The film opens with brightly lit images of couples dancing the jitterbug, over which a young blonde woman appears smiling and being applauded, followed by a point-of-view shot descending toward a pillow as someone lies down. At night on Mulholland Drive, a brunette woman in an elegant evening dress narrowly escapes being shot by her chauffeur when another car crashes into them. Left with amnesia, she wanders into Los Angeles and hides in a vacant apartment. The next morning, she is discovered by Betty Elms, an aspiring actress newly arrived from Deep River, Ontario, who is staying at her aunt's place. The brunette adopts the name "Rita" after seeing a poster of Rita Hayworth and recalls only that she is in danger. The two become friends and discover a blue key and a large sum of cash in Rita's purse. A man eating at a diner recounts a nightmare to his friend in which he encounters a monstrous figure in the alley behind the diner. When they go outside to investigate, a filthy homeless person appears from around a corner exactly as predicted, and the man collapses in shock. Film director Adam Kesher is pressured by mob -connected businessmen to cast an unknown blonde, Camilla Rhodes, in his new film The Sylvia North Story. When he refuses, the mob shuts down production and freezes his accounts. He returns home to find his wife cheating on him, is beaten and thrown out, and finds out his bank account has been frozen. A mysterious cowboy warns him to cast Camilla. Meanwhile, incompetent hitman Joe Messing botches a job, killing bystanders. Rita remembers the name "Diane Selwyn," and Betty locates her address in a phone book. A seemingly psychic neighbor warns that "someone is in trouble," and building manager Coco cautions Betty about letting Rita stay. Betty leaves for an audition, where she performs brilliantly; a casting agent brings her to Adam's audition for The Sylvia North Story. While Camilla auditions with a performance of " I've Told Ev'ry Little Star," Betty and Adam share a brief but intense glance before she slips away to meet Rita. Adam agrees to cast Camilla to appease the mob. Betty and Rita visit Diane's apartment complex, where a neighbor who recently exchanged units with Diane says she has not been seen in some time and directs them to her apartment. Inside, they discover a woman's decomposing corpse on the bed. Rita panics and tries to cut her own hair, but Betty instead disguises her with a blonde wig. That night, they have sex and Betty twice confesses she is in love. Rita later wakes them both by chanting silencio, no hay banda ('silence, there is no band') in her sleep, and insists on visiting Club Silencio, where the host explains all performances are pre-recorded. Betty and Rita weep as Rebekah Del Rio performs a Spanish rendition of " Crying," and Betty discovers a blue box in her purse that matches Rita's key. Back at the apartment, Rita unlocks the box and realizes Betty has vanished, then disappears herself. The narrative shifts to Diane, a depressed and struggling actress who looks exactly like Betty. She awakens in the bedroom where the corpse was found. Moving through her morning in a daze, she recalls memories of her former lover Camilla, a femme fatale actress who resembles Rita: a volatile sexual encounter and breakup; being forced to watch Adam and Camilla kiss during a film rehearsal; and a dinner party at Adam's house, where Diane learns she lost the lead in The Sylvia North Story to Camilla, to whom Adam announces his engagement. The memories culminate in Diane hiring Joe at the diner to kill Camilla, with a blue key promised as confirmation. The homeless person behind the diner opens the blue box, releasing a tiny elderly couple – the same pair who accompanied Betty upon her arrival in Los Angeles. Back in the present, a traumatized Diane stares at the blue key on her coffee table. Terrorized by hallucinations of the elderly couple, she flees to her bedroom and shoots herself, dying in the same position as the earlier corpse. As the room fills with gunsmoke, Betty and Rita are shown smiling at each other. At Club Silencio, a blue-haired woman whispers "silencio".

The movie begins with Donald Foley retrieving curling stones from a lake near Long Bay, Ontario. Foley dies after retrieving the stones, and a codicil to his will demands that the curling rink he formerly coached be re-assembled, and enter a bonspiel to win the Golden Broom by placing a stone containing his ashes on the button. The team's skip, Chris Cutter, had skipped town ten years ago over the shame of failing to call a burnt stone, abandoning his fiancée Julie Foley (Donald's daughter) at the altar, and throwing the team's stones into the lake. Chris returns to Long Bay, where he convinces the former members of his team, Neil Bucyk, James Lennox, and Eddie Strombeck, to enter the competition for the Golden Broom. While the rink practices for the Golden Broom tournament, Chris tries to make amends with Julie, which is complicated by his feelings for her younger sister Amy. Neil deals with his resentment towards his wife, and unhappiness at running a funeral home inherited from his father-in-law. Eddie deals with his low sperm count and dissatisfaction about being unable to father children. James is working as a minor drug dealer, and tries to raise money to pay off a supplier to whom he is indebted. After losing a match to an extremely elderly rink, the team realises they need a coach to be prepared for the bonspiel. Chris reconciles with his estranged father Gordon Cutter, so he will coach them. Gordon trains the team for the upcoming bonspiel. In the first match of the bonspiel, the rink plays another one, skipped by former Olympian Alexander Yount. Chris again fails to call a burnt stone, demoralising himself, the rest of his rink, and his father. Chris goes drinking at a bar, where Amy meets him and informs him she and Julie have come to an understanding; Julie accepts that he and Amy love one another, and once Chris accepts it they can be together. Julie, an astronaut will meanwhile be blasted off into space. Chris goes to his mother's grave where he encounters his father; they reconcile, and Gordon tells him to go be with Amy. Neil quits the rink, and is replaced by Gordon. However, in the second to last match, Gordon once again throws out his back and is unable to curl. However, Chris and his rink manage to win the match. In the final match of the bonspiel, the rink once again meets Yount's. With Gordon injured, Chris is forced to curl with a rink of three. Down 6-0 early, Gordon laments that they "need a good lead man." At this time, Neil and his wife are at the country club. Joanne rushes to the club and convinces Neil to rejoin the rink. Chris and his rink stage a comeback, and are now within victory. On the critical final shot, one of the sweepers burns the stone, noticed only by Chris. In this instance, Chris calls the burn. Yount allows Chris to retake the shot, to which Chris changes up his shot. Chris throws his father's rock directly at the centre of the house with great force, smashing it and the rock it collided with. A large piece of granite lands directly on the button, along with Coach Foley's ashes. Chris and his rink have not only won the Golden Broom bonspiel, but have also fulfilled Coach Finley's final wish. In the end the team resolves their issues: Chris finally connects with Amy, Neil and Joanne talk about his dream to own a plant nursery and not run the funeral home, Eddie finally impregnates his wife and James finally is forgiven his debt to his drug supplier, as the collector is from a long line of curlers.

In October 1986, two women are found raped and murdered on the outskirts of a small town. Local detective Park Doo-man, not having dealt with such a serious case before, is overwhelmed. Evidence is improperly collected, investigative methods are suspicious and modern forensic technology is near non-existent. Park claims to be able to find suspects by eye contact. He questions a scarred mentally handicapped boy, Baek Kwang-ho, after Park's girlfriend Seol-yung suggests the boy used to follow one of the victims around town. Park's partner Cho beats Baek and forces him to confess. Seo Tae-yoon, a detective from Seoul with more scientific training in crime scene analysis, volunteers to assist the investigation. However, his and Park's methods clash. Seo determines Baek is not capable of committing the crimes. After closely studying the crime reports, he discovers the decomposed remains of a third victim who had been killed earlier and finds that the killer struck on rainy nights and targeted women wearing red. Inspector Kwon, the police force's diligent but unrecognized female officer, observed that the same obscure song was requested on the local radio station on the night of each crime. Despite a stakeout, on the next rainy night, the killer murders a woman near a gypsum mine. The next night, Park, Cho and Seo stake out the crime scene and interrupt a man masturbating. They apprehend him, but his improvised "confession" does not fit the details of the crime. He mentions a mysterious person who rises out of the outhouses at a local school; this fits with a similar story that two local schoolgirls told Seo on the night of the most recent murder. Seo investigates and finds the killer's only surviving victim, a traumatized woman living near the outhouses. She tells him details that exclude the man arrested at the crime scene. Park and Seo fight when the man is released, but when the killer strikes again, they agree to work together. Their investigation leads them to Hyeon-gyu, a handsome clerk at the mine who originated the song requests. Seo notes that Hyeon-gyu's hands are soft like the survivor's description and that he moved to the town around the time of the first murder, but otherwise has no concrete evidence. Listening to Baek's "confession" again, they realize that he had seen one of the murders as it occurred. They go to the restaurant run by his father, where they encounter a drunken Cho, who has been suspended for beating Hyeon-gyu. When other patrons mock the police for not solving the crime, Cho instigates a brawl. Baek hits Cho with a broken table leg, causing a rusty nail to puncture his leg, and runs off. Park and Seo chase him, but before they can learn what he knows, the frightened Baek stumbles in front of a passing train and is killed. The coroner discovers semen in the latest victim, which could identify the culprit. But since South Korea is behind on the necessary scientific advancements, they are forced to send the sample to the United States to compare it against Hyeon-gyu's. Meanwhile, the untreated wound in Cho's leg begins to develop tetanus, forcing it to be amputated. On the next rainy night, Seo surveils Hyeon-gyu but dozes off and loses track of him. Park's girlfriend Seol-yung walks through a secluded wooden area, passing one of the schoolgirls Seo had befriended. The killer, watching from the trees, arbitrarily picks the schoolgirl and murders her. Enraged, Seo attacks Hyeon-gyu the next day. Park interrupts him with the results of the DNA test. They are inconclusive - Hyeon-gyu is neither confirmed nor excluded as a suspect. However, as Park looks him into the eyes, he seems to sense that Hyeon-guy is the killer. Nevertheless, as Seo tries to shoot Hyeon-gyu, Park stops him and Hyeon-gyu is allowed to leave. In 2003, the crimes remain unsolved. Park has married Seol-yung and is now a father and businessman. He passes by the first crime scene and stops at the spot where the first victim was found. A young girl tells him she saw a man in the exact place, who was reminiscing about something he had done there a long time ago. Park asks the girl what the man looks like, and she answers he looks very ordinary, so much to the point where she is unable to describe any outstanding details. Shaken by the realization that the killer blends into society and could be anybody, Park stares into the camera.

Helena Campbell works alongside her parents Joanne and Morris at their family circus, but desires to join real life. At the next performance, after a heated argument between mother and daughter, Joanne collapses and is taken to the hospital. While Helena stays with her grandmother, she learns that her mother requires an operation, and Helena can only blame herself for the situation. That night, Helena wakes in a dream-like state and leaves her building to find a trio of performers outside. As they perform for her, a shadow encroaches on the area and two of the performers are consumed by it. The third, a juggler named Valentine, helps to quickly direct Helena to safety via magical flying books. She learns they are in the City of Light, slowly being consumed by shadows, causing its widely varied citizens to flee. Soon, Helena is mistaken for the Princess. She and Valentine are taken to the Prime Minister. He explains that the Princess from the Land of Shadows stole a charm from the White City, leaving their Queen of Light in a state of unnatural sleep and the City vulnerable to the Shadows. Helena notes the resemblance of the Queen and Minister to her mother and father, and offers to help recover the charm along with Valentine. They are unaware their actions are being watched by the Queen of Shadows, who has mistaken Helena for her daughter. As they strive to stay ahead of the shadows, Helena and Valentine follow clues to the charm, called the "MirrorMask". Helena discovers that by looking through the windows of the buildings, she can see into her bedroom in the real world, through the drawings of windows that she created and hung on the wall of her room. She discovers that a doppelgänger is living there, behaving radically differently from her. The doppelgänger soon becomes aware of her presence in the drawings and begins to destroy them, causing parts of the fantasy world to collapse. Valentine betrays Helena to the Queen of Shadows in exchange for a large reward of jewels. The Queen's servants brainwash Helena into believing that she is the Princess of Shadows. Valentine has a change of heart and returns to the Queen's palace, helping Helena break the spell. They search the Princess' room, and Helena discovers the MirrorMask hidden in the mirror. They flee the castle with the charm. As they escape to Valentine's flying tower, Helena realizes that her doppelgänger in the real world is the Princess of Shadows, who had used the MirrorMask to step through the windows in Helena's drawings. The Princess destroys the rest of the drawings, preventing Helena from returning, and Helena and Valentine disappear in the collapsed world. The Princess takes the drawings to the roof to disperse the shreds into the wind, but discovers one more drawing Helena had made on the back of the roof door. Helena successfully returns to reality, sending the Princess back to her realm. Simultaneously, the Queen of Light awakens and the two Cities are restored to their natural balance. Helena is woken on the roof by her father, and they're overjoyed to hear that Joanne's operation is a success. Helena happily returns to work at the circus, where she becomes fascinated by a young man—heavily resembling Valentine—who aspires to be a juggler.

Socially awkward 16-year-old Napoleon Dynamite lives in Preston, Idaho, United States, with his grandmother, Carlinda, and his technology-addicted older brother, Kip. Napoleon's school days are spent doodling mythical creatures, dealing with bullies, and playing tetherball by himself. Carlinda breaks her tailbone in a quad bike accident and asks Napoleon and Kip's Uncle Rico to look after the boys while she recovers. Flirtatious, middle-aged Rico arrives in the camper van he lives in, and teams up with Kip to sell items door-to-door in a get-rich-quick scheme. Kip wants to pay for his internet girlfriend, LaFawnduh, to visit from Detroit. Former high-school athlete Rico dwells on his past and dreams of going back in time. He believes wealth will help him get over his breakup with his girlfriend and failed dreams of NFL stardom. Meanwhile, Napoleon takes a job on a chicken farm, but barely makes anything close to what Rico and Kip made. Napoleon becomes friends with Deb, a shy girl who sells headshots and knick-knacks to raise money for college, and Pedro, a bold transfer student from Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Pedro is rebuffed when he asks the popular and snobby Summer Wheatly to accompany him to the high school dance; Deb gladly accepts. Pedro encourages Napoleon to find a date and he picks popular classmate Trisha. As a gift, he draws an (unintentionally bad) picture of her and delivers it to Trisha's mother, one of Rico's customers. Rico tells Trisha's mother embarrassing stories about Napoleon to evoke sympathy. She buys his wares and forces Trisha to accept Napoleon's invitation. Trisha goes to the dance with Napoleon but abandons him to hang out with Summer and her boyfriend, Don Moser. Pedro allows Napoleon to dance with Deb. Pedro runs against Summer for class president. The two factions put up flyers and hand out trinkets to attract voters. To demonstrate their "skills" and increase their respect around the school, Napoleon and Pedro enter a Future Farmers of America competition, grading milk and cow udders. They win medals, but it does little for their popularity. Pedro becomes stressed to the point where he inadvertently shaves his head bald, and is given a wig by Deb. He later makes a piñata of Summer for fellow students to whack, but is reprimanded by the principal and forced to remove all his campaign flyers. To deal with the bullying, Pedro and Napoleon enlist Pedro's cousins to chase off the bullies. Napoleon buys an instructional dance videotape, D-Qwon's Dance Grooves. Kip's girlfriend, LaFawnduh, arrives and gives him an urban makeover, outfitting him in hip-hop regalia. Seeing that Napoleon is learning to dance, LaFawnduh gives him a mixtape. Rico continues to spread embarrassing rumors about Napoleon to prospective customers. He tries to sell Deb a breast-enhancement product, claiming it was Napoleon's suggestion, causing her to break off their friendship. Napoleon confronts Rico and tells him to leave, but Rico refuses. His sales scheme ends when martial arts instructor Rex walks in on Rico demonstrating the breast-enhancement product on his wife, and assaults him. On Election Day, Summer gives a speech before the student body, and presents a dance skit to " Larger than Life " by the Backstreet Boys with the Happy Hands club as her backup dancers. Pedro gives a despondent speech after discovering he is also required to perform a skit. Napoleon gives the sound engineer LaFawnduh's mixtape and spontaneously performs a dance routine to " Canned Heat " by Jamiroquai as Pedro's skit. Napoleon's routine receives a standing ovation, stunning Summer and Don. Pedro becomes class president, Grandma returns from the hospital, Rico reunites with his girlfriend, Kip and LaFawnduh leave on a bus for Michigan, and Napoleon and Deb reconcile and play tetherball together. Two months later, Kip and LaFawnduh get married, and Napoleon arrives late at the wedding on a stallion which he tamed for Kip and LaFawnduh to ride out on.

In 1950s New York City, Lionel Essrog works at a detective agency alongside Gilbert Coney, Danny Fantl, and Tony Vermonte. Their boss, Frank Minna, rescued them as children from an abusive orphanage. Nicknamed "Motherless Brooklyn" by Frank, Lionel has Tourette syndrome and OCD, often alienating him from people, but his strong verbal and photographic memory make him a good detective. Working a secret case, Frank asks Lionel and Gilbert to shadow him to a meeting. Lionel listens over the phone as Frank presents documents that threaten a business deal for a man named William Lieberman, who's there with his assistant Lou and an extremely large henchman. When Frank tries to negotiate a high price, the men force him to take them to the originals. Lionel and Gilbert follow in their car, arriving just as Frank is shot. They take him to the hospital, but Frank dies. Frank's widow Julia leaves Tony in charge of the office. Lionel begins wearing Frank's hat and coat, and a matchbook in Frank's pocket leads Lionel to an African-American owned jazz bar in Harlem. He realizes that Frank's findings involve Laura Rose, who works for Gabby Horowitz fighting urban renewal; poor and minority neighborhoods are being bought out and demolished, forcing out their residents. Lionel goes to a public meeting where Moses Randolph, a commissioner of several development authorities, is loudly contested by Horowitz and the audience. Stealing a reporter's credentials, Lionel talks to a man named Paul who raged against Moses at the meeting and tells him Moses is the real power in the city government, even beyond the mayor. Under the guise of reporting on the urban renewal story, Lionel gets to know Laura. She takes him to a club Frank was investigating, where her father Billy – assuming Lionel is one of Moses' men – has him beaten unconscious. Lionel is rescued by a trumpet player, and discovers that Paul is Moses' brother and an engineer. He realizes Lieberman is receiving kickbacks on many of the housing deals, and that the housing relocation programs are scams. Paul presents Moses with a huge renovation plan to improve the city. Billy calls Lionel, apologizing for the attack and offering to meet with information. However, Lionel arrives to find Billy murdered – with his death staged as a suicide. Staying the night with a distraught Laura at her house, Lionel admits his true identity and that he believes she is in danger. Finding photos of Paul meeting with Billy on his own, Lionel confronts Laura, who explains that her "Uncle" Paul is her real father. Paul denies this to Lionel, and explains that Frank and Billy planned to get more money out of Randolph's goons, against Paul's protests. He begs Lionel to find the evidence. Lionel is brought to Moses, who invites him to join his team and stop snooping, with 24 hours to decide. Inside Frank's hat, Lionel finds the key to a Pennsylvania Station storage locker, containing a property deed and Laura's birth certificate, which reveals Moses is her father. Lionel gives the key to Paul and runs into Tony, who has been working surveillance for Randolph. Tony admits he has been sleeping with Julia, and tells Lionel to take Moses’ deal since Laura will soon be killed. Lionel races to save Laura, stopping her before she enters her apartment, and they flee. Laura knocks the large henchman off the fire escape, and Lou corners them with a gun but is hit in the head with a trumpet by the trumpet player, who drives Laura out of town. Lionel meets Moses, who reveals that he raped Laura's mother, a hotel employee. Paul forged Moses' signature on the birth certificate and exposure of this secret threatened Moses. Lionel warns Moses to leave Laura alone or he will release the information. He informs Moses that Lieberman is on the take and asks that when Moses has Lieberman killed, to tell him it is for Frank. Moses tells Lionel to tell Paul that his plans for the city will proceed. The next day Paul learns that Moses denied his plans out of spite while Lionel mails the information about Lieberman to the reporter whose credentials he stole. Lionel drives to the seaside property Frank left to him where Laura is waiting for him.

At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the Palestinian militant group Black September carried out a terrorist attack resulting in the deaths of eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team. Avner Kaufman, a Mossad agent of German-Jewish descent, is chosen to lead a mission to assassinate eleven Palestinians involved in the massacre. At the direction of his handler Ephraim, to give the Israeli government plausible deniability, Kaufman resigns from Mossad and operates with no official ties to Israel. His team includes four Jewish volunteers from around the world: South African driver Steve, Belgian toy-maker and explosives expert Robert, former Israeli soldier and " cleaner " Carl, and German antique dealer and document forger Hans from Frankfurt. They are given information by a French informant, Louis, whose family's history is connected to the French Resistance. In Rome, the team shoots and kills Wael Zwaiter, who is living as a poet. In Paris, they detonate a bomb in the home of Mahmoud Hamshari. In Cyprus, they bomb the hotel room of Hussein Abd Al Chir. With IDF commandos, they pursue three Palestinian militants— Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, and Kamal Nasser —to Beirut, penetrate the Palestinians' guarded compound and kill all three. Between hits, the assassins argue with each other about the morality and logistics of their mission, expressing fear about their individual lack of experience, as well as their apparent ambivalence about accidentally killing innocent bystanders. Avner makes a brief visit to his wife, who has given birth to their first baby. In Athens, when they track down Zaiad Muchasi, the team finds out that Louis arranged for them to share a safe house with their rival PLO members and the Mossad agents escape trouble by pretending to be members of foreign militant groups like ETA, IRA, ANC, and the Red Army Faction. Avner has a heartfelt conversation with PLO member Ali over their homelands and who deserves to rule over the lands. Ali is later shot by Carl while the team escapes from the hit on Muchasi. The squad moves on to London to track down Ali Hassan Salameh, who orchestrated the Munich massacre, but the assassination attempt is interrupted by several drunken Americans. It is implied that these are agents of the CIA, which, according to Louis, protects and funds Salameh in exchange for his promise not to attack United States diplomats. Meanwhile, attempts are made to kill the assassins themselves. Carl is killed by an independent Dutch contract killer. In revenge, the team tracks her down and executes her at a houseboat in Hoorn, Netherlands. Hans is found stabbed to death on a park bench, and Robert is killed by an explosion in his workshop. Avner and Steve finally locate Salameh in Spain, but again their assassination attempt is thwarted, this time by Salameh's armed guards. Avner and Steve disagree on whether Louis has sold information on the team to the PLO. A disillusioned Avner flies to Israel, where he is unhappy to be hailed as a hero by two young soldiers, and then to his new home in Brooklyn, where he suffers post-traumatic stress, paranoia and has flashbacks from the Munich massacre. Concerns continue to grow when he speaks to Louis' father by phone and it is revealed he knows his real name and promises no violence will come to him from his family. He is thrown out of the Israeli consulate after storming in to demand that Mossad leave his wife and child alone. Ephraim comes to ask Avner to return to Israel and Mossad, but Avner refuses. Avner then asks Ephraim to come to dinner with his family, to break bread as an allegory to make peace, but Ephraim refuses, perhaps as a sign that neither side will reconcile. A title card reveals nine of the eleven targeted Palestinians were killed, including Salameh, who was finally killed in 1979.

Nishi is a 20-year-old NEET from Osaka with dreams of becoming a comic book artist. One evening, he runs into his childhood crush, Myon, on the subway. She takes him to her family's yakitori restaurant, where she introduces him to her father, her elder sister Yan, and her fiancé Ryo. Two yakuza, Atsu and a senior yakuza whom Atsu calls Aniki (literally 'brother', a term used by yakuza to refer to each other), enter looking for Myon's father, who had ostensibly seduced and stolen Atsu's girlfriend. As Atsu threatens Myon at gunpoint, Ryo jumps to her defense, but Atsu knocks him unconscious. Atsu then prepares to rape Myon, who cries out for Nishi. Atsu turns on a terrified Nishi, placing his pistol against Nishi's anus and firing when Nishi finally musters the courage to yell out a threat, killing him instantly. The senior yakuza, offended by Atsu's lack of control, fatally shoots him. Nishi is sentenced to a limbo where he is forced to watch his death over and over again. He then encounters Kami-sama (God), a being whose physical image changes every fraction of a second. Kami-sama beats and insults Nishi, claiming to have created him on a whim for his own entertainment. He then directs Nishi into a red portal where he will disappear, but at the last moment, Nishi declares he wants to return to life, and runs toward the opposite blue portal. Kami-sama, impressed by Nishi's sheer will to live, lets him escape. Nishi returns to the moment just before Atsu pulled the trigger. This time, Nishi seizes Atsu's gun with his buttocks, and fatally shoots him. He, Yan and Myon all speed off in the yakuza's car, leaving the father and Ryo—still unconscious—behind. The yakuza follow them, threatening to frame them for armed robbery and murder. The boss has his men lead the trio to a dead end on a bridge, but Nishi steers the car off the bridge, and they are swallowed by an enormous whale. Inside the whale, they meet an old man, who reveals he is a former yakuza who has been living inside the whale for more than 30 years. He shows them to the elaborate suspended house he has constructed over the 'sea' in the whale's belly. When Nishi's attempts to escape fail, the trio resign themselves to life inside the whale. Yan practices dancing and art, Myon practices swimming (a dream she gave up after reaching puberty), Nishi practices writing and drawing manga, and he and Myon finally become sexually intimate. When the water level inside the whale begins rising, the old man explains that the whale is likely dying. They concoct a plan to make a motor boat using spare parts and fuel from the car they arrived in. On the day before the final match of the World Cup, the whale returns to Osaka and all four manage to escape. As the four fly through the air, the film returns to its very first scene of Myon running from the yakuza, only this time her leg does not get caught in the door of the train, and the yakuza is left behind on the platform. This is followed by a lengthy montage, similar to that of the opening credits, showing the histories of the various characters. The phrase "This Story Has Never Ended" appears before the credits roll.

On the evening of November 27, 1978, Dianne Feinstein announces to the press that Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone have been assassinated. Milk is seen recording his will nine days before the assassinations. The film then flashes back to NYC on May 22, 1970, Milk's 40th birthday, and his first meeting with his much younger lover, Scott Smith. In 1972, dissatisfied with their lives and in need of a change, Milk and Smith move to San Francisco, hoping to find greater acceptance of their relationship. They open Castro Camera in the heart of Eureka Valley, a working-class neighborhood evolving into a predominantly gay neighborhood known as The Castro. Frustrated by the opposition they encounter in the once-Irish-Catholic neighborhood, Milk uses his background as a businessman to become a gay activist, eventually becoming a mentor to Cleve Jones. Smith serves as Milk's campaign manager, but he grows frustrated with Milk's devotion to politics and leaves him. Milk later meets Jack Lira, a sweet-natured but unbalanced young man. As with Smith, Lira cannot tolerate Milk's devotion to political activism and eventually hangs himself. Milk clashes with the local gay establishment, which he feels is too cautious. In 1977, after three unsuccessful attempts to become a city supervisor for the California State Assembly, Milk wins a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for District 5, after a change from at-large elections to district elections. His victory makes him the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in California and the third openly homosexual politician in the entire United States. Milk meets fellow Supervisor Dan White, a Vietnam veteran and former police officer and firefighter. White is politically and socially conservative, and a complex relationship develops. Milk is invited to and attends the christening of White's first child. White asks Milk for assistance in preventing a psychiatric hospital from opening in White's district, possibly in exchange for White's support of Milk's citywide gay rights ordinance. When Milk fails to support White because of the negative effect it will have on troubled youth, White feels betrayed and becomes the sole vote against the gay rights ordinance. Milk also launches an effort to defeat Proposition 6, an initiative on the California state ballot in 1978. Sponsored by John Briggs, a conservative state senator from Orange County, Proposition 6 seeks to ban gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools. On November 7, 1978, after working tirelessly against Proposition 6, Milk and his supporters rejoice in the wake of its defeat. Three days later, a desperate White favors a supervisor pay raise but does not get much support, and shortly after supporting the proposition, resigns from the Board. He later changes his mind and asks to be reinstated. Mayor Moscone denies his request after being lobbied by Milk. On the morning of November 27, 1978, White enters City Hall through a basement window to conceal a gun from metal detectors. He requests another meeting with Moscone, who rebuffs his request for an appointment to his former seat. Enraged, White murders Moscone in his office and then goes to meet Milk in his, where he kills him, as Milk gazes out at the city. In text, it is revealed that 30,000 people attended Milk's funeral and his ashes were scattered over the Golden Gate Bridge. White's lawyers concocted the story of the " Twinkie Defense " to get him a sentence of seven years for first-degree manslaughter and was released in 1984, committing suicide in 1985.

Although ostensibly a documentary, My Winnipeg contains a series of fictional episodes and an overall story trajectory concerning the author-narrator-character "Guy Maddin" and his desire to produce the film as a way to finally leave/escape the city of Winnipeg. "Guy Maddin" is played by Darcy Fehr but voiced by Maddin himself (in narration): Fehr appears groggily trying to rouse himself from sleep aboard a jostling train as Maddin wonders aloud "What if?" What if he were able to actually rouse from the sleepy life he lives in Winnipeg and escape? Maddin decides that the only possible escape would be to "film my way out", thus motivating the creation of the "docu-fantasia" already underway. Maddin then describes Winnipeg in general terms, introducing it to the viewer, noting primarily its location at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, a place known as " the Forks ". Maddin equates this Y-like junction to a woman's groin and associates it with his mother. Maddin also notes the apocryphal aboriginal myth of a secret "Forks beneath the Forks", an underground river system below the aboveground river system –the superimposition of these two sets of rivers has imbued the site and Winnipeg itself with magical/magnetic/sexual energy. Maddin also notes that Winnipeg is the geographical centre of North America, and thus these secret rivers are "the Heart of the Heart" of the continent and of Canada. Maddin regales the viewer with one of the film's many suspect historical "facts" about Winnipeg: "the Canadian Pacific Railway used to sponsor an annual treasure hunt required our citizens to wander our city in a day-long combing of the streets and neighbourhoods. First prize was a one-way ticket on the next train out of town." No winners in a hundred years could bring themselves to leave the city after coming to know the city so closely over the course of the treasure hunt. Maddin then posits an alternative explanation for Winnipeggers never leaving Winnipeg: sleepiness. He notes that Winnipeg is the sleepwalking capital of the world, with ten times the normal rate of sleepwalking, and that everyone in Winnipeg carries around the keys to their former homes in case they return while asleep. Winnipeg by-laws require that sleepwalkers be allowed to sleep in their old homes by the new tenants. Maddin rents his own childhood home at 800 Ellice Avenue for a month, hiring actors to play his family (including Ann Savage as his mother) in order to recreate scenes from his childhood memories, excluding his father and himself. The "family" gathers to watch the television show LedgeMan, a fictional drama in which "the same oversensitive man takes something said the wrong way, climbs out on a window ledge, and threatens to jump." His mother, in the next window, convinces him to live. Maddin's mother is noted as the star of the show. The film recounts the conditions of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, a real-world event with international significance, before returning to the family re-enactments, including Mother's suspicion of Janet Maddin, who hit a deer on the highway but is accused of covering up a sexual encounter. Maddin announces that this, like "everything that happens in is a euphemism." The film then recounts the city's history of Spiritualism, including a visit by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1923. The film next examines Winnipeg architectural landmarks, including the Eaton's building and the Winnipeg Arena, both of which are demolished (while the arena is being destroyed, Maddin becomes the last person to urinate in its washroom). Maddin imagines the arena's salvation by the "Black Tuesdays", a fictional team of hockey heroes "in their 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond", then re-enacts a family scene where Mother is harassed to cook a meal. The film recounts a racetrack fire that drove horses to perish in the Red River – the horse heads reappear, ghostly, each winter, frozen in the ice. Further Winnipeg landmarks, including the Golden Boy statue atop the provincial legislative building, the Paddle Wheel restaurant, the Hudson's Bay department store, and the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, make appearances in distorted versions of themselves, as does the Sherbrook Pool. The film then recalls If Day (an actual historical event when a faked Nazi invasion of the city was mounted during World War II to promote the sale of war bonds), and a buffalo stampede set off by the mating of two gay bison. Time is now running out for Guy Maddin, who fears he will never leave Winnipeg, since the family re-enactments have failed to free him fully. To accomplish this feat of leaving, Maddin imagines a pinup girl for the 1919 strike's newsletter The Citizen: dreaming up this "Citizen Girl" allows Maddin to leave Winnipeg, guilt-free. The final family re-enactment then involves Maddin's brother Cameron, who in real life committed suicide, rationalizing this death calmly in a discussion with Maddin's "Mother".

In 2012, alien criminal Boris the Animal escapes from a maximum-security prison on the Moon to take revenge on Men in Black (MIB) Agent K, who shot off his arm and arrested him in 1969. He eventually confronts K and his partner Agent J, telling the former that he is "already dead" before leaving. J and K fall out over the latter's efforts to stop him from pursuing Boris and refusing to explain what happened. At MIB headquarters, J's superior, Agent O, denies his request for further information on Boris' apprehension; only revealing that around the same time, K also deployed the ArcNet, an interplanetary shield that prevented the now-extinct Boglodites from invading Earth. Boris obtains a time machine from Jeffrey Price, the son of a fellow prisoner named Obadiah Price, and travels back in time to July 16, 1969, to kill K, altering history. Though J retains his memories, he briefly suffers from strange side effects, which O identifies as signs that the space-time continuum was fractured before Earth is threatened by a Boglodite invasion. Recalling Boris will commit murder on July 15, 1969, J seeks out Jeffrey, obtains his own time machine, and travels back in time to stop Boris. However, he is arrested by a young K, who almost neuralyzes him until J convinces him of his mission. Following a series of clues, the pair reach the Factory, where undercover MIB agent Andy Warhol directs them to an Archanan named Griffin, who can view all possible outcomes and escaped to Earth after the Boglodites destroyed his planet. Sensing the younger Boris' impending attack, Griffin flees, but alludes to his future location. K and J later find Griffin at Shea Stadium and rescue him from the younger Boris. As the present-day Boris arrives in the past and convinces his younger self to join forces with him, Griffin gives the ArcNet to K and J. After deducing the device must be attached to the Apollo 11 rocket to send it into Earth's orbit, J reluctantly reveals K's impending death. With Griffin revealing that only K can successfully attach the device, K encourages J to take the risk. The trio use jetpacks to reach Cape Canaveral, where Griffin advises the pair to tell the truth to the military police instead of neuralyzing them. They are apprehended by the colonel, but Griffin shows him the importance of their mission. The colonel subsequently assists them in reaching the rocket while Griffin leaves, assuring J that history will be restored once K takes Boris' arm. The Borises attack the agents, but they defeat them before K attaches the ArcNet. Present-day Boris falls into the launchpad's flame trench and is incinerated by the rocket's exhaust while the ArcNet is successfully deployed. K reunites with the colonel, but the latter sacrifices himself to save him from the younger Boris, who goads K into arresting him. K refuses, killing him instead. K soon learns the colonel's son, James, was nearby and reluctantly neuralyzes him. Witnessing the events from afar, J realizes the colonel was his father and his younger self's presence kept him from forgetting K. Returning to a restored 2012, J reconciles with K while un-aged Griffin tells the viewers "this is new favorite moment in human history."

In 2010, disillusioned screenwriter Gil Pender and his fiancée, Inez, vacation in Paris with Inez's wealthy parents. Gil, struggling to finish his debut novel about a man who works in a nostalgia shop, finds himself drawn to the artistic history of Paris, especially the Lost Generation of the 1920s, and has ambitions to move there, which Inez dismisses. By chance, they meet Inez's old college friend, Paul, and his wife, Carol. Paul speaks with great authority but questionable accuracy on French history, annoying Gil but impressing Inez. Intoxicated after a night of wine tasting, Gil decides to walk back to their hotel, while Inez goes with Paul and Carol by taxi. At midnight, a 1920s car pulls up beside Gil and delivers him to a party for Jean Cocteau, attended by other people of the 1920s Paris art scene. Zelda Fitzgerald, bored, encourages her husband Scott and Gil to leave with her. They head to a cafe where they run into Ernest Hemingway and Juan Belmonte. After Zelda and Scott leave, Gil and Hemingway discuss writing, and Hemingway offers to show Gil's novel to Gertrude Stein. As Gil leaves to fetch his manuscript, he returns to 2010 only to find a laundromat in the cafe's location. The next night, Gil tries to repeat the experience, this time bringing Inez along, but she returns to the hotel before midnight. Subsequently returning to the 1920s, he accompanies Hemingway to visit Gertrude Stein, who is critiquing Pablo Picasso 's new painting of his lover Adriana. Gil becomes drawn to Adriana, a costume designer who also had affairs with Amedeo Modigliani and Georges Braque. Having heard the first line of Gil's novel, Adriana praises it and admits she has always longed for the past. Inez grows jaded with Paris and Gil's continual disappearances, while her father grows suspicious and hires a private detective to follow him. Gil continues to time-travel the following nights. Adriana leaves Picasso and continues to bond with Gil, who is conflicted by his attraction to her. Gil explains his situation to Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, and Luis Buñuel; as surrealists, they do not question his claim of coming from the future. Gil later suggests the plot of The Exterminating Angel to Buñuel. Back in the present, Gil meets Gabrielle, an antique dealer and fellow admirer of the Lost Generation. Later at a book stall he finds Adriana's diary, which reveals that she had been in love with Gil and dreamed of being gifted earrings before having sex with him. Planning to seduce Adriana, Gil plans to take a pair of Inez's earrings but is thwarted by her early return to the hotel room. Gil instead buys new earrings, giving them to Adriana after returning again to the past. Later, a horse-drawn carriage appears and transports them to the Belle Époque, an era Adriana considers Paris's Golden Age. They go to the Moulin Rouge where they meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Edgar Degas, who all agree that Paris's best era was the Renaissance. Adriana is offered a job designing ballet costumes; thrilled, she proposes to Gil that they stay. But he, observing the unhappiness of Adriana and the other artists, realizes that chasing nostalgia is fruitless because the present is always "a little unsatisfying." Adriana decides to stay, and they part ways. Meanwhile, the detective following Gil takes a "wrong turn" and ends up being chased by the palace guards of Louis XVI just before a revolution breaks out. Gil rewrites the first two chapters of his novel and gives his draft to Stein, who praises his rewrite. Still, Hemingway says that on reading the new chapters he does not believe that the protagonist does not realize that his fiancée (based on Inez) is having an affair with the character based on Paul. Gil returns to 2010 and confronts Inez, who admits to having sex with Paul but regarded it as a meaningless fling. Gil breaks up with her and decides to stay in Paris. While walking by the Seine at midnight, no carriage comes by but Gil encounters Gabrielle. As it begins to rain, he offers to walk her home and learns that they share a love for Paris in the rain.