing Tesla built a teleportation device for Borden, Angier commissions Tesla to make one. Tesla eventually delivers a working machine but warns that it will bring only misery. When used, the device creates a duplicate of its subject while leaving the original person intact. In London, Angier uses the machine in a new illusion, The Real Transported Man, which earns him acclaim. Sarah, suspicious of Borden's secrecy and affair with Olivia, hangs herself. Determined to uncover Angier's method, Borden sneaks backstage during a performance of The Real Transported Man and witnesses Angier fall into a water tank and drown. He attempts to open the tank and save Angier, but is arrested for Angier's murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Borden is approached by a solicitor for a wealthy Lord Caldlow, who offers to care for Borden's daughter Jess in exchange for the secret behind the original Transported Man. When Caldlow visits the prison, Borden is horrified to discover that he is actually Angier. Borden passes this Angier a note revealing the secret, but Angier tears it up, leaving him to hang. Cutter helps dispose of Tesla's teleportation machine. A disguised visitor shoots Angier in the basement of his theater, revealing himself as Borden. The mortally wounded Angier learns the truth: "Borden" is in fact a pair of identical twins sharing one identity. One twin loved Sarah, the other Olivia; one lost two fingers, and the other amputated his same two fingers to match; one has survived, while the other was executed. Together they performed The Transported Man by switching places undetected, and whenever one twin was performing, the other hid using prosthetics and makeup under the identity "Fallon". Dying, Angier confesses that each time he used Tesla's machine, it created a clone, one of whom drowned beneath the stage each night, and that he is no longer sure of his own identity. The surviving Borden brother reclaims his daughter, as Cutter narrates that the final act of any magic trick—the "prestige"—is the return of what was thought lost. Angier's death knocks over a kerosene lamp that sends his theater up in flames, revealing rows of water tanks holding the corpses of his many duplicates.

During a surprise nuclear attack drill, many USAF Strategic Missile Wing controllers prove unwilling to turn the keys required to launch a missile strike. Such refusals convince Dr. John McKittrick and other NORAD systems engineers that missile launch control centers must be automated, without human intervention. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer known as WOPR (War Operation Plan Response, pronounced " whopper "), or Joshua, programmed to continuously run war simulations and learn over time. David Lightman, a bright but unmotivated Seattle high school student and hacker, uses his IMSAI 8080 computer and modem to access the school district's computer system and change the grades for himself and his friend and classmate, Jennifer Mack. Later, while wardialing numbers in Sunnyvale, to find a computer game company, he connects with a system that does not identify itself. When asking for games, he finds a list that includes chess, checkers, backgammon, and poker, along with titles such as "Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare" and "Global Thermonuclear War", but cannot proceed further. Two hacker friends explain the concept of a backdoor password and suggest tracking down the Falken referenced in "Falken's Maze", the first game listed. David discovers that Stephen Falken was an early AI researcher and guesses correctly that the name of Falken's deceased son (Joshua) is the password. Unaware that the Sunnyvale phone number connects to WOPR at the non-public U.S. military installation at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, David initiates a game of Global Thermonuclear War, playing as the USSR while targeting American cities. The computer starts a simulation that briefly convinces NORAD military personnel that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound. While they defuse the situation, WOPR nonetheless continues the simulation to trigger the scenario and win the game, as it does not understand the difference between reality and simulation. It continuously feeds false data, such as Soviet bomber incursions and submarine deployments to NORAD, prompting them to raise the DEFCON level toward retaliation that will start WWIII. David learns the true nature of his actions from a news broadcast, and the FBI arrests him and takes him to NORAD. He realizes that WOPR is behind the NORAD alerts, but he fails to convince McKittrick that he is not working for the Soviets and is detained to await arraignment on espionage charges. David escapes NORAD by joining a tourist group and, with Jennifer's help, travels to an island off the coast of Oregon where Falken lives under an assumed name. David and Jennifer find that Falken has become despondent, believing that nuclear war is inevitable and as futile as a game of tic-tac-toe between two experienced players. The teenagers convince Falken to return to NORAD and stop WOPR. WOPR stages a massive Soviet first strike with hundreds of missiles, submarines, and bombers. Believing the attack to be genuine, NORAD prepares to retaliate. Falken, David, and Jennifer convince military officials to delay the second strike and ride out the supposed attack until actual weapons impacts are confirmed. When three targeted American bases report no impacts, NORAD prepares to cancel the second strike. However, WOPR locks the staff out and tries to launch the missiles itself, using a brute-force attack to obtain the launch code. Without humans in the control centers as a safeguard, WOPR will be able to launch the missiles as soon as it determines the correct code. Falken and David direct the computer to play tic-tac-toe against itself. This results in a long string of draws, forcing the computer to learn about futility and no-win scenarios. WOPR obtains the launch codes, then cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, finding that they all result in draws as well. Having discovered the concept of mutual assured destruction ("WINNER: NONE"), the computer tells Falken it has concluded that nuclear war is "a strange game" in which "the only winning move is not to play." WOPR relinquishes control of NORAD and the missiles and inquires, "How about a nice game of chess?"

Harry Caul, a surveillance expert in San Francisco, specializes in audio recordings. He and his team are hired by a client known as "the Director" to eavesdrop on a couple, whom they record walking in circles in Union Square. Despite the background noise, Harry filters and merges the tapes to create a clear recording with ambiguous meaning. Harry is intensely private, obsessively guarding his personal life; though he insists that he is not responsible for how his clients use the surveillance he creates, he is haunted by guilt from a past job that resulted in three deaths. He meets with Martin Stett (Ford) who meets with Harry instead of the Director, who told Harry to give the tapes only to him. Harry wrests them away and Stett warns him about the contents of the tapes. When he discovers a potentially dangerous phrase in the recording, "He'd kill us if he got the chance," Harry becomes increasingly anxious. His attempt to deliver the recording is thwarted, and he is both followed and threatened. After a party at his workshop, Harry spends the night with a woman he has just met and the tapes are stolen. He receives a call from Martin Stett, the Director's assistant, informing him that the Director could not wait any longer and they have the tapes. Harry is tasked with delivering the pictures taken and collecting his money in a meeting with the Director that afternoon. There he learns that the woman in the recording is the Director's wife, involved in an affair. Harry, suspecting murder, books a hotel room next to the one the couple had mentioned for a planned rendezvous in the recording, and sees a bloody altercation from the balcony. Convinced there was a murder, Harry breaks into the room; he initially finds the room spotless, but when he flushes the toilet it is clogged and overflowing with blood. Attempting to confront the Director, Harry discovers the wife is alive and unharmed, as is her lover. A newspaper headline reports that an executive has supposedly died in a car accident. Harry realizes that the couple actually murdered the Director, having missed the emphasis on the word "us" in the recording, which not only expressed the couple's fear of being killed by the Director if he discovered the affair, but was also an attempt to justify killing him first as a defensive move. Stett calls Harry at his apartment, and warns him not to investigate. He plays a freshly made recording of Harry playing his saxophone to prove they are listening. Harry frantically searches for bugs in his apartment, destroying nearly everything in it. Having failed to locate the bug, Harry sits alone amid the wreckage, playing his saxophone.

Teenager Alex Rogan lives in a trailer park with his younger brother Louis and their mother Jane. Aside from his girlfriend Maggie Gordon, his only diversion is an arcade game called Starfighter, in which the player is "recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada" in deep-space warfare. One evening, Alex becomes the game's highest-scoring player. The moment is spoiled, however, when he learns that his application for a college scholarship has been rejected. The inventor of Starfighter, Centauri, arrives in a futuristic car with a proposition. Centauri is a disguised alien, and his car is a spacecraft. Alex is taken to the planet Rylos while Beta, a doppelgänger android, covers his absence. Alex learns of a conflict between the peaceful Rylan Star League and the oppressive Ko-Dan Empire. The latter's armada, poised to invade Rylos, is led by Xur, a would-be-tyrant who has sabotaged the Frontier-forcefield shielding Rylos and other League-worlds from the Ko-Dan. The only hope against Xur and his allies rests with a small fleet of Gunstar spacecraft, operated by "Navigators" and by "Starfighter" gunners. Centauri's Starfighter arcade game is a recruiting tool designed to train Starfighters. Alex meets a friendly reptilian Navigator named Grig, to whom he explains his reservations about being part of the coming conflict. Xur contacts Starfighter Command as Alex watches. After publicly executing a Star League spy, Xur promises the imminent fall of Rylos. Shaken, Alex asks to be taken home; there, Centauri gives him a means to contact the League should he change his mind. Back on Rylos, a saboteur disables Starfighter Command's defenses as the Ko-Dan command ship attacks with a long-range Meteor Gun. The remaining Starfighters and their Gunstars are wiped out. The saboteur warns Xur of Alex's escape. Alex's life is saved again when he discovers Beta and contacts Centauri to retrieve the droid. Centauri arrives just as Alex and Beta are attacked by a Zando-Zan, a shape-shifting assassin in Xur's service. Centauri is mortally wounded protecting Alex. He and Beta explain that more Zando-Zans are en route to Earth; the only way for Alex to protect his world is to embrace his calling as a Starfighter. Alex agrees, and Centauri flies him back to Starfighter Command just before dying from his injury. Alex and Grig take off in a custom-modified Gunstar. While Grig mentors Alex, Beta finds it difficult to maintain his impersonation, particularly with Maggie. Then a second Zando-Zan shoots Beta in front of Maggie, revealing the ruse. Maggie tags along as Beta steals a truck and chases the Zando-Zan. Before the would-be-assassin can warn Xur, Beta sacrifices his life to destroy it. Believing Alex has been slain, Xur orders the taking of Rylos. Then Alex and Grig ambush the Ko-Dan mothership. As Ko-Dan warlord Kril relieves Xur of command, Alex knocks out the mothership's communications and weapons-targeting system. Xur overpowers his captors and escapes. Outnumbered and overwhelmed by Ko-Dan fighters, Alex activates "Death Blossom": an experimental weapon, developed by Grig, which destroys the remaining fighters. His flagship's batteries still offline, Kril attempts to ram the Gunstar, which evades him. Alex disables Kril's navigation system, and the mothership crashes into a nearby moon. Alex is proclaimed the savior of Rylos. Grig and a recovered Centauri persuade him to help rebuild the Rylan Starfighter legion. Alex and Grig stop by Earth, landing their Gunstar in the trailer park. Louis is delighted to meet Grig, who speaks of Alex's heroism, while Alex bids his family farewell and invites Maggie along to Rylos. She agrees. Louis throws himself into mastering the Starfighter game so that he too can join the legion.