Dave Skylark is the host of the talk show Skylark Tonight, where he interviews celebrities about personal topics. The show's broadcast gets interrupted by news reports about North Korea, regarding its leader Kim Jong Un and concerns about its nuclear weapons. When Skylark and his crew celebrate producer Aaron Rapaport's 1,000th episode, another producer criticizes the show for not being a real news program. Upset by this, Rapaport urges change and Skylark agrees before discovering Kim is a fan of their show, prompting Rapaport to arrange an interview. CIA Agent Lacey visits the duo and requests they assassinate Kim with a transdermal strip of ricin via handshake to prevent a possible nuclear launch against the West Coast; they reluctantly agree. Skylark carries the strip inside a gum pack. Upon their arrival in Pyongyang, the group is greeted by North Korean chief propagandist Sook-yin Park and taken to the palace, where they are introduced to Kim's security officers Koh and Yu, who are suspicious of them. When Koh finds the strip, he mistakes it for gum and chews it. After making a secret request for help, Lacey airdrops them two more strips via a drone. To get it back to their room however, Rapaport is forced to evade a Siberian tiger and hide the container in his rectum, before getting caught and stripped naked by security. Skylark meets and befriends Kim, who convinces Skylark that he is misunderstood as a cruel dictator and a failed administrator, and spends the day playing basketball, hanging out, riding in his personal tank and partying with escort women together. At a state dinner, Koh suffers a seizure and diarrhea from the ricin poisoning, accidentally shooting Yu before dying. A guilt-ridden Skylark discards one of the ricin strips the next morning and thwarts Rapaport's attempt to poison Kim with the second strip. At a dinner mourning the deaths of the bodyguards, Skylark witnesses Kim's malicious self as he angrily threatens South Korean "capitalists", the United States and everyone who attempts to undermine his power, and later discovers Kim has been lying to him upon seeing that a nearby grocery store is fake. At the same time, while seducing Rapaport, Sook reveals she despises Kim and apologizes for defending his regime. Skylark returns and tries to get Sook's support to assassinate Kim, but she suggests they instead damage his cult of personality and show the North Koreans the dire state of the country. The trio devises a plan to expose Kim on-air, arming themselves with guns. In the internationally televised interview with Kim, Skylark addresses increasingly sensitive topics, including the food shortage and America-imposed economic sanctions, then challenges his need for his father 's approval. Rapaport takes over the control room to fight off the guards trying to cut the broadcast. Initially resistant and rebuffed by Skylark's claims, Kim cries and defecates himself after Skylark, having known his fondness for Katy Perry, ruins his reputation by singing " Firework ". Enraged at Skylark's betrayal, Kim shoots him and vows revenge by preparing the nuclear missiles. Skylark, whose bulletproof vest has saved him, escapes with Rapaport and Sook and hijacks Kim's tank to get to their pickup point. In a helicopter, Kim attempts to issue the command to launch the missiles, only to get shot down by Skylark before he could do so. With the nuclear threat thwarted, Sook guides Skylark and Rapaport to an escape route, saying she has to return to Pyongyang to maintain security. Skylark and Rapaport are later tracked down and rescued by SEAL Team Six members disguised as North Korean soldiers. Back in America, Skylark writes a book about his experience, Rapaport returns to work as producer and maintains contact with Sook via Skype, and North Korea becomes a denuclearized democracy under Sook's interim leadership.

David is escorted to a hotel after his wife leaves him for another man. The hotel manager reveals that single people have 45 days to find a partner or they will be transformed into an animal of their choice (the dog accompanying David is his brother Bob). David is set on becoming a lobster, should he fail. David makes the acquaintance of Robert, a man with a lisp, and John, a man with a limp. Guests are fixated on finding a mate with whom they share superficial traits such as minor ailments, which they believe to be the key to compatibility. The hotel has many rules and rituals: masturbation is banned, but sexual stimulation by the hotel maid is mandatory, and guests attend dances and watch propaganda extolling the advantages of partnership. Residents can extend their deadline by hunting and tranquilizing the single people who live in the forest, with each captured " loner " earning them an additional day. On the way to a hunt, a woman with a fondness for butter biscuits offers David sexual favours, which he declines. She tells him that if she fails to find a mate, she will kill herself by jumping from a hotel window. John wins the affections of a woman with constant nosebleeds by purposely smashing his nose in secret. They move to the couples' section to begin a month-long trial partnership. David later decides to court a notoriously cruel woman who has tranquilized more loners than anyone else. Their initial conversation is accompanied by the screams of the biscuit-loving woman, who has injured herself by jumping from a first floor window. David pretends to enjoy the woman's suffering to gain the heartless woman's interest. He later joins her in a hot tub where she feigns choking on an olive to test him. Noticing that he makes no attempt to help her, she decides that they are a match, and the two are shifted to the couples' suite. David wakes up one morning and finds she has killed Bob. As David tearfully mourns him, she concludes that their relationship is a lie and attempts to drag him to the hotel manager to have him turned into the "animal that no one wants to be" as punishment. He escapes and, with the help of a sympathetic maid (later revealed as a mole working for the loners), tranquilizes his partner and transforms her into an unspecified animal. David escapes the hotel and joins the loners in the woods. In contrast to the hotel, they forbid any kind of romance, which is punishable by mutilation. David, who is short-sighted, begins a secret relationship with a woman who is also short-sighted. They develop a gestural language they use to communicate. They are taken on covert missions to the nearby city, where their cover requires them to appear as husband and wife, which they secretly enjoy. Because they have the required superficial traits in common and genuinely enjoy each other's company, they make a plan to leave the loners and rejoin society. The loners launch a raid to sabotage the hotel. David tells the woman with nosebleeds that John has been faking his. Other loners hold the hotel manager and her husband at gunpoint, tricking him into shooting his wife to save himself, but the gun is not loaded. They leave the couple to face each other. The leader of the loners obtains the short-sighted woman's journal and discovers David's plan to escape with her. The leader and the maid take the woman to the city, ostensibly to have an operation to cure her short-sightedness, but instead have her blinded. The woman attempts to stab the leader, but the leader uses the maid as a human shield and pretends to die when the woman stabs the maid to death. David and the woman try to find something else that they have in common, to no avail. One morning, David overpowers the leader, leaving her tied up in an open grave to be eaten alive by wild dogs. He and the blind woman escape to the city and stop at a restaurant. David goes to the restroom and hesitantly prepares to blind himself with a steak knife.

In 2035, the crew of the Ares III mission to Mars is exploring Acidalia Planitia on Martian solar day (sol) 18 of their 31-sol expedition. A severe dust storm threatens their Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and in the ensuing evacuation, astronaut Mark Watney is struck by flying debris and presumed dead. Facing imminent peril, the remaining crew takes off for their orbiting vessel, the Hermes, which will then return them to Earth. Watney awakens after the storm, having narrowly survived his injuries. As he recovers within the crew's surface habitat ("Hab"), he begins a video diary to document his thoughts on survival. Unable to communicate with Earth, his only chance of rescue is the next Mars mission in four years, when Ares IV will land at the Schiaparelli crater. The Ares IV MAV has already arrived on the site in preparation for the mission. With this timeframe in mind, Watney's main survival concerns are food and travel. Being a botanist, he cultivates a potato garden inside the Hab using the crew's bio-waste with Martian soil, and creates water from leftover rocket fuel. He also modifies a crewed rover for the journey to Schiaparelli. On Earth, NASA satellite planner Mindy Park notices Watney's activity from recorded satellite images, and suspects he must be alive. NASA director Teddy Sanders releases the news to the public but decides not to inform the Ares III crew en route to Earth, over flight director Mitch Henderson's strong objection. Watney explores the surrounding terrain and studies his maps, but he quickly journeys out to retrieve the Pathfinder probe, hoping to restore its communications. Mars missions director Vincent Kapoor realizes this strategy, and quickly visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) director Bruce Ng to use their replica of the probe. The agency makes contact with Watney and instructs him to link Pathfinder to the rover, where he can now communicate by text. With this breakthrough, Henderson is finally allowed to inform Watney's crewmates. As Watney enters the Hab on one evening, a leak in the airlock causes an explosion that injures him and destroys the potato garden. Although he repairs the airlock, he is again threatened by starvation. NASA scrambles to procure a resupply ship for Watney, with Sanders ordering routine safety inspections bypassed to expedite the mission. This oversight results in catastrophe as the ship disintegrates shortly after launch. The China National Space Administration decides to offer a launch vehicle – originally intended for the Taiyang Shen space probe – to resupply Watney. Astrophysicist Rich Purnell devises an alternative plan: send the Taiyang Shen launcher to resupply the Hermes, which will then use Earth's gravity to " slingshot " back to Mars two years earlier than Ares IV. Sanders flatly rejects the idea, considering it too risky for the Ares III crew. Henderson surreptitiously sends the proposal to the crew, and they unanimously vote in favor and divert the Hermes. Sanders is forced to support them publicly, but demands Henderson's resignation after the mission. After waiting several months, Watney embarks on the long journey to the Ares IV MAV. He plans to use it to rendezvous with the Hermes, but needs to lighten the load considerably by partially dismantling the cockpit. He takes off to orbit, but the Hermes crew find that they remain too far away and moving too fast to retrieve him. Commander Lewis quickly improvises to explode the airlock in part of the ship, resulting in air violently escaping and slowing them down. Lewis also pilots a tethered Manned Maneuvering Unit to personally reach Watney, but they are still too far apart. Watney quickly improvises by piercing his pressure suit, and propels himself with the escaping air, reaches Lewis, and manages to hold on. NASA and spectators across the world all celebrate the successful rescue. After returning to Earth, Watney becomes a survival instructor for astronaut candidates. Five years later, as the Ares V is launching, those involved in Watney's rescue are seen in their current lives watching the launch footage.

In the 1890s, Ephraim Winslow begins a four-week stint as a "wickie" (lighthouse keeper) on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of former sailor Thomas Wake. In his quarters, Winslow discovers a small scrimshaw of a mermaid and keeps it in his jacket. Wake immediately proves to be very demanding, subjecting Winslow to taxing jobs such as emptying chamber pots, maintaining the machinery, carrying heavy kerosene tanks up the stairs, and painting the lighthouse, while barring Winslow from the lantern room. Winslow observes that, every night after ascending the lighthouse, Wake disrobes before the light. During his stay on the island, Winslow begins to hallucinate sea monsters and logs floating in the sea, and masturbates to the mermaid on the scrimshaw. Winslow is bothered by a one-eyed gull, but Wake warns him against killing it under the superstitious belief that gulls are reincarnated sailors. One evening while dining, Wake reveals to Winslow that his previous wickie died after losing his sanity, while Winslow reveals that he is a former timberman from Maine who was stationed in Canada and is now seeking a new trade. The day before the scheduled departure, Winslow discovers a dead gull inside the cistern, bloodying the drinking water. He is attacked by the one-eyed gull and brutally bludgeons it to death. The wind drastically changes direction and a fierce storm hits the island. Winslow and Wake spend the night getting drunk, and the storm prevents the lighthouse tender from collecting them the next day. As Winslow empties the chamber pots, he discovers the beached body of a mermaid, which waves and howls at him. He flees back to the cottage, where Wake informs him the storm has spoiled their rations. Winslow is not worried because he thinks the tender is only a day late, but Wake says that they have already been stranded for weeks. The pair unearths a crate at the lighthouse's base that Winslow assumes contains reserve rations, but it is full of bottles of alcohol. As the storm continues to rage, Winslow and Wake get drunk every night and alternate between moments of intimacy and hostility. One night, Winslow tries unsuccessfully to steal the lantern room keys from Wake and contemplates murdering him. Winslow later sees the one-eyed head of Wake's previous wickie in a lobster trap. While drunk, Winslow confesses to Wake that his real name is Thomas Howard, and he assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, his cruel foreman in Canada whom he deliberately allowed to drown during a log drive. Howard has a menacing vision of Wake accusing Howard of "spilling beans" and runs to the dory to try to leave the island, but Wake appears and destroys the boat with an axe. After chasing Howard back to their lodgings, Wake claims it was Howard who chased him and hacked up the dory, as Howard was driven mad by his confession. With no alcohol left, Howard and Wake begin drinking a concoction of turpentine and honey, and that night a giant wave crashes through the wall of their cottage. In the morning, Howard finds Wake's logbook, in which Wake has criticized him as a drunken and incompetent employee and recommended he be fired without pay. The two men argue, and Howard attacks Wake while hallucinating the mermaid, the real Winslow, and Wake as a Proteus -like figure. Howard beats Wake into submission and takes him to the hole at the base of the lighthouse to bury him alive. Before losing consciousness, Wake describes a " Promethean " punishment that awaits those who look in the lantern, and Howard takes the keys to the lantern room. Howard goes to get a cigarette, and Wake returns and strikes him with the axe. Howard disarms and kills Wake before ascending the lighthouse. In the lantern room, the Fresnel lens opens to Howard, who reaches in and violently screams in distortion before falling down the lighthouse steps. Some time later, a barely-alive Howard lies nude on the rocks with a damaged eye as a flock of gulls peck at his exposed organs; the lighthouse is nowhere in sight.

In 1997, a space shuttle lands at a secret military base where a young man, Billy, steps out and is interrogated by a military superior, Felix. He begins recounting his story. Research is being carried out on possible control of the weather. The technical equipment for this is on board the Florida ARKLAB space station, which is jointly operated by the United States and Europe. There, the two astronauts Max and Billy are researching the possibilities of influencing the climate and weather patterns on Earth with microwaves. Billy enjoys a close relationship with Max for the several months they spend together in isolation. Max's wife, Eva, contacts the ARKLAB to announce that she has decided to divorce him because his time away has strained their relationship. At the same time, there is a coup d'état in Saudi Arabia which Billy is oblivious to but Max is closely watching on the TV. The technology of weather control becomes misused for military purposes. Control of the civilian station is taken over by the American military. When the station flies over Saudi Arabia, the systems are taken over by the ground and some substance is vented outside. Max asks the ground controllers for more info and is rebuffed. It turns out that the effect of the microwave radiation is used as a cloak of invisibility for US forces against satellite-based reconnaissance and is thus intended to conceal a military intervention by the United States in Saudi Arabia from the UN. Max uses Billy's security codes to uncover more classified information. Billy sees a news report that a US military operation to free hostages in Saudi Arabia has succeeded, but does not tell Max. Max knows that the irradiation of the affected regions will most likely lead to severe natural disasters. He goes to manually disable the systems the next time they are supposed to spray radiation, but is injured in the process and the station itself gets damaged. Ground control relieves him of duty. Two other astronauts, Eva and Gregor, are sent up on a Space Shuttle to help repair the reactor and ensure it is meeting its military objective. Gregor is authorized to enforce the orders of the military by force, Eva is supposed to exert influence on Max through her relationship with him. Gregor has the order to carry out another irradiation for military reasons and is put under massive pressure by the military to carry it out. Max tries to stop him and attempts to leak information about the military plot to the European press. Gregor disconnects the wiring just before they are in communications range and seriously wounds Max with gunshots. Max kills him, and confesses his love for Eva before succumbing to his wounds. However, the renewed use of the microwave emitters leads to a core meltdown in the already damaged reactor system. Gregor dies while trying to leave the station. Billy screams Max's name as the station falls apart. He and Eva escape in the shuttle as the station explodes. Back on Earth, Felix then tells him that the monsoon set in early due to the microwave irradiation in India and that gigantic floods have occurred as a result with enormous casualties. Afterwards, Eva and Billy are taken away by soldiers. Shortly afterwards, Felix hears on the news that the two have allegedly died of radiation poisoning they suffered in the disaster at the station. He then destroys the recordings of the interrogation.

Michael Baskin is an average 11-year-old boy. His father, Billy Baskin, is a struggling artist and temporary sole caretaker of the children, while his wife attends to the estate of her recently deceased father in Australia. Upon hearing that an abandoned mansion has recently burned down, Michael and his friend Connie decide to explore the remains. Outside the mansion, Connie dares Michael to take a look inside, leading to a frightening encounter with the ghosts of its homeless inhabitants who had died in the fire. Michael does not know this yet, but his fearsome run-in with the ghosts has given him a mysterious illness, "The Fright." Michael wakes up the next morning to find that "The Fright" has made him lose his hair. After a failed attempt with a wig, the ghosts visit Michael in his sleep and give him the recipe of a magical formula for hair growth, the main ingredient of which is peanut butter. Michael's first attempt to make the formula is thwarted when his father and sister dispose of it, thinking he was creating something to ingest. The ghosts return the following night, giving themselves a second chance to repay him for giving his money to some homeless people. They also give Michael special instructions on not adding too much peanut butter, which will result in dreadful results. Michael successfully makes the formula but ignores their instructions and wakes up the next morning to find that his new hair has begun to grow super fast. After only a few minutes, he has grown a full head of hair. Suspicious, Connie confronts Michael about his unusual ability. When Michael reveals his concoction, Connie decides to apply some to his pubic area in an attempt to create the illusion that he is going through puberty. Connie soon discovers that the joke is on him. Soon, Michael and Connie's hair grows to such lengths that it becomes a nuisance for the school and their classmates, resulting in their suspensions. While Michael searches for a solution, Connie discovers that the hair will stop growing by yelling at it. The art teacher at Michael's school, the Signor, frightens children and forbids them from using their imagination. After getting fired from the school, the Signor finds out about Michael's condition and kidnaps him (and many other neighborhood children) to make magic paint brushes from Michael's ever-growing hair, in which he subdues Michael with a knockout drug. The kidnapped children are put to work under harsh conditions. The paintbrushes are so powerful that they paint whatever their user imagines without need for detail or neatness. Michael's sister, Suzie, and Connie discover the Signor's magical paintbrush factory and try to rescue Michael and the other kids. Connie tries to use force, but Signor and his dog James overpower him. Instead, Connie tricks the Signor into painting a picture of the abandoned mansion. Connie then dares him to investigate inside, leading "The Fright" to be passed on from Michael to the Signor. The Signor, now bald, escapes from the haunted house and chases the children, locking them up. Just as Connie is about to escape with Michael, Susan and their dad find the factory, and the local police arrest the Signor. The film ends with the family reunited, the mother returning home, and Michael's hair no longer growing out of control.

In 2017, following a worldwide economic collapse and resource scarcity, the USA has become a totalitarian police state. The government maintains control through propaganda and censorship of unsanctioned art, music, and communication. The state-controlled broadcaster ICS runs the nation's most popular program, "The Running Man," a game show in which prisoners can earn their freedom by surviving as "runners" against lethal "stalkers". Captain Ben Richards is arrested after refusing orders to open fire on an unarmed food riot in Bakersfield. His fellow officers massacre the rioters and frame Richards for the incident, branding him the "Butcher of Bakersfield". 18 months later, Richards escapes from a prison labor camp with resistance fighters Harold Weiss and William Laughlin. They ask him to join their cause, but Richards declines, focused only on surviving. Richards travels to his brother's former apartment but discovers that ICS composer Amber Mendez now lives there after his brother was taken for "re-education". Richards forces Amber to help him bypass airport security, but thinking he is the "Butcher", she alerts the authorities. After his capture, Amber sees news reports falsely claiming that Richards murdered people during the incident and begins to doubt his guilt. Damon Killian, host of The Running Man, approaches Richards hoping to use his notoriety to revive the show's ratings. He threatens to send the recaptured Weiss and Laughlin into the game unless Richards agrees to participate. As the show begins, Killian betrays Richards by sending him, Weiss, and Laughlin into the game zone—an abandoned section of L.A.—via rocket sleds. The group is hunted by Subzero, a hockey-themed stalker whom Richards kills, marking the first time a runner has ever killed a stalker. Meanwhile, Amber is caught retrieving the uncut Bakersfield footage and is sent into the zone. Killian sends in two more stalkers—the chainsaw-wielding Buzzsaw and the electricity-shooting Dynamo. Richards kills Buzzsaw, though Laughlin is fatally wounded. Weiss discovers that the satellite uplink controlling government broadcasts is located inside the zone, and he cracks the access code for Amber to memorize before Dynamo kills him. Richards incapacitates Dynamo but refuses to kill him while he is defenseless, shocking the audience. When Killian secretly offers Richards a job as a stalker, Richards angrily refuses. Amber later finds the corpses of Whitman, Price, and Haddad, the show's supposed past "winners", realizing their victories were fabricated, and Richards kills the flamethrower-wielding Fireball. The audience begins cheering for Richards. Richards and Amber are found by resistance leader Mic and taken to their command center. Killian tries to force retired stalker Captain Freedom to fight Richards, but he refuses unless he can fight him honorably. ICS instead fabricates footage showing Freedom killing Richards and Amber. Seeing this broadcast, Richards realizes that the government must ensure they are never seen alive again. Using the satellite uplink codes, Mic transmits an exposé revealing Killian's and the government's lies, including the unedited Bakersfield footage, while Richards leads resistance fighters in a takeover of ICS to prevent the broadcast from being shut down. The resistance battles ICS security forces as the studio audience flees. Dynamo attempts to rape Amber, but she activates the sprinkler system, electrocuting him. Richards confronts Killian, forces him into a rocket sled, and sends him into the game zone, where the uncontrolled vehicle crashes and explodes, killing him. Richards and Amber kiss as the crowd celebrates, and the broadcast goes offline.

In 1958 postwar Britain, Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, receives a letter from the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, now Mrs. Benn. Their past employer, the Earl of Darlington, has died a broken man, his reputation destroyed by his pre–Second World War support of Nazi Germany, and his stately country house has been sold to retired US Congressman Jack Lewis. Allowed to borrow the Daimler, Stevens sets off for the West Country to see Miss Kenton for the first time in decades. In the 1930s, Kenton arrives at Darlington Hall, where the ever-efficient but deeply repressed Stevens derives his entire identity from his profession. He butts heads with the warmer, strong-willed Kenton, particularly when he refuses to acknowledge that his father, now an under-butler, is no longer able to perform his duties. Displaying total professionalism, Stevens carries on as his father lies dying during Darlington's conference of like-minded fascist -sympathising British and European aristocrats. Also in attendance is U.S. Congressman Lewis, who admonishes the "gentleman politicians" as meddling amateurs, advising that "Europe has become the arena of Realpolitik " and warning of impending disaster. Exposed to Nazi racial laws, Darlington gets Stevens to dismiss two newly hired refugee German-Jewish maids. Kenton threatens to resign but has nowhere to go, and a regretful Darlington is later unable to rehire the maids. At another conference, Stevens is unable to answer an aristocratic guest's questions on global trade and politics, which the aristocrat claims demonstrates the lower classes' ignorance and inability to govern themselves. Relations thaw between Stevens and Kenton, and she clearly shows her feelings for him. But the outwardly detached Stevens remains dedicated solely to his role as butler. She catches him reading a romance novel, which he explains is to improve his vocabulary, asking her not to invade his privacy again. Lord Darlington's godson, journalist Reginald Cardinal, arrives on the day of a secret meeting at Darlington Hall between the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and the German ambassador, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Appalled by his godfather's role in seeking appeasement for Nazi Germany, Cardinal tells Stevens that Darlington is being used by the Nazis, but Stevens feels it is not his place to judge his employer. Kenton forms a relationship with former co-worker Tom Benn and accepts his proposal of marriage. She informs Stevens as an ultimatum, but he will not admit his feelings and only offers his congratulations. Finding her crying, his only response is to call her attention to a neglected domestic task, and she leaves Darlington Hall before the start of the Second World War. En route to meeting Kenton in 1958, Stevens is mistaken for a gentleman at a pub. Doctor Carlisle, a local GP, helps him refuel the Daimler, deduces that he is actually a manservant, and asks his thoughts about Lord Darlington's actions. Initially denying having even met him, Stevens later admits to having served and respected him, noting that Darlington later confessed that his Nazi sympathies had been misguided and naive. Stevens tells Carlisle that, although Lord Darlington was unable to correct his error, he is attempting to correct his own. Stevens meets Kenton, who has separated from her husband and is staying at a boarding house on the coast. She and Stevens discuss how Lord Darlington died from a broken heart after suing a newspaper for libel, losing the suit and his reputation. Stevens mentions that Cardinal was killed in the war. Kenton declines to resume her position at Darlington Hall, wishing to remain near her pregnant daughter and, despite years of unhappiness, thinking about going back to her husband. Stevens supposes they may never meet again, and they part fondly but are both quietly upset, with Kenton visibly tearful as her bus pulls away. Stevens returns to Darlington Hall, where Lewis asks if he remembers what he had said at the conference in the 30s. Stevens replies that he was too busy serving to listen to the speeches. A pigeon flies into the fireplace from the chimney, and Lewis catches and sets it free. Stevens watches the bird as it flies away, leaving Darlington Hall far behind.

In 1972, Flynt and his younger brother, Jimmy, run the Hustler Go-Go, a struggling strip club in Cincinnati. In a bid to improve his business, Flynt decides to publish a newsletter for the club featuring nude photos of his strippers, which he names Hustler. The newsletter soon becomes a full-fledged magazine, but sales are weak. After Hustler publishes photos of former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis sunbathing nude in 1972, it becomes a national sensation, and Larry decides to focus on it full-time. Flynt becomes smitten with Althea Leasure, who he allows to work as a stripper despite her being underage. With his success comes enemies – as he finds himself a hated figure of anti-pornography activists. He argues with the activists, declaring that "murder is illegal, but if you take a picture of it, you may get your name in a magazine or maybe win a Pulitzer Prize. However, sex is legal, but if you take a picture of that act, you can go to jail." He becomes involved in several prominent court cases, and befriends his young and idealistic lawyer, Alan Isaacman. In 1975, Flynt is convicted on pornography charges, but the decision is overturned on appeal; he is released from jail soon afterwards. Ruth Carter Stapleton, a Christian activist and sister of President Jimmy Carter, seeks out Flynt and urges him to give his life to Jesus; this results in Flynt attempting to turn his life around and even push for Hustler to become a more tasteful publication in line with his competitors. However, Althea, who blames molestation by nuns during her years in Catholic school for her problems in life, grows to resent him. In 1978, during another trial in Georgia, Flynt and Isaacman are both shot by a man with a rifle while they walk outside a courthouse. Isaacman recovers, but Flynt is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Broken by the experience, Flynt renounces his faith, turns over control of Hustler to Jimmy and Althea, and moves to Beverly Hills, where he quickly spirals into drug addiction to combat his depression and crippling pain. In 1983, Flynt undergoes surgery to deaden several nerves in his back damaged by the bullet wounds, and as a result, feels rejuvenated. He soon returns to an active role with the publication. Flynt is soon in court again for leaking videos relating to the John DeLorean entrapment case, and during his courtroom antics, he fires Isaacman, then throws an orange at the judge. He later wears an American flag as an adult diaper along with an Army helmet, and wears provocative T-shirts. After spitting water at the judge, Flynt is committed to a psychiatric ward, where he sinks into depression again. Flynt publishes a satirical parody ad in which Jerry Falwell tells of a drunken sexual encounter with his mother. Falwell sues for libel and emotional distress. Flynt countersues for copyright infringement, because Falwell copied his ad and used it to raise funds for his legal bills. The case goes to trial in December 1984, but the decision is mixed, as Flynt is found liable for inflicting emotional distress but not libel and is forced to pay damages to Falwell. Althea, now a morphine addict, visits Flynt and reveals her HIV diagnosis; disgusted to learn that the Hustler staff won't even shake her hand, Flynt arranges a company meeting via phone call and fires everyone. Althea comes to live with him, but later drowns in the bathtub after passing out. Flynt presses Isaacman to appeal the Falwell decision to the Supreme Court of the United States. Isaacman refuses, saying Flynt's courtroom antics humiliated him. Flynt pleads with him, saying that he "wants to be remembered for something meaningful". Isaacman finally agrees to represent him in front of the Supreme Court, in the case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell in December 1987. With Flynt sitting silently in the courtroom, the court overturns the original verdict in a unanimous decision. After the trial, Flynt is shown to be alone in his bedroom watching old videotapes of a happy, healthy Althea and himself before tragedy struck them both.

Chicago Police Lieutenant Danny Roman is a top hostage negotiator for the east precinct. His partner, Nate Roenick, warns him that an informant inside the department suspects members of their own unit have embezzled millions from the police disability fund. Before they can meet again, Nate is shot dead, and Danny is lured to the scene and discovered by the police, but is unable to corroborate Nate's story or identify the informant. Danny is targeted by Internal Affairs Inspector Terence Niebaum, whom Nate's informant believed was involved in the embezzlement. The gun is recovered from a pond and linked to one of Danny's cases, and a search of his home produces evidence of an incriminating offshore bank account, making him the prime suspect in the embezzlement and Nate's murder. Forced to surrender his duty weapon and badge, ostracized by his colleagues, and with charges against him pending, Danny storms into Niebaum's office for a confrontation. When the investigatior refuses to cooperate, Danny takes Niebaum, his administrative assistant Maggie, Danny's commander and friend Grant Frost, and con man Rudy Timmons as hostages. With the building evacuated and placed under siege by his own unit and the FBI, Danny will only speak to fellow negotiator Lieutenant Chris Sabian of the west precinct. He also issues his demands: the render of his badge, a department funeral if he gets killed, and the identities of Nate's informant and killer. Chris, who sees tactical action as a last resort, clashes with Danny's unit, particularly chief Allen Travis and commander Adam Beck. A breach of Niebaum's office backfires when a SWAT marksman refuses to shoot Danny, who captures officers Scott and Markus. Chris takes command of the scene, but Danny seemingly executes Scott to reestablish control. Danny releases Frost to Chris in exchange for restoring the building's electricity, allowing him to search the files of Niebaum's computer, discovering that Internal Affairs had wiretap recordings of Nate. Believing Niebaum gave fabricated information when he claimed of not having any connections to Nate while he was investigating the fund, Danny lashes out and slaps him in the face. With the help of Rudy and Maggie, Danny discovers the embezzlement scheme: Corrupt officers submitted false disability claims that were processed by an unknown insider on the disability fund's board. Chris claims to have located the informant in an attempt to end the standoff, but Danny realizes he is bluffing when Niebaum's files reveal that Nate himself was the informant. When Danny threatens to expose Niebaum to sniper fire in his office window, Niebaum admits that Nate gave him wiretaps implicating three of his squadmates in the scheme; Allen, Hellman and Argento. Niebaum was bribed by the guilty officers to cover up their crimes, while Nate refused and was killed afterwards. Niebaum has safely hidden the wiretaps, but the corrupt officers enter through the air vents and open fire, killing Niebaum in the process. Danny fends them off with flashbangs taken from the captured officers, and Niebaum's murder convinces the remaining hostages that Danny is being set up. Convinced that the police are ineffectual, the FBI assume jurisdiction over the operation, cease negotiations, relieving Chris of his command and ordering a full breach. While Danny prepares for his eventual arrest, Maggie tells him that Niebaum likely kept Nate's wiretaps at home, while Chris reenters the building to warn Danny, who reveals that Scott is unharmed. Chris agrees to help Danny clear his name, and as the building is raided and the other hostages are rescued, Danny disguises himself in Scott's uniform and escapes. He and Chris are unable to locate the wiretaps at Niebaum's home, where the corrupt officers are about to kill Danny, but Frost arrives to negotiate with him alone. Chris shoots Danny, offering to destroy Roenick's evidence in exchange for a cut of the embezzled funds. Frost agrees, effectively revealing himself as the ringleader of the conspiracy, the insider on the disability fund's board, and Nate's killer. Crushing the floppy disks, Chris gives him and shooting Niebaum's computer, Frost exits the house. Outside, Frost discovers that Chris deliberately wounded Danny, who broadcasts Frost's entire confession to the awaiting police officers with a walkie talkie radio. Humiliated, Frost attempts to commit suicide, but is shot in the shoulder by Beck and arrested with the other corrupt officers, and Danny narrowly refrains from shooting Frost to avenge Nate. As Danny is loaded into an ambulance with his wife Karen, Chris returns his badge to him and departs.

Mikael Boghosian is an apothecary who lives in the small Armenian village of Siroun in the southeast part of Turkey, within the Ottoman Empire. In order to help pay the expenses for medical school, he promises to marry Maral, the daughter of an affluent neighbor, receiving 400 gold coins as a dowry. This allows him to travel to Constantinople and attend the Imperial School of Medicine. There, Mikael befriends Emre, the son of a high-ranking Ottoman official. Through his wealthy uncle, he also meets Ana Khesarian, an Armenian woman raised in Paris, who is involved with an American reporter for the Associated Press, Chris Myers. Mikael falls in love with Ana just as international tensions begin to rise with the outbreak of World War I. Mikael temporarily manages to avoid conscription into the Ottoman Army through a medical student exemption with the help of Emre. When he, with Emre's help, tries to save his uncle from imprisonment during the roundups of April 24, 1915, he is detained and sent to a labor camp, while Emre is conscripted as a consequence for helping Mikael a second time after his father warned him not to. Mikael eventually escapes the camp. Returning to his village, he finds that the townspeople of Turkish background have violently turned on their fellow townspeople of Armenian background. His parents, and particularly his mother, persuade him to marry Maral and seek refuge in a remote mountain cabin, where she soon becomes pregnant. A difficult pregnancy leads Mikael to bring his wife back to the care of his mother in the village. There he learns that Ana and Christopher are at a nearby Red Cross facility, so he goes to seek their help for his family to escape the imminent Turkish threat. Departing the mission with a group of orphans, they head back to Siroun to retrieve Mikael's family. Along the way, however, they encounter the site of a massacre. It soon becomes clear it's all of Siroun's inhabitants, including Mikael's family except his mother and cousin Yeva, killed by Ottoman troops. Mikael's wife is found with their unborn child cut out from her body. Chris is captured by Ottoman soldiers and sent back to Constantinople, charged with being a spy for the Allied Powers and, while held at Selimiye Barracks, slated for execution by the authorities. With the help of Emre, and through the intercession of American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Chris is released and deported to Malta. Once there, he boards the French cruiser Guichen, as it prepares to set sail along the Ottoman coast. Emre's role in helping to save Chris is discovered and he is executed by firing squad. Escaping pursuit, Mikael, Ana, and the orphans join a large group of refugees determined to fight off the Ottoman Army on Mount Musa Dagh. As they fend off repeated assaults, Mikael's mother succumbs to her wounds and is buried on the mountain. The refugees hold on long enough to escape on the back side to the coast as the Guichen comes to evacuate them. But as the lifeboats return to the ship, a Turkish artillery barrage throws Ana and Yeva, the young daughter of Mikael's uncle, overboard. Mikael jumps in after them and is able to rescue Yeva, but Ana drowns. In a voice over, Mikael recounts that he adopted Yeva and together they settled in Watertown, Massachusetts while Chris was killed reporting the Spanish Civil War in 1938. During Yeva's wedding reception in 1942, with the now grown Armenian orphans in attendance, Mikael presides over a toast, wishing good fortune to their families and future generations to come.

In September 1936, amid the Great Depression, grifter Johnny Hooker and his partners, Luther Coleman and Joe Erie, con $11,000 in cash from an unsuspecting victim in Joliet, Illinois. Hooker loses his share of the con on a rigged roulette game, while Luther, buoyed by the windfall, decides to retire. He tells Hooker to seek out his old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago, to learn "the big con". Corrupt Joliet police lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing that their mark was a courier for vicious Irish-American crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Lonnegan's men murder Luther and the courier. After finding Luther dead, Hooker flees to Chicago. Hooker finds Gondorff drunk and in hiding from the FBI, running a carousel that is a front for a brothel, and asks for help taking down Lonnegan. Initially reluctant, Gondorff relents and recruits a team of experienced con men. They decide to resurrect an elaborate, obsolete scam known as "the wire", using a large crew to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Snyder and Lonnegan's men track Hooker to Chicago; Gondorff warns Hooker that if either of them finds him, the con will have to be called off. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited, Gondorff, posing as the boorish Chicago bookie "Shaw", buys into Lonnegan's private, high-stakes poker game, being facilitated by the train's conductor. "Shaw" infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior, then cheats him out of $15,000 ($ 348,022 in 2025). Hooker, posing as "Shaw's" disgruntled employee "Kelly", is sent to collect the winnings and convince Lonnegan to help him take over "Shaw's" operation – a tactic Lonnegan has used repeatedly to build his crime empire. Hooker returns home to find Lonnegan's men waiting to assassinate him, but he avoids their efforts. Their attempt spooks Gondorff, but Hooker convinces him to keep the con alive. Lonnegan, frustrated with his men's inability to kill Hooker for the Joliet con – and unaware that "Kelly" is Hooker – orders the job to be given to Salino, his best assassin. A mysterious figure, wearing black leather gloves, begins to follow and observe Hooker. Meanwhile, Snyder's pursuit of Hooker attracts the attention of undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders Snyder to bring Hooker in to entrap Gondorff. "Kelly" gives Lonnegan a tip on a 7-to-1 long shot in a horse race that pays off. When Lonnegan presses him for details, he reveals that he has a partner, "Les Harmon" (actually con man Kid Twist), in the Chicago Western Union office, who will help them topple "Shaw" by winning bets he books on horse races through past-posting. Lonnegan is convinced after being provided the trifecta of another race, and agrees to finance a $500,000 bet ($ 11.6 million in 2025) to break "Shaw" and get revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder captures Hooker and brings him before Polk, who forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to jail Luther Coleman's widow. Feeling despondent the night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with a diner waitress named Loretta. The next morning, as she walks toward him in an alley, the black-gloved man appears and shoots her dead before she can shoot Hooker. The man reveals to Hooker that Gondorff hired him to protect him, and that the waitress was, in fact, Salino. After "Harmon" telephones directions to "Place it on Lucky Dan", Lonnegan bets $500,000 at "Shaw's" parlor on the horse named Lucky Dan to win. As the race begins, "Harmon" arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan's bet: when he said "place it", he meant that the horse would "place" (i.e., finish second). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes to the teller window and demands his money back, at which point Polk, Snyder, and a half-dozen FBI agents storm the parlor. Polk tells Hooker he is free to go. Shocked at the betrayal, Gondorff shoots Hooker. Polk shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise ("bleeding" only from fake bullets) amid cheers and laughter. "Polk" is actually Hickey, a fellow con man, who has been running a con atop Gondorff's con with his "FBI agents" to divert Snyder and ensure that Lonnegan abandoned the money without ever realizing he was taken. As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, claiming he would lose it anyway, and walks away with Gondorff.