In 2005, David Packouz, a massage therapist living in Miami, Florida with his girlfriend Iz, spends his life savings on an unsuccessful venture to sell bedsheets to retirement homes. David runs into his old friend Efraim Diveroli, whose company, AEY Inc., sells arms to the US government for the war in Iraq. Efraim explains that all military equipment contracts up for bidding are posted on a public website, and he bids on small orders that, although ignored by larger contractors, are still worth millions of dollars. After Iz informs David she is pregnant, Efraim offers him a job at AEY. David accepts, but he lies to Iz, telling her they will be selling sheets to the military; when she later learns the truth, she tells him she understands what he is doing, but insists that he stop lying to her. Efraim gives David a crash course on arms dealing and introduces him to his silent partner, businessman Ralph Slutsky, who funds AEY’s deals under the false belief that the company only sells arms to protect Israel. David and Efraim land a contract to provide 5,000 Beretta pistols to the Iraqi police, but they have to circumvent an Italian embargo by sending the shipment to Baghdad through Jordan, where it is seized by customs. If they fail to deliver the pistols, AEY will be blacklisted from future contracts. They fly to Jordan, bribe local officials to release the shipment, and, with a smuggler, take it into Iraq themselves by truck. They are paid handsomely for driving it through the “ Triangle of Death ”. David again lies to Iz, telling her he was in Jordan the whole time. AEY expands its operations and David's daughter Ella is born, while Efraim grows more unstable and untrustworthy. The company has a chance at a contract to supply 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition to the Afghan military at a time when this ammunition is in short supply. At a convention, David and Efraim encounter arms dealer Henry Girard, who has sole access to massive stocks of unused Soviet-era weapons in Albania that the Albanians are required by NATO to liquidate. Barred from dealing directly with the US, Girard proposes to sell AEY the ammunition it needs. AEY wins the contract. Before David leaves for eight weeks in Albania to supervise the loading of the ammunition, Iz, who is fed up with David lying to her, leaves him to stay at her mother's with Ella. In Albania, David discovers the ammunition is Chinese -made and thus illegal under a US embargo, so Efraim has it repackaged to mask its origin. On learning Henry has charged them a 400% markup, Efraim decides, despite David’s protests, to cut Henry out of the deal. Henry retaliates by having David kidnapped, beaten, and threatened at gunpoint, leading David to return to Miami to confront Efraim. As David is about to leave, Enver, the Albanian handling the repackaging, tells him he has been paid nothing; David promises Enver to get his money wired to him from Miami. On returning to Miami, David quits AEY and demands compensation for his work on the Afghan deal, but Efraim refuses to pay him anything. David returns to working as a massage therapist and convinces Iz to move back in with him after telling her the truth about AEY. Three months later, Efraim, with Ralph serving as a mediator, offers David a paltry severance package; David tells Ralph what they have been doing, unaware that Ralph is wearing a listening device for the FBI. They have been denounced by Enver, who was never paid. David and Efraim are arrested. Efraim is sentenced to four years in prison, while David pleads guilty and is sentenced to seven months of house arrest. Some time later, Henry contacts David and apologizes for abducting him in Albania; he also thanks David for not mentioning him in his testimony and offers him a briefcase full of money he made from the Afghan deal.

Vincent, a real estate agent and father-to-be is invited for dinner by his sister Elisabeth and his brother-in-law Pierre. Their childhood friend, Claude (a trombonist for Radio France's orchestra), is also invited. Vincent is a wealthy, successful businessman, while Pierre, a university professor, is much more liberal. Elisabeth is a high school teacher for literature. Vincent's wife Anna is running late because of a business meeting. While waiting for dinner to be served, Vincent decides to play a practical joke by pretending that his unborn son will be named Adolphe after the French literary hero. This causes a huge argument between Vincent and Pierre about whether this name can be appropriate considering its obvious connection to Adolf Hitler. Vincent tells Claude that this is a joke and Elisabeth is too busy preparing dinner to fully participate. This argument escalates and exposes a variety of old grievances and resentments between the four friends. Vincent is selfish, hypocritical and vain, with a humorous facial expression whenever he lies. Pierre is snobbish, miserly and condescending while Vincent finds the names of his children absurd. While Claude is mocked for his surname and his effeminate habits. Meanwhile, Elisabeth continues to be occupied by cooking and angry that the three men keep joking around without her. There is a lull in the argument until Anna arrives which reignites the conversation and exposes more rifts between all the characters. Some huge revelations are brought to light after the meal is finished. Claude resents the questioning of his sexuality and reveals he has been seeing a woman for a while now but refuses to divulge more information. Pierre confesses to having killed a family pet during their childhood when Vincent had taken the blame for it at the time. Meanwhile, Anna is frustrated that Vincent has not tried to learn more about her career despite her success. When pressed for more information about his mysterious partner, Claude eventually reveals that it is Vincent and Elisabeth's mother Françoise. In his shock, Vincent strikes Claude while everyone struggles to understand the revelation. After a brief pause, Elisabeth calls her mother and discovers the full truth of the matter. It is also revealed that Anna knew of this affair which further shocks everyone and raises the tension. In her frustration, Elisabeth confesses her long held resentments against her husband, brother and childhood friend. Vincent had always been the favorite child who was always forgiven. Claude had deeply betrayed her trust by not sharing his secret affair and she is furious with Pierre, having sacrificed her own academic career to support Pierre. In addition she feels as though he is not sharing their shared burden of parenthood and his hypocrisy is brought up once again. This leaves a quiet in the room as Anna and Elisabeth make their opinions clear. Anna is tired and disappointed with Vincent's childish and selfish behaviour, warning a divorce if he doesn't change his behaviour before accompanying Claude to see Françoise. Elisabeth tells Pierre that he will be in charge of cleaning up dinner, putting their children to bed and will be sleeping on the couch until further notice. This leaves Pierre and Vincent alone in the living room. They share a bottle of rose and joke around slightly to ease the tension still present. 4 months later, Pierre, Elisabeth, Claude and Françoise arrive to visit Vincent and Anna at the hospital to see their child, who is unexpectedly a daughter. Everyone is told that she will be named Françoise.

Andrew Neiman, a 19-year-old jazz drummer, attends the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York City. Terence Fletcher, the conductor of Shaffer's most prestigious ensemble, overhears Andrew practicing and prompts him to play rudiments and a double-time swing beat. Unimpressed, Fletcher leaves, but later recruits him to perform in his ensemble as a backup for the core drummer, Carl Tanner. On his first day in Fletcher's class however, Andrew quickly discovers that Fletcher is relentlessly strict and abuses students verbally, physically, and psychologically. When Andrew apparently fails to keep tempo on Hank Levy 's " Whiplash " during his first ensemble rehearsal, Fletcher throws a chair at him, repeatedly slaps his face, and berates him. Determined to impress Fletcher, Andrew excessively practices, often until his hands bleed. After their first set at a jazz competition, Andrew misplaces Tanner's sheet music. Tanner cannot play without the sheets, so Fletcher allows Andrew to perform; Shaffer wins the competition. Fletcher promotes Andrew to core drummer, but abruptly reassigns the position to Ryan Connolly, a drummer from Andrew's previous ensemble within Shaffer. Andrew's single-mindedness toward music leads to him clashing with his family and breaking up with his girlfriend Nicole. One day, Fletcher begins rehearsal by announcing that Sean Casey, a former member of the Studio Band, has died in a car crash. He then pushes the three drummers to play at a faster tempo on " Caravan ", keeping them for a grueling five-hour practice. Andrew earns the core position back after he is the only one able to perform on tempo. Andrew's bus gets a flat tire on his way to the next competition. He rents a car, but arrives late and forgets his drumsticks at the rental office. Andrew races back and retrieves them, but his car is hit by a truck on the way back. An injured Andrew runs to the theater, arriving bloodied and weak as the ensemble enters the stage. He struggles to keep tempo and Fletcher halts the performance to dismiss him. Enraged, Andrew attacks Fletcher onstage and is expelled from Shaffer. At the request of his father Jim, Andrew meets a lawyer representing Casey's parents, who explain that Casey did not die in a car crash, but actually hanged himself after suffering from depression and anxiety due to Fletcher's abuse; and his parents want Fletcher held accountable. Andrew agrees to anonymously testify against Fletcher. Months later, Andrew, having abandoned drumming, encounters Fletcher playing piano at a jazz club. They have a conversation over drinks, during which Fletcher says that he was let go from Shaffer after someone complained about his conduct, admits he was harsh, but insists his methods were necessary to motivate students. He cites a story where Jo Jones allegedly threw a cymbal at Charlie Parker to argue that the next transformative jazz musician would never let themselves be discouraged. Fletcher invites Andrew to perform with his professional band at a New York JVC Jazz Festival, playing the same pieces from Shaffer; Andrew accepts. He calls Nicole to invite her, but learns she has a new boyfriend. At the festival, Fletcher reveals to Andrew that he knows Andrew testified against him; as revenge, he leads the band into Tim Simonec 's "Upswingin'", a song that Andrew does not know nor has the sheet to. After a disastrous performance, a humiliated Andrew walks offstage. After Jim embraces him, Andrew returns to the stage, reclaims the drum kit, and cuts off Fletcher by cueing the band into "Caravan". Fletcher, though angered, resumes conducting. Towards the end of "Caravan", Andrew improvises a lengthy solo. Impressed, Fletcher nods in approval before cueing the final chord.

Anna Sasaki is a 12-year-old girl with low self-esteem living in Sapporo with her foster parents, Yoriko and her husband. One day, Anna suffers an asthma attack at school. At the doctor's recommendation to send Anna to a place where the air is clean, Yoriko decides to have her spend summer break with Yoriko's relatives, Setsu and Kiyomasa Oiwa, who live in a rural seaside town located between Kushiro and Nemuro. Anna investigates an abandoned mansion across a salt marsh. She recognizes it, but the tide ensnares her and keeps her there until Toichi, an elderly fisherman, finds her. Anna sees a blonde-haired girl in the mansion. On the night of the Tanabata festival, she meets the girl, Marnie. The two agree to keep their meetings secret. Marnie invites Anna to a party at the mansion, where she sees Marnie dancing with a boy named Kazuhiko. Anna sketches Marnie while there. Anna meets Hisako, an older woman who paints. Hisako comments that Anna's sketches look like Marnie, whom she knew when she was young. A family moves into the mansion. During the move-in, Anna meets a girl named Sayaka, who gives her Marnie's diary that had been hidden in a drawer. Anna tells Marnie she found documents showing her foster parents are paid to care for her. She assumes that they only pretend to love her for the money and says she cannot forgive her biological family for leaving her behind and dying. Marnie shares how her parents are always traveling abroad, and how she is left behind with her cruel nanny. The maids bully her and threaten to lock her in the silo near the mansion. Anna leads Marnie to the silo to confront the latter's fear of it. Marnie conquers her fear, but begins referring to Anna as Kazuhiko. As a storm hits, Anna dreams of Marnie leaving and wakes up to discover her gone. Sayaka finds the missing pages from Marnie's diary, which include passages about Kazuhiko and the silo. She and her brother find Anna unconscious with a high fever. They bring her back to the Oiwas, where Anna confronts Marnie, intending not to forgive her for leaving her in the silo. Marnie says she is sorry for leaving her and she cannot see Anna anymore. Before they part, Anna tells Marnie that she loves her and forgives her. When Anna recovers, Hisako reveals Marnie's story: Marnie married Kazuhiko and had a daughter named Emily. Kazuhiko died from a sudden illness and Marnie committed herself to a sanatorium to cope with her loss. With no other family to care for her, Emily was sent to a boarding school. Marnie recovered, but as a preteen, Emily was resentful for her mother abandoning her. In her adulthood, Emily ran away from home to get married and had a daughter herself, but she and her husband were killed in a car accident when their daughter was just a baby. Marnie raised her granddaughter, who was placed in foster care after her death. At the end of the summer, Yoriko arrives to take Anna home and is delighted to see Anna with her new friends, Hisako, Toichi, and Sayaka. She gives Anna a photograph of the mansion and says it belonged to Anna's grandmother. When Anna sees Marnie's name written on the back, she realizes that she is Emily's daughter and Marnie's granddaughter, and knew so much of Marnie's story because she had heard it as a baby. This revelation brings closure to her identity. Yoriko tells Anna about the government payments but reassures her they have always loved her. For the first time, Anna calls Yoriko her mother. Anna says goodbye to her new friends and promises to visit again next summer. While driving away, she sees Marnie at the mansion window, waving goodbye to her.

Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school student in Itomori, a rural town in Gifu. Bored with her provincial life, she wishes to be reborn as a boy in Tokyo. Soon, she begins intermittently switching bodies with Taki Tachibana, a high school student and part-time waiter from Tokyo's Shinjuku ward. On certain days, they awaken in each other's bodies and must live the entire day as the other, reverting to their own bodies during sleep. They set rules for sharing their bodies, communicating via writing on paper, their phones, and their skin. In each other's bodies, Mitsuha sets Taki on a date with his coworker Miki Okudera; Taki, meanwhile, increases Mitsuha's popularity at school, and accompanies her grandmother Hitoha and younger sister Yotsuha to a shrine in the Goshintai crater. He offers kuchikamizake fermented with Mitsuha's saliva. Hitoha explains God 's sovereignty over both time and the connections between humans. Mitsuha informs Taki that Comet 279P/ Tiamat is expected to pass nearest to Earth on the day of the autumn festival. Taki, in his own body, goes on the date with Okudera the next day. While she enjoys it, she deduces Taki's preoccupations with someone else through his unusual behavior. Realizing his feelings for Mitsuha, Taki attempts and fails to call her. The body-switching stops inexplicably. Taki, Okudera, and his classmate Tsukasa Fujii travel to Hida to search for Mitsuha. Unfamiliar with her town's name, Taki sketches it from memory. A Takayama ramen-shop owner, recognizing Itomori, offers to take them there. They discover its ruins, almost entirely decimated by Tiamat's fragments. Simultaneously, Mitsuha's messages vanish from his phone. The comet having passed in 2013, Taki realizes that Mitsuha has been separated from him by three years, since he lived in 2016. At Hida City Library, the three discover that the Miyamizus and their friends were among its 500 fatalities. Taki begins to lose his memories of Mitsuha. Later, Taki rushes to Goshintai to imbibe Mitsuha's kuchikamizake. Upon doing so, he faints, undergoing a vision chronicling much of her life, realizing that she once came to Tokyo to find him. Although then unaware, she passed her kumihimo braid onto him, which he has worn as a lucky bracelet ever since. He awakens in Mitsuha's body on the morning of the festival. Hitoha undergoes an epiphany upon observing "Mitsuha's" uncharacteristic behavior; speaking directly to Taki, she reveals that the body-switching has been in their family for centuries. Taki enlists Mitsuha's friends Sayaka and Tessie to force an evacuation prior to Tiamat's impact by destroying Itomori's substation and hijacking its emergency broadcast system. He returns to the shrine, where Mitsuha has awakened in his own body. At twilight, their timelines intersect, allowing them to meet in person. Taki returns Mitsuha's braid; as they attempt to write their names on each other's palms, night falls before Mitsuha can write hers. Returning to Itomori, Mitsuha finds that the mayor, her estranged father Toshiki, had instructed residents to stay put. She persuades him to order an evacuation instead. Beginning to forget Taki, she discovers that he wrote "I love you" on her hand instead of his name. Taki awakens in his own time, without memory of Mitsuha. Five years later, Taki has graduated from university; with persistent melancholy, he struggles with job searching. He has continuously fixated on the Itomori meteor strike, in which a last-minute evacuation order miraculously saved Itomori's residents. Eventually, on April 8, 2022, he glimpses Mitsuha, now resident in Tokyo, on a parallel metro train; they race to find each other. On the steps of Suga Shrine, Taki calls out to Mitsuha, and they simultaneously ask for each other's names.