Extreme sport athlete Johnny Utah and his friend Jeff are traversing a steep ridgeline on motorbikes. The run ends with a jump onto a lone stone column, where Jeff overshoots the landing and falls to his death. Seven years later, Utah is an FBI agent candidate. He attends a briefing on a skyscraper heist in Mumbai, in which the criminals stole diamonds, escaping by parachute. A similar heist happens in Mexico where the criminals unload millions of dollars in bills, then disappear into the Cave of Swallows. Utah's research concludes that they were done by the same men, who are attempting to complete the Ozaki 8, a list of eight extreme ordeals to honor the forces of nature. They have already completed three, and Utah predicts they'll attempt the fourth on a rare sea wave phenomenon in France. After presenting his analysis, Utah is sent undercover to France under a field agent named Pappas. They reach France and Utah gets help from others to surf the tall tube wave. As he goes in, there is already another surfer riding the wave, leaving Utah unstable. Utah gets sucked into the wave and faints, but the other surfer bails and rescues Utah. He wakes aboard a yacht with the surfer, Bodhi, and his team: Roach, Chowder, and Grommet. They leave him to enjoy the party and he gets acquainted with a girl, Samsara. The next day, Utah finds the men in an abandoned Paris train station after he overhears them talking about the location. Bodhi gives him an initiation fight and soon he is accepted into the circle. They travel to the Alps for the next ordeal: wingsuit flying through "The Life of Wind" cliffs. The four succeed in their attempt and spend some time together with Samsara. The next day, they climb the snow peaks for the sixth ordeal, snowboarding down a steep mountain of snow. They reach their spot, but Utah decides to extend his line, so the others follow him. Chowder slips and falls to his death, and Utah becomes depressed about it. After a party, Samsara explains that she and Bodhi both knew Ono Ozaki when they were young, that her parents died in an avalanche accident and Ozaki gave her a home after. She explains further that after Ozaki completed his third ordeal, despite what was widely believed that he died attempting the ordeal, he was actually killed by a whaling ship crashing into his boat while he was trying to save humpback whales. On his boat, Bodhi (a young boy at the time) decided not to tell the truth of his story but to finish what Ozaki started. Next they travel to a gold mine where Bodhi detonates explosives Grommet and Roach planted. After blowing his cover, Utah chases Bodhi, managing to trip his bike. Bodhi escapes because Utah cannot stand up after the crash. The FBI freezes Bodhi's sponsors' assets; Bodhi plans to rob a nearby Italian bank on a mountain top. Utah and the police intercept the group, resulting in a crossfire that kills Roach. As the group flees, Utah chases and shoots one of them to death, who is revealed to be Samsara and not Bodhi. Utah finds the location of the next ordeal: free solo climbing with no safety beside Angel Falls in Venezuela. He finds Bodhi and Grommet and chases them on the climb, but Grommet falters, falling to his death. Utah catches up to Bodhi, but he falls backward down the waterfall, completing what should have been the last ordeal. Bodhi, however, has to redo the fourth ordeal, because he bailed out on the wave when he chose to save Johnny. Seventeen months later, Utah finds him in the Pacific facing another giant wave. As Utah tries to get Bodhi to come back with him and pay for his crimes, he eventually lets Bodhi attempt to surf it, both knowing that he will not come back. The wave engulfs Bodhi, killing him. Utah begins going through his own ordeals, unclear whether he is still an FBI agent.

In 1982, Sam Brenner and his friends Will Cooper and Ludlow "The Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff play at an amusement arcade together before Brenner participates in a video game championship, where he seemingly loses a Donkey Kong match to Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant. Videotaped footage of the event is put in a time capsule that gets launched into outer space. In the present, Brenner, now an electronics installer, is summoned alongside lieutenant colonel Violet van Patten to the White House, where Cooper, now President of the United States, shows surveillance footage of a besiegement at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Brenner notes the attack's resemblance to the game Galaga, but Admiral James Porter of the United States Navy strongly advocates against its inference in the case. Brenner meets up with Lamonsoff, who reveals the attack was caused by an alien force that mistook the time capsule's footage as a declaration of war and are now challenging Earth to a best-of-three battle using technological recreations of the championship's games, claiming they have won the first match. Brenner and Lamonsoff inform Cooper of a coordinated aim at India, but he dismisses their concerns. After the aliens win the second match by demolishing the Taj Mahal as Arkanoid, Brenner and Lamonsoff train Navy SEALs to play the games while van Patten develops effective rayguns. Calling themselves the "Arcaders", the team heads to London, where the aliens attack Hyde Park as Centipede before being repelled by Brenner and Lamonsoff. Cooper, Lamonsoff and Brenner recruit a convicted Eddie to assist in New York City, where the Arcaders battle a giant Pac-Man in Mini Coopers representing the ghosts. After Brenner defeats Pac-Man, the Arcaders receive Q*bert as a trophy. During a celebration at the White House however, the aliens announce that one of the Arcaders has cheated, meaning Earth forfeits the challenge. Before being abducted by the aliens, van Patten's son Matty discovers Eddie cheated in the fight against Pac-Man using a code written on his glasses, which he also used in the 1982 video game championship. The aliens attack Washington, D.C. with an army of 1980s video game characters. With Cooper and a repentant Eddie's help, the Arcaders fight through the onslaught while Lamonsoff persuades Lady Lisa, a video game character whom he has a crush on, to join them. Brenner, Violet, Will and Q*bert are summoned to the aliens' mother ship for a final chance to save Earth by facing the aliens' leader as Donkey Kong. The group is placed on the game's starting level, with Donkey Kong and the captives at the top level. Struggling against the obstacles, Brenner loses hope until Matty reveals Eddie's cheating. Realizing he actually is the world's best Donkey Kong player, Brenner regains his spirit and defeats Donkey Kong, resulting in the aliens' forces, including Lisa, being neutralized. The Arcaders are hailed as heroes as Will negotiates a peace agreement with the aliens. Eddie apologizes to Brenner for cheating and acknowledges him as the best Donkey Kong player. Seeing Ludlow devastated over Lisa's termination, Q*bert cheers him up by shapeshifting into her. Brenner and van Patten begin a relationship, Eddie meets Serena Williams and Martha Stewart as he requested and the aliens return to their home planet.

Athena-1, a space station owned by nefarious gene-manipulation company Energyne, is destroyed after a laboratory rat mutates and wreaks havoc. Kerry Atkins, the lone surviving crew member, manages to escape in the escape pod when the station implodes, along with a trio of pathogen canisters that Energyne CEO Claire Wyden ordered her to retrieve, but the pod disintegrates upon re-entry, killing Atkins. One canister is swallowed by an American crocodile in the Everglades National Park and another lands in a Wyoming forest where a wolf is exposed to the pathogen. Primatologist Davis Okoye, a former Special Forces soldier and member of an anti-poaching unit, works at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. He is friends with George, a rare leucistic western lowland gorilla that he rescued from poachers who murdered his mother and communicates with him via sign language. The third Energyne canister crash-lands in George's habitat, exposing him to the pathogen. As George grows considerably larger and more aggressive, Davis is contacted by genetic engineer Doctor Kate Caldwell, who explains that the pathogen was developed by Energyne to rewrite genes on a massive scale. She had hoped to advance research on CRISPR as a potential cure for diseases, but discovered Energyne's plans to use it as a biological weapon and was falsely incarcerated, during which her terminally ill brother died. George escapes from captivity and runs amok at the preserve. George calms down, but is soon captured by a government team led by Agent Harvey Russell and put on a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III airplane. Meanwhile, Claire and her brother Brett oversee a mercenary team's attempt to capture the mutated wolf, Ralph, which goes awry as the entire team is killed. Claire, resolving to capture Ralph and use George to cover up her plot, uses a massive transmitter atop the Willis Tower to lure the animals – engineered to respond aggressively to a certain radio frequency – to Chicago, unconcerned about the massive risk to civilian lives this poses. George reacts violently to the sound and crashes the plane, though Davis, Kate and Harvey parachute to safety. George survives the crash and joins Ralph as they make their way to Chicago, while Davis and Kate are aided by Harvey in stealing a UH-60 Black Hawk military helicopter in pursuit. They arrive to find George and Ralph tearing through the city as the military struggles to stop them. The crisis worsens when the mutated crocodile, Lizzie, joins the duo. Planning to steal an antidote to turn the animals back to normal, Davis and Kate infiltrate Energyne's base of operations at the tower and take several vials of it, but are caught by the Wydens as Claire reveals that the antidote only eliminates the animals' enhanced aggressiveness rather than reversing the pathogen's effects altogether and shoots Davis, but he survives. When George climbs to the top of the tower, Claire orders Davis to distract him while she attempts to escape with Kate at gunpoint. Kate slips a vial into Claire's handbag and pushes her toward George, who swallows her whole along with the vial, returning him to his former personality. Down below, Harvey takes incriminating evidence from Brett and allows him to escape, only for Brett to be crushed to death by falling debris upon exiting the building. As the damaged tower topples, Davis and Kate survive by crash-landing a helicopter on the Federal Plaza. Davis stays to help George defeat the other animals, while Kate and Harvey rush to prevent the military from deploying a GBU-43/B MOAB against them. During their confrontation, Davis tricks Ralph into attacking Lizzie, who decapitates him before gaining the upper hand against her enemies, only to be stabbed to death in the eye by a rebar -wielding George. With the threat neutralized, the airstrike is aborted as Davis is joined by his allies in rescuing misplaced civilians.

Lifelong vegetarian Justine begins her first semester at veterinary school, the same one her older sister Alexia is attending and where their parents met. On her first night, she meets her roommate Adrien, who claims he's gay, and they are forced to partake in a week-long hazing ritual, welcoming the new students. They are brought to a party, where Alexia shows Justine old class photos of students bathed in blood, including one with their parents. The next morning, the new class is splattered with blood and is forced to eat raw rabbit kidneys. Justine refuses because of her vegetarianism, but Alexia forces her to eat one. Justine leaves with Adrien and later discovers an itchy rash all over her body. She consults a doctor, who diagnoses her with food poisoning and gives her cream for the rash. The next day, Justine begins having cravings for meat, which makes her feel ashamed. After a failed attempt to steal a burger from the cafeteria, she and Adrien take a late-night trip to a gas station so no one will see her eating meat. Unsatisfied, she eats raw chicken in the morning, and later throws up a long bundle of her own hair she had been chewing on. That night, Alexia attempts to give her a bikini wax, but when Alexia tries to cut the wax off with sharp scissors, Justine kicks her away and Alexia accidentally cuts off her own finger. Alexia faints, and Justine picks up the finger, tastes the blood, and starts eating it. Alexia wakes up to find Justine doing this but later tells their parents that her dog, Quicky, ate it. The next morning, Alexia takes Justine to a deserted road, where Alexia jumps in front of a car, causing the two people in it to crash into a tree. Alexia starts eating one of the passengers so that her sister will "learn"; Justine is dismayed. Despite this, Justine's craving for human meat grows and she starts lusting after Adrien. That night, she arrives at a party, where paint is thrown at her as part of another hazing ritual and she is forced to make out with a boy. While kissing, Justine bites the middle of his bottom lip off, leaving the other party guests shocked and disgusted. Justine returns to her dorm and takes a shower, where she picks a chunk of his lip out of her teeth and eats it. Justine confides in Adrien and they end up having sex, during which Justine tries to bite Adrien but instead bites her own arm until it bleeds profusely, seeming to orgasm while doing so. At another party, Justine becomes extremely intoxicated and Alexia takes her to the morgue. The next day, everyone in school stares at Justine, some avoiding her. Adrien shows her a video where Justine is crawling on all fours, attempting to take a bite out of the arm of a corpse as Alexia eggs her on, to boos and cheers from a crowd of watching party guests. Justine confronts Alexia and fights her, eventually biting each other until they are pulled apart by other students. Justine helps Alexia up, and they walk each other back to their dorms. The next morning, Justine wakes up in bed with Adrien and notices she is covered in blood. She pulls off the blankets, finding Adrien dead with most of his right leg eaten and a stab wound in his back. Justine then sees a bloody Alexia slumped on the floor. Justine is initially furious that Alexia killed Adrien but then cleans Alexia and herself up in the shower. Alexia is imprisoned for the murder of Adrien, and Justine is sent back home. There, Justine's father tells her that what happened is neither hers nor Alexia's fault. He explains that when he first met their mother, he could not understand why she did not want to be with him. Her father says he finally realized when they kissed the first time, indicating a scar on his lip. He then opens his shirt, revealing scars and missing chunks of his chest, and assures Justine that she will find a solution.

A teenage girl, Cee, and her father, Damon, descend in a landing pod from a transport spaceship to the surface of a forest moon covered in poisonous spores to mine for gems that are located within living organisms. They suffer a technical malfunction during the descent which cripples the lander, and touch down some distance away from their planned prospecting site. They begin traveling to the site on foot and come across an abandoned dig site. Damon and Cee extract a fleshy pod from the earth and dissect it to reveal a valuable gem. Cee implores her father to take the gem and return to the lander, but Damon insists they continue to the original landing site. The pair set out again, and Damon is approached by two rival prospectors: Ezra and his silent companion. Ezra and his partner plan to rob Damon and hold him at gunpoint, but Damon suggests in a counter-offer that they join forces. Damon explains that he has been contacted to assist a group of mercenaries who stumbled upon the legendary queen's lair, a dig site of extraordinary value. Damon suggests that rather than digging for the mercenaries, Ezra, his companion, and Damon can work together and take the entire dig for themselves. Ezra agrees, but Cee, who has been hiding throughout this encounter, ambushes the two hostile prospectors with a rifle - allowing Damon to wrest a weapon from Ezra before taking the latter and his partner hostage. Damon attempts to rob Ezra, but the partner attacks him and the pair shoot each other. Ezra's partner is killed and Damon is mortally wounded before being killed by Ezra himself. Cee flees back to her damaged lander, which fails to start, and is found by Ezra several hours later. When Ezra attempts to enter, Cee wounds him in the arm with her rifle and takes him prisoner. Ezra suggests that they follow Damon's original plan and aid the mercenaries in exchange for passage on the mercenaries' ship. Cee reluctantly agrees, and the pair sets out for the queen's lair. Ezra's wound has become infected by the poisonous spores in the atmosphere, and so the pair approaches a group of human villagers with the intent to trade for medical treatment. The villagers instead offer a trade of gems in exchange for Cee. As Ezra asks about details of the offer, Cee flees the village and is briefly captured by a villager but is allowed to escape. After running for some time alone, Cee runs into Ezra once again. Cee asks him if he would've given her to the villagers in exchange for medical care but he says no. He explains they refused to help him so his wound has worsened considerably and Cee helps him amputate his arm. The pair set out once more and soon arrive at the mercenary camp surrounding the queen's lair. After negotiating passage on the mercenaries' ship, Cee and Ezra attempt to fulfil their end of the contract and extract gems from the queen's lair. They fail several extraction attempts, and as their mercenary guard turns to report their failure, Ezra attacks and kills him. The commotion attracts the rest of the mercenaries, and a fight ensues. Several mercenaries are killed, and Ezra is gravely wounded. Cee tends to Ezra's wound, and the pair escape into orbit on the mercenaries' ship.

On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge tells his colleagues that he has no intention of celebrating Christmas. He refuses to donate to two men collecting for the poor. His nephew, Fred, invites him to dinner the next day, but Scrooge refuses, disparaging Fred for having married and mocking him for his lack of success. He gives his mistreated clerk, Bob Cratchit, the day off for Christmas but demands that he come to work early the next day. Scrooge returns home and is visited by the ghost of his late partner, Jacob Marley. Marley's ghost warns Scrooge that he must change his ways or be condemned to wander the earth in agony for the selfish deeds he committed in life. Marley says Scrooge will be visited by three spirits, the first to arrive at one o'clock that night. Frightened, Scrooge takes refuge in his bed. The Ghost of Christmas Past arrives. Scrooge is shown himself alone at school, unwanted by his father after his mother died in childbirth. His beloved sister Fan arrives to take him home, telling Ebenezer that their father has had a change of heart toward him. The Spirit then shows Scrooge the annual Christmas party thrown by his former benevolent employer, S. Fezziwig. Scrooge watches his younger self propose to his sweetheart Alice, who accepts. He is then shown how he is tempted to leave Fezziwig's to join a business run by Mr. Jorkin. Scrooge witnesses the death of Fan after she gives birth to Fred and discovers he missed her last words asking him to look after her son. Scrooge's younger self joins Jorkin and meets Jacob Marley. Jorkin's firm buys Fezziwig's business, and Alice breaks her engagement to Scrooge because of his dedication to "a golden idol". When Jorkin is found to have embezzled funds from the now bankrupt company, Scrooge and Marley seize the opportunity to buy his shares. One Christmas Eve seven years earlier, Scrooge refuses to see Marley until the workday is finished and arrives just as his friend dies cold and alone. The Spirit reproaches Scrooge for taking Marley's money and house, as an ashamed Scrooge finds himself back in his bed. Scrooge is then visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present who takes him to see how "men of goodwill" celebrate Christmas. The spirit shows Scrooge poor miners joyfully singing Christmas carols and the Cratchits' celebration on Christmas Day. Scrooge asks whether their ailing young son, Tiny Tim, will survive his physical disabilities. The Spirit hints that he will not unless the future is changed but questions why Scrooge should care for the "surplus population". Scrooge and the spirit then visit Fred's Christmas party, where Fred defends Scrooge from his guests' critical remarks. An older Alice is working in a poorhouse, where she ministers to the sick and homeless. The Spirit shows Scrooge two emaciated children, personifying Ignorance and Want. When Scrooge shows concern for their welfare, the Spirit scourges the miser with his own words: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Finally, Scrooge encounters the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who shows him the Cratchits mourning Tiny Tim's death. Three people, including Scrooge's charwoman, Mrs. Dilber, sell off the possessions of a dead man, and two businessmen joke they will only attend the man's funeral if lunch is provided. When shown a gravestone bearing his own name, Scrooge begs the Spirit for a second chance; he then awakens in his bed. Scrooge learns that it is Christmas Day and gleefully realises he still has an opportunity to make amends. Though Mrs. Dilber is initially frightened by his transformation, Scrooge reassures her and gives her the day off with pay. He anonymously purchases a prize turkey for the Cratchits and sends it to them. He delights Fred by attending his dinner party, asking his niece-in-law's forgiveness and dancing with her. The next day, Scrooge plays a prank on Bob Cratchit and pretends to be about to fire him for lateness, but instead says he will raise Bob's salary and assist his family. Scrooge embodies the Christmas spirit and becomes a second father to Tiny Tim, who recovers.

In 1850 Oregon Territory, backwoodsman Adam Pontipee goes to town for supplies and to find a bride. He meets Milly, the pretty young cook at the town bar. Seeing her strength, hardworking attitude, and culinary skills, he proposes. She accepts and they immediately marry, but upon arriving at the Pontipee mountain homestead, Milly discovers that Adam has six younger brothers—Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank, and Gideon—who are uncouth and expect Milly to clean and cook for them. Milly angrily ruins dinner and retreats to the bedroom, where she bans Adam from their bed. Adam, unwilling to go back downstairs and face his brothers' mockery, crawls out the window to sleep in a nearby tree; eventually, Milly and Adam reconcile, with Milly regretting her high hopes concerning marriage. Milly begins teaching Adam's brothers hygiene and manners; eventually, this extends to advice on romance and courtship. At a town barn-raising event, the Pontipees display their newly acquired social graces as they meet Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah, and Alice, who are immediately attracted to the brothers. The women's initial suitors, overcome with jealousy, attack the Pontipees during the barn-raising. Although they keep their tempers initially, they fight back when Adam is attacked unprovoked. In the ensuing brawl, the barn is destroyed. As winter sets in, the brothers pine for their loves back in town. To console them, Adam reads from Milly's copy of Plutarch 's Parallel Lives about the Sabine women, whom the ancient Romans kidnapped to be their wives. Adam then claims his brothers should do the same to get their prospective brides. The Pontipees sneak into town at night and kidnap the women. As they race back to the homestead, the brothers trigger an avalanche that blocks the mountain pass, stopping their pursuers. However, the Pontipees realize they neglected to procure a parson to conduct the wedding ceremonies and are snowed in until spring. Milly is furious with Adam and the brothers and exiles them to the barn while the women stay in the house. Humiliated and angered by Milly's rebuke, Adam leaves for the Pontipees' trapping cabin to spend the winter alone. Over the winter, the women vent their anger by pranking the brothers, but their feelings gradually soften towards them. Meanwhile, Milly reveals she is expecting a baby. By springtime, the women and the Pontipees have happily paired off. When Milly has a baby girl, Gideon goes to inform Adam, who refuses to return. Gideon chastises Adam over his selfishness and behavior towards Milly. Adam returns after the snow melts and meets his daughter. He and Milly reconcile. Adam admits that being a father, he now understands how families feel about their daughters and tells his brothers they must return the women. The heartbroken brothers agree to take them home. However, the women hide and refuse to go back. As the brothers search, the women's angry families reach the Pontipees' homestead. As the townsmen sneak up to the farm, Alice's father, Reverend Elcott, hears a baby crying. Fearing the worst, he asks the women whose baby it is. They immediately conspire together and simultaneously answer "mine!" The fathers begrudgingly allow their daughters to marry the brothers in a collective shotgun wedding.

On Monday, May 12, 1970, during the Cold War, unpopular U.S. President Jordan Lyman has signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. This produces a wave of dissatisfaction among the opposition and the military, who believe the Soviets cannot be trusted. As the president's ratings plummet, violent protests erupt right outside the White House. The presidential physician warns him of a dangerous cardiac condition which he blithely disregards, too busy to take a prescribed two-week vacation. Meanwhile, Colonel Martin "Jiggs" Casey, the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, learns that his superior, the highly decorated Air Force general James Mattoon Scott, is planning a coup d'etat with the Joint Chiefs. Disguised as a training exercise, the plan involves a secret army unit known as ECOMCON training at a secret Texas base, which will take control of the country's telephone, radio, and television networks and seize the president while he participates in a staged "alert". Scott, advancing his charismatic public persona through nationally televised anti-treaty rallies, will replace the president as head of a military junta. Although personally opposed to Lyman's policies, Casey is appalled by the plot and alerts Lyman. A skeptical Lyman gathers a circle of trusted advisors to investigate. Casey deduces the heads of all military branches but the Navy support Scott's coup, and Vice Admiral Barnswell, aboard an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, is apparently the only invited officer to decline. Lyman rescinds his commitment to participate in Scott's alert, pretending he will be away for a fishing weekend, then dispatches his Chief of Staff Paul Girard to Gibraltar to obtain Barnswell's confession. The alcoholic Senator Raymond Clark, Lyman's close friend of 21 years, goes to Texas to locate the secret base, and tasks Casey to gather dirt on the general's private life. The Secret Service surreptitiously films evidence of an attempt to kidnap the president during the phony fishing trip, removing all doubts about the existence of a plot. Girard successfully secures Barnswell's written confession, which is lost when he's killed in a plane crash in Spain. Clark is taken captive when he reaches the secret base and held incommunicado. Exploiting their longtime friendship, Clark convinces the base's deputy commander Colonel Henderson of the actual intent of the impending "alert". Henderson frees Clark and leads an escape back to Washington but is abducted and confined in a military stockade. In a radiophone conference call with the president, Barnswell denies knowledge of any conspiracy. Knowing he can't prove Scott's guilt, Lyman calls him to the White House to demand the conspirators resign. Scott refuses, denying the existence of a plot. Lyman argues that a coup would prompt the Soviets to launch a preemptive nuclear strike and Scott maintains the American people are behind him. Lyman challenges him to resign and run for office in order to seek power legitimately, but Scott is unmoved. Lyman restrains himself from confronting Scott with damning letters that Casey had obtained from Scott's former mistress Eleanor Holbrook. Casey, who has his own romantic interest in Holbrook, eventually returns them to her. Scott meets the other three Joint Chiefs, reasserts his intention to execute the coup, and plans a nighttime network broadcast, but Lyman plans an afternoon press conference to announce the firing of the four men. As the presser begins, Barnswell's confession, recovered from the plane crash, is handed to him and he pauses the proceeding to give time for copies of the confession to be delivered to Scott and the plotters. Scott, devastated, abandons the plan and returns home as Lyman announces the resignation of the other three conspirators on live air. Lyman delivers a speech on the state of the nation and its values, declaring that the nation gains strength through peace rather than by conflict. The press corps applauds.

The ship's medical officer, Dr. Schumann, takes a special interest in La Condesa, a Spanish countess with an opiate addiction, being deported from Cuba to a Spanish prison in Tenerife for illegally aiding the rebel cause in the Cuban Revolution of 1933. The 600 field workers in steerage, being deported to Spain due to the low market price of Cuban sugar, cheer the Condesa as she boards the ship under police escort. She tells the doctor she was motivated by seeing the impoverished conditions in which 5,000 laborers lived, under patronage of the man with whom she lived in luxury. She manipulates the doctor for drugs, but her activism aligns with the doctor's humanitarian ideals that the laborers in steerage be treated like human beings rather than cargo. Their shared sympathies soon evolve into love, though both realize it is a hopeless situation. The doctor conceals his heart condition from her. Selected passengers, mostly Aryan Germans, are invited to dine each night at the captain's table. Some are amused and others offended by the anti-Jewish rants of a German businessman, Rieber, who begins an affair with Lizzi, a blonde woman who admires him for his vitality and mind, until she learns he is married. Austrian-born Rieber extols the virtues of German nationalism and eugenics. The captain is reassured by Rieber's rants, believing that nobody can ever take the Nazi Party seriously. Though Jews and a dwarf are excluded from the table, the Hutten's dog, Baby, is allowed. When Baby is thrown overboard by children from steerage, the dog is saved, but an animal-loving laborer drowns in the rescue, despite the doctor's ministrations. The Huttens fuss over the dog, oblivious that its rescuer has died, even when informed by the doctor. The Jewish Lowenthal is seated at a side table with a dwarf named Glocken, and the two bond over their social exclusion. Later Freytag, a German passenger, is moved to this table when Rieber learns Freytag's wife is Jewish. Eventually Freytag discloses that he is separated from his Jewish wife due to pressure from his family and his employer as result of Nazi Rassenschande rhetoric. Revealing his Iron Cross 2nd class he earned in World War I, Lowenthal discusses with Glocken what it means to be German, including the Nazi Party and its anti-Jewish sentiment, which Lowenthal hopes to be temporary saying Jews have been good for Germany. Lowenthal is ultimately positive about the future of Jews in Germany, while Glocken is diametrically opposed in his pessimism. Glocken tells Lowenthal that he may be the biggest fool on the ship. An American artist couple, David and Jenny, have a passionate but tumultuous relationship. David is disconsolate at his lack of success as a socially committed artist; the independent Jenny dislikes his "unsellable" art and does not wish to compete with it in the relationship. He is dismissive of her artistic talent, which she herself undervalues. David expresses that whoever shares his life will need to accept that his art will always supersede her. Jenny fears that their life together will be endlessly fighting, with neither willing to put the other's needs before their own. Passengers are entertained nightly by a troupe of flamenco musicians and dancers, whose leader pimps the women in the troupe. Johann, an unpaid caregiver to Herr Graf, his invalid uncle, ignores the wholesome and insecure Elsa, who is traveling with her parents. Instead, Johann is attracted to one of the dancers, who rejects him for inability to pay. Johann threatens his stingy uncle if he does not give him money which has been promised to him in his uncle's will. He loses his virginity to one of the dancers, who treats him with gentleness when he pays. Mary Treadwell, a divorced fading beauty hoping to recapture her youth in Paris, is too mature to interest the captain. She disdains the lieutenant who shows interest, dismissing him first as doing his duty to unattended women and later as insignificant. When former baseball player and fellow American Bill Tenny is seated at her table, she finds him crass and ignorant. Tenny expresses surprise at the open hostility toward the Jews on board; she sarcastically replies that maybe he was too busy "lynching Negroes" to focus on Jews. Tenny pesters one of the flamenco dancers, believing that buying a magnum of champagne entitles him to have sex with her. She gives him the cabin number of Mrs. Treadwell. In a drunken stupor, Tenny barges into the cabin and accosts Mrs. Treadwell, who momentarily responds passionately until she realizes that he has mistaken her for a prostitute; she then hits him repeatedly and expels him from the cabin. The ship arrives in Tenerife, where the deported workers from steerage disembark. The doctor briefly considers staying with the Condesa, but the captain calls him foolish, contending that she manipulated him for drugs. After an emotionally painful farewell with the doctor, the Condesa is forced to exit the ship under Civil Guard escort. When the captain tells the distraught doctor she is not worth his anguish, the doctor explodes in a fit of pique, throwing cognac in his face and rebuking him, expressing that the Condesa took action against injustice, while they just carry out the orders they are given. Apologetic, the captain advises the doctor that he looks ill and should not respond to a call from a passenger for medical attention. The doctor ignores this and dies of a heart attack. Upon arrival in Bremerhaven his body is unloaded in a coffin with his estranged wife and sons in attendance. At disembarkation the passengers are shown descending in turn, going back to their ordinary lives. The last passenger to leave the ship is Glocken, who breaks the fourth wall and says he can hear the audience saying, " What has all this to do with us?...Nothing ", he chuckles and walks off.

Arthur Hamilton is a middle-aged banking executive in Scarsdale, New York, who, despite his professional success, remains profoundly unfulfilled. His love for his wife, Emily, has dwindled, and he seldom sees his only daughter, who has relocated to the West Coast and started a family. One day, Arthur receives an address placed into his hand by an unknown person who, somehow, knew his name. Later that day he receives a call from his childhood friend, Charlie, whom he believed to be dead. Though Arthur is initially disbelieving, Charlie claims it was he who approached him with the address and then recounts personal anecdotes that only he could know. Charlie informs him that he must go to the address provided; that it is imperative for him to do so because his life is empty of all motivation and choice. After some contemplation, Arthur decides to take up Charlie's proposition, and travels to the address, which he finds to be an apparent meat-packing plant; there, he is given workman's clothing and headgear, then exits the facility by a different door and is seated inside a truck that takes him to another building. There he meets a woman who directs him to an office and provides him with tea. He finds that he has been drugged and tries to leave the complex. He wanders around and disappears into a large area filled with dark, empty hallways and finds himself in a vulnerable woman's bedroom and while trying to become intimate with her, in his intoxication, he seemingly sexually assaults her. After waking, Arthur is informed that the Company's service comes at a cost of $30,000 and is shown a film of the prior staged assault, ostensibly to make his decision easier. Although he recoils at the apparent use of blackmail, Arthur reluctantly accepts on his own terms, after considering the emptiness in his life. The associates inform Arthur that they will fake his death in a hotel fire using an anonymous cadaver, and Arthur proceeds to undergo multiple extensive procedures by Dr. Innes that transform not only his facial features, but his vocal cords, teeth, and even fingerprints. Once healed, he is given the identity of the younger "Antiochus 'Tony' Wilson", an established visual artist. Arthur later discovers this identity has been taken from someone who recently died. Arthur is relocated by the Company into a community in Malibu, California, filled with people like him who are also "reborns". He attempts to assimilate into his new life, in which he is able to live as an artist —a career he had always aspired to— though he soon finds himself growing restless. While visiting the beach one day, Arthur encounters the freewheeling Nora Marcus. The two develop a swift attraction to each other, and Nora recounts how she came to leave her former life behind. One night, Arthur accompanies Nora to a Bacchanalia party in Santa Barbara. There, the revelers dance, sing, and stomp grapes in a large trough and, after some initial discomfort, Arthur lowers his inhibitions and begins to enjoy himself. Later, Arthur and Nora host a cocktail party for neighbors and other guests. Arthur gets drunk over the course of the night, and begins to speak openly to the other guests about his former identity, which is forbidden by the Company. Consequently, Arthur receives a phone call from Charlie, who warns him that he has put himself in danger by violating the Company's rules. Charlie also reveals that Nora is an employee of the Company who covertly oversees new "reborns" to assure they have a smooth transition. Disenchanted by his new contrived life, Arthur defiantly leaves California, and returns to New York. He arranges a meeting with Emily at his former home, claiming —as Tony— that he was once a friend of Arthur's. The two have a conversation in which Emily shares that she felt Arthur was emotionally disconnected from his life, and was in a constant state of longing that she could not understand. After the meeting, a melancholic Arthur is met by associates of the Company, and he requests that they give him a different identity. They agree to do so, but only if he can provide them with another referral to the Company. He tells them he does not know anyone he could proposition, and demands they carry out the transformation anyway. Returning to the headquarters, Arthur is placed in a waiting room with various other men, including his friend Charlie, all of whom have asked to undergo yet another 'rebirth'. An elated Charlie is chosen and is escorted from the waiting room. Frustrated at the unknown amount of time the men have been waiting to be chosen, and being unable to think of anyone that he can refer to the Company, Arthur angrily demands that his procedure is performed without further delay. Later, as Arthur is wheeled into the operating room, he is met by a chaplain who begins to read him his last rites. After being bound, gagged, and sedated, Arthur comes to realize he is about to be killed. Dr. Innes, who performed Arthur's original transformation, coldly laments to Arthur that he is sorry it has to end this way, and that Arthur's transformation into Tony was his "best work". He explains that Arthur's body will be used as the catalyst for another patient's transformation — the staged scene for that patient's faked death will be a car accident. Dr. Innes proceeds to drill into Arthur's skull to inflict a brain hemorrhage consistent with head injuries sustained in a car crash. As Arthur loses consciousness, he stares into the surgical light, and has a memory of seeing a man playing with his infant daughter on the beach; the image distorts and loses resolution as Arthur dies.

In the distant future, an overcrowded and troubled Earth relies on research conducted by scientists in remote stations across the Solar System. Contact is maintained by spaceships shuttling between the stations and large orbiting space stations. Captain James is preparing to depart from one of these stations around Saturn when he is murdered by Captain Benson. Benson, who was rated "potentially unstable" on a mental exam, then departs from the station using his cargo ship for a small, remote experimental hydroponics research station called Saturn 3. Arriving there, he finds the station run solely by Adam and his younger colleague and lover, Alex. Adam, Alex, and their dog, Sally, enjoy their isolation away from Earth. Alex has spent her entire life in space and knows Earth only from what Adam has told her. It falls to Benson to more fully educate Alex as to the habits and mores of humans who live on Earth, which include drug use. Alex and Adam's idyll is broken when Benson reveals his mission is to replace at least one of the moon's scientists with a robot. The robot—named Hector—is among the first of its kind, a "Demigod Series" model that relies on "pure brain tissue" extracted from human fetuses and is programmed via a direct link to Benson's brain. Adam tells Alex that he is the likely candidate for removal, being that he is close to "abort time" and will have to leave anyway. With Hector assembled, Benson begins preparing the robot, using the neural link implanted in his spine. Thus connected to Benson, Hector quickly learns of Benson's failure of the psychological stability test, and also of his murder of James. With little barrier between the robot's brain and Benson's, Hector is soon imbued with Benson's homicidal nature and his lust for Alex. The robot rebels. Adam and Benson disable the robot while it is recharging and remove its brain. Believing the danger is over, Adam accuses Benson of gross incompetence and orders him to dismantle the robot and return to Earth when the eclipse ends (the eclipse also prevents communication with other stations). Unknown to Benson, Adam, and Alex, Hector remains functional enough to take control of the base's older robots and use them to reassemble his body and reconnect his brain. Unaware of Hector's resurgence, Benson attempts to leave the station while dragging Alex with him. Resuscitated, Hector murders Benson before he can leave with Alex. Hector destroys Benson's spacecraft before the scientists can escape in it, trapping them all on Saturn 3, and assumes control of the station's computer. Trapped in the control room, both Alex and Adam are surprised to see Benson's face on their monitor. The two are directed by a voice they recognise as Benson's to leave the control room, both surprised that Benson is even alive. To their shock, the two are confronted by Hector, now wearing Benson's severed head. A short time later, Alex and Adam wake in their own rooms. To her horror, Alex finds that Hector has installed a brain link at the top of Adam's spine, much like the one that Benson had, and one which will give Hector direct access to Adam's brain. Hector explains that he can 'read' but taking control of Adam 'comes later'. This causes Adam to rebel, and he destroys Hector by tackling him into a waste pit and sacrificing himself with a grenade. In the final scene, Alex is shown aboard a passenger ship returning to Earth. She declines an offer of narcotics from a stewardess and instead looks out of a window for her first glimpse of Earth.

Oscar "Manny" Manheim is a bank robber and hero to the convicts of Alaska's Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison. After two previous escape attempts, Manny is put in solitary confinement for three years. A court order compels the cruel Warden Ranken to release him from solitary. Planning a third breakout, Manny is forced to move his plan to midwinter after he is stabbed in the hand. Manny recruits young prisoner Buck McGeehy to help in the plan. The two men escape through a sewer tunnel and hike to a switchyard. They steal railroad clothing and board a train consisting only of four locomotives. The elderly railroad engineer, Al, has a heart attack after starting the train. He attempts to stop it by pulling the conductor's valve before falling dead from the locomotive, but his application of the brakes disables the dead man's switch without cutting the throttle, so the locomotives burn through the brake shoes and keep going. As the unmanned train accelerates, dispatchers Dave Prince and Frank Barstow are alerted to the situation. Barstow allows the train to reach the mainline while trying to keep the tracks farther down the line clear. The runaway smashes the rear flatbed and caboose of a freight train referred to as Eastbound #12 pulling onto a siding. The collision damages the cab of the lead locomotive and jams the front door of the second engine, an older EMD F-unit. Barstow's superior Eddie McDonald orders him to derail the train. The train's horn then blows, alerting the authorities (and the two fugitives) that someone else is aboard the train. Barstow has the maintainer cancel the derailment. Ranken concludes his two escaped convicts are fleeing by rail. Meanwhile, the fugitives are discovered by Sara, a locomotive hostler who explains that she sounded the horn and the train is out of control. The train is going too fast for them to jump and can only be stopped from the lead engine, but the streamlined body of the second engine means that its now-unusable front door is the only way to reach the lead engine. They manage to slow the train by disconnecting the multi-unit cables between the second and third engine, shutting down the rear two locomotives. The dispatchers realize that the main line will take the train through a tight curve near a chemical plant, where its excessive speed would cause a disastrous derailment. Reluctantly, they divert the runaway onto a dead-end branch line, where its derailment would kill only the three on board. Manny tries forcing Buck into a suicidal scramble around the second engine's frozen nose. Sara's intervention on Buck's behalf results in an armed face-off between the convicts. Emotionally broken, all three slump into depression. Ranken arrives in a helicopter and his accomplice is lowered towards the lead engine, but he falls through the second engine's windscreen and then under the train. Spurred on by the appearance of his archenemy, Manny makes a perilous leap to the lead engine. He falls off the train but grabs onto the coupler, which crushes his injured hand before he manages to climb back up. Ranken boards the locomotive from the helicopter and confronts Manny, but Manny beats him and handcuffs him inside the engine. The frightened warden demands that Manny stop the train, but Manny has chosen to join Ranken in death rather than return to prison. When reminded of Buck and Sara in the second engine, Manny uncouples the lead engine from the rest of the train, leaving the other three engines to coast to a stop. He waves goodbye as Buck begs him to reconsider, then climbs onto the roof in the freezing snow, stretching his arms wide to embrace his freedom and incoming death. Buck and Manny's fellow inmates mourn in their cells as the lone engine vanishes into the storm. The film ends with a quote from Shakespeare 's Richard III: "No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast."