In January 1994, the U.S. Ohio -class submarine USS Montana has an encounter with an unidentified submerged object, and sinks near the Cayman Trough. With Soviet ships moving in to try to salvage the sub, and a hurricane moving over the area, the U.S. government sends a SEAL team to Deep Core, a privately owned, experimental underwater drilling platform near the Cayman Trough, to use it as a base of operations. The platform's designer, Dr. Lindsey Brigman, insists on going along with the SEAL team, even though her estranged husband, Virgil "Bud" Brigman, is the current foreman. During the initial investigation of Montana, a power cut in the team's submersibles leads to Lindsey seeing a strange light circling the sub, which she later calls a "non-terrestrial intelligence", or "NTI". Lt. Hiram Coffey, the SEAL team leader, is ordered to accelerate their mission, and takes one of the mini-subs, without Deep Core ' s permission, to recover a Trident missile warhead from Montana, just as the storm hits above, leaving the crew unable to disconnect from their surface support ship in time. The cable crane is torn from the ship and falls into the trench, dragging Deep Core to the edge before it stops. The rig is partially flooded, killing several crew members, and damaging its power systems. The crew waits out the storm so they can restore communications and be rescued. As they struggle against the cold, they find the NTIs have formed an animated column of water to explore the rig, which they equate to an alien version of a remotely operated vehicle. Though they treat it with curiosity, Coffey is agitated and cuts it in half by closing a pressure bulkhead on it, causing it to retreat. Realizing that Coffey is experiencing paranoia as a result of suffering from high-pressure nervous syndrome, the crew spies on him through an ROV, finding him, along with another SEAL, arming the warhead to attack the NTIs. To try to stop him, Bud fights Coffey, but Coffey escapes in a mini-sub with the primed warhead. Bud and Lindsey give chase in the other sub, damaging both. Coffey is able to launch the warhead into the trench, but his sub drifts over the edge and implodes from the pressure, killing him. Bud's mini-sub is inoperable and taking on water. With only one functional diving suit, Lindsey opts to drown and hopefully enter deep hypothermia when the ocean's cold water engulfs her, with hopes of being able to be resuscitated. Bud swims back to the platform with her body; there, he and the crew use a defibrillator and administer CPR, and they revive her. It is decided that they need to disarm the warhead, which is more than 2 miles (3.2 km) below them. One SEAL, Ensign Monk, helps Bud use an experimental diving suit equipped with a liquid breathing apparatus to survive to that depth, though he will only be able to communicate through a keypad on the suit. Bud begins his dive, assisted by Lindsey's voice to keep him coherent against the effects of the mounting pressure, and he reaches the warhead. Monk guides him in successfully disarming it. With little oxygen left in the system, Bud explains that he knew it was a one-way trip, and he tells Lindsey he loves her. As he waits for death, an NTI approaches Bud, takes his hand, and guides him to a massive alien city deep in the trench. Inside, the NTIs create an atmospheric pocket for Bud, allowing him to breathe normally. The NTIs then play back Bud's message to his wife and look at each other with understanding. On Deep Core, the crew is waiting for rescue when they see a message from Bud that he met some friends and warns them to hold on. The base shakes, and lights from the trench herald the arrival of the alien ship. It rises to the ocean's surface, with Deep Core and several of the surface ships run aground on its hull. The crew of Deep Core exits the platform, surprised they are not dead from the sudden decompression. They see Bud walking out of the alien ship, and Lindsey races to hug him.

Nick Naylor is a Big Tobacco spokesman using "research" from an institution of which he is vice-president, a tobacco lobby called the "Academy of Tobacco Studies". It claims there is no link between tobacco and lung disease. Naylor and his friends, firearm lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss and alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey, meet for lunch every week and jokingly call themselves the "Merchants of Death" or "The MOD Squad". As anti-tobacco campaigns mount and numbers of young smokers decline, Naylor's boss, B.R., sends Naylor to Los Angeles to bargain for cigarette product placement in upcoming movies. Naylor takes along his young son, Joey, in hopes of bonding with him. The next day, Naylor is sent to meet with Lorne Lutch, the cancer -stricken man who once played the Marlboro Man in cigarette ads and is now campaigning against cigarettes. As his son watches, Naylor successfully convinces Lutch to take a suitcase of money for his silence by playing on Lutch's principles and need to provide for his family. Senator Ortolan Finistirre, one of Naylor's most vehement critics, promotes a bill to add a skull and crossbones POISON warning to cigarette packaging. As Naylor is about to appear before a U.S. Senate committee to fight the bill, he is kidnapped by a clandestine group and covered in nicotine patches. Awakening in a hospital, he learns he has survived due to his high nicotine tolerance from heavy smoking, but he is now hypersensitive to nicotine and can never smoke again. Meanwhile, Naylor is seduced by a young reporter named Heather Holloway into revealing secret information about his life and career. She makes it public via an exposé, criticizing his business activities and accusing him of training his son Joey to follow his amoral example. This results in negative PR for Naylor, which costs him his job. After he hides out in his home for a few days, Naylor is visited by Joey who uses some of the debating skills his father taught him, which reminds Naylor of his own principles. Naylor apologizes to his friends in the MOD Squad and is inspired to take a new tactic. Naylor laments to the press about Holloway's ethics of using his private conversations with him after sex and goads Finistirre into allowing him to testify before the Senate committee. During the hearing, Naylor surprises everyone by admitting to the dangers of smoking but argues that public awareness is already high enough without extra warnings. He emphasizes consumer choice and responsibility and claims that if tobacco companies are guilty of tobacco-related deaths, then perhaps Finistirre's state of Vermont, as a major cheese producer, is likewise guilty of cholesterol -related deaths. When Finistirre attempts to regain control by demanding what Naylor would do when his son was 18 and wanted to smoke, Naylor simply replies that if his son wants to smoke then he'd buy him his first pack. Although B.R. insists in a live interview that Naylor is still their chief spokesman, Naylor rejects the job on camera. It turns out to be a good move as Big Tobacco is settling claims of liability and the Academy of Tobacco Studies shuts down. Naylor also mentions Heather was humiliated upon being terminated by the paper for her article and has been reduced to a cub reporter handling weather on a local news station. Naylor supports his son's newfound interest in debating and opens a private lobbying firm. The MOD Squad continues to meet with new members who represent the fast-food, oil, and biohazard industries. Now Naylor runs an agency called Naylor Strategic Relations and consults for cellphone industry representatives concerned about claims that cellphones cause brain cancer. He narrates: " Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk. Everyone has a talent."

Through her friend Annie, call center intern Mae Holland secures a customer support position at The Circle, a tech and social media company. Mae takes the job, hoping to support her parents, particularly her father who suffers from multiple sclerosis, while her longtime friend Mercer is less supportive. At a company meeting, CEO Eamon Bailey introduces SeeChange, which uses small cameras placed anywhere to provide real-time high-quality video. Mae rises in The Circle, embracing social networking and meeting Ty Lafitte, who displays suspicion of other, more enthusiastic employees. At an outdoor company rally emphasizing the need for accountability in politics, The Circle's Chief Operating Officer, Tom Stenton, introduces Congresswoman Olivia Santos, who has agreed to open her daily workings to the public through SeeChange. Ty subsequently shows Mae the area containing the cloud server where all information collected by SeeChange is to be stored. Ty is the creator of TrueYou, the Circle's social network. Ty says that TrueYou has grown out of his control, and its current utilization is not what he intended. Later, Mae's mother shows Mae a picture of a chandelier Mercer made from deer antlers. She photographs it and shares it on her Circle profile. The image attracts negative attention to Mercer, with people accusing him of killing the deer. Mercer confronts Mae at work and tells her to leave him alone. Distressed, Mae goes kayaking at night and the rough waters cause her kayak to capsize, requiring rescue by the Coast Guard, who were alerted to the emergency through SeeChange cameras, which recorded her acquiring the kayak and capsizing it. At the next meeting, Eamon introduces Mae to the crowd and they discuss her experience of the rescue, which moves her to become the first "Circler" to go "completely transparent," which involves wearing a small camera and exposing her life to the world twenty-four hours a day. This damages her relationships with her parents and Annie, as Mae accidentally exposes private aspects of their lives, and they distance themselves from her as a result. At a board meeting, Eamon announces support from almost all fifty states for voting through Circle accounts. Mae takes it a step further, and suggests requiring every voting citizen to have a Circle account in order to do so. Eamon and Tom approve, but the suggestion upsets Annie. At the next company-wide meeting, Mae says that The Circle believes it can find anyone on the planet in under twenty minutes and introduces a program to find wanted felons. The program identifies an escaped child murderer within ten minutes, which prompts the Circlers in the audience to erupt in applause. Mae uses this successful test to suggest transparency can be a force for good. Mae says that the program can find anyone, and someone suggests Mercer. Mae is initially hesitant to use the program to locate Mercer, but Eamon persuades her to continue. Mercer is located in an isolated cabin. Startled by Circle users descending upon his home, he flees in a car, though a Circle user places a small camera on his car window without his knowledge. They pursue him via automobile and a flying drone, which causes Mercer to swerve uncontrollably off a bridge and die. Days later, Mae calls Annie, who has left The Circle and returned to Scotland, which has improved her well-being. Mae, however, finds that connection with others helps her cope with Mercer's death. Mae returns to The Circle, despite her parents' pleas. Mae calls Ty to ask for a favor and Ty reveals something that he has discovered. At the next company-wide meeting, Mae explains how connection has helped her recover. She speaks with Eamon, and invites Tom onstage, then invites Eamon and Tom to go fully transparent. She explains that Ty has found all their email accounts and exposed them to the world, as no one should be exempt. Eamon and Tom, upset, try to save face before Tom leaves the stage. Her superiors cut power to her presentation, and the stage goes dark, but the audience activates their mobile devices, illuminating Mae, who reiterates her advocacy of transparency. She later returns to kayaking, untroubled by the drones that shadow her.

" For 20 years, Stalin's NKVD security forces have imposed The Great Terror. Those on Stalin's list of 'enemy' names are arrested, exiled or shot. " –Opening caption On the night of 1 March 1953, Joseph Stalin demands the director of Radio Moscow provide a recording of a live recital of Piano Concerto No. 23 after the show has concluded. The director recalls the audience and orchestra and records the recreated concert. Pianist Maria Yudina, who hates the cruel dictator, only complies after being bribed and slips a note into the recording before it is couriered to Stalin. Stalin is hosting a tense, but rowdy, gathering of Central Committee members at Kuntsevo Dacha. As Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov leaves, NKVD head Lavrentiy Beria reveals to Nikita Khrushchev and Deputy Chairman Georgy Malenkov that Molotov is to be part of the latest purge. The concert recording arrives and Maria's note, admonishing Stalin and wishing him dead, causes him to suffer a cerebral haemorrhage as he laughs at the note. Stalin's guards hear him fall in his office but fear disturbing him. Stalin's housemaid discovers him unconscious the next morning and members of the Central Committee rush to the dacha. Beria finds Maria's note but only after Malenkov, Khrushchev, Lazar Kaganovich, Anastas Mikoyan, and Nikolai Bulganin arrive, does the Committee finally decide to send for medical help. The best doctors in Moscow have been arrested after the " Doctors' plot ". When Stalin dies under the care of mediocre doctors, Beria orders the NKVD to relieve the Soviet Army of control of Moscow. Beria and Khrushchev vie for the support of Molotov and Stalin's children, Svetlana and her unstable, alcoholic brother Vasily. Beria removes Molotov's name from the impending purge and releases Polina Zhemchuzhina, Molotov's wife, from prison. The Committee names Malenkov, a puppet of Beria, as chairman. He hijacks Khrushchev's proposed reforms, such as releasing political prisoners and loosening clerical restrictions, relegating Khrushchev to planning Stalin's funeral. Beria threatens Khrushchev with Maria's note, and Krushchev reverses Beria's order to halt all transport into Moscow. When 1,500 arriving mourners are killed, the Committee wants to blame junior NKVD officers. In an effort to deflect blame, Beria threatens his colleagues with documents detailing their involvement in various purges. Angered by the NKVD's takeover of security from the Army, Marshal Georgy Zhukov supports Khrushchev in launching a coup against Beria after Stalin's funeral. Khrushchev gets support from the rest of the Committee save Malenkov, and on Zhukov's orders the Army reclaims its posts from the NKVD. Zhukov, Kiril Moskalenko and Leonid Brezhnev storm a meeting of the Committee and arrest Beria. Malenkov reluctantly signs Beria's death warrant. At Beria's emergency trial, Khrushchev finds him guilty of counter-revolutionary activities, sexual assault, and paedophilia. Beria is summarily executed and Zhukov has his body burned. Krushchev sends Svetlana to Vienna under protest, keeps Vasily in Russia, where he can be watched, and concurs with Kaganovich that Malenkov is too weak to lead. In 1956, Krushchev has defeated his rivals on the Committee to become the new leader of the Soviet Union, and is in the audience as Maria once again performs the Mozart concerto. Brezhnev, who will succeed Khrushchev in 1964, eyes Khrushchev from his seat.

After salesmen Billy McMahon and Nick Campbell's employer goes out of business, Billy applies for Google internships for them both. They are accepted due to their unorthodox interview answers, despite a lack of relevant experience and not being of traditional collegiate age. They will spend the summer competing in teams against other interns in a variety of tasks, with only members of the winning team guaranteed jobs with Google. Billy and Nick's team is led by Lyle, a manager at Google who constantly tries to act hip to hide his insecurities, and its other members are seen as rejects: the smartphone-addicted Stuart, the tiger-parented Filipino Yo-Yo, and Indian American nerd-related kink enthusiast Neha. Although Stuart, Yo-Yo, and Neha find Billy and Nick useless in the initial tasks, Billy rallies the team in a comeback that unifies them in a game of quidditch. However, the team loses after an intern of the opposing team, Graham, cheats. When teams are tasked with developing an app, Billy and Nick convince their teammates to indulge in a wild night out, which includes going to a strip club. Lyle's drunken antics inspire them to create an app that guards against reckless phone usage while drunk, and win the task by earning the most downloads. Meanwhile, Nick has been flirting with a Google executive Dana with little success. When he begins attending technical presentations to impress her, he develops an interest in the material. Dana agrees to go on a date with Nick, and she invites him in at the end of the evening. While the teams prepare to staff the technical support hotline, Billy is offered technical information by an introvert named "Headphones", which helps him. However, the team loses because Billy fails to log his calls for review. Dejected, he leaves the Google campus and pursues a job selling mobility scooters. In the final task, which is a sales challenge, teams must sign the largest possible company to begin advertising with Google. Nick approaches Billy with an inspiring speech, encouraging him to return and help the team for the last challenge. Reinvigorated, Billy leads them to convince a local pizzeria owner how Google can help him interact with potential customers and thereby expand his business, while remaining true to his professional values. Chetty is about to announce that Graham's team has won, when Billy, Nick, and their team arrive to give a dynamic presentation about their new client. Chetty recognizes that, although the pizzeria is not a large business, its potential is limitless because it is expanding via technology. Graham protests and is dressed down by Headphones, who turns out to be the head of Google Search. Nick and Billy's team win the challenge and the guaranteed jobs, while Graham, after berating his team members, is punched by Zach, an overweight member of his team whom he has constantly bullied. As the students depart, Nick and Dana are still seeing each other, as are Lyle and Google's dance instructor Marielena. Stuart and Neha have formed a romantic connection as well with Stuart promising to see her in person rather than texting her, and Yo-Yo asserts himself to his mother.

United States Under Secretary of Defense Michael Bergstrom commits suicide after being informed that he has tested positive for HIV. The relationships of freelance Venice, Los Angeles systems analyst Angela Bennett are almost completely online and on the phone, with the exception of forgettable interactions with her neighbors and visits to her mother, who is institutionalized with Alzheimer's disease and often forgets who she is. Angela's co-worker Dale, in San Francisco, sends her a floppy disk of the band website "Mozart's Ghost" with a backdoor labeled " π " that permits access to a commonly used computer security system called "Gatekeeper" sold by Gregg Microsystems, a software company led by CEO Jeff Gregg. Angela and Dale agree to meet the next morning, as he is planning on taking his own plane, but the navigation system in Dale's private aircraft malfunctions and the plane crashes, killing him. Angela travels to Cozumel, Mexico, on vacation, where she meets Jack Devlin. After seducing Angela, Devlin pays a mugger to steal her purse. He chases the mugger, catches him, and roots through the purse to find the disk before shooting the mugger dead. The robber takes Angela out on his speedboat to kill her as well, but she finds his gun and confronts him. While fleeing with the disk and Devlin's wallet, Angela's dinghy collides with rocks, knocking her unconscious. Three days later, Angela finds that the disk was ruined by the sun and all records of her life have been deleted. Because none of the neighbors remember her, they cannot confirm her identity. Angela's Social Security number is now assigned to Ruth Marx, for whom Devlin has entered an arrest record. When Angela calls her own desk at Cathedral Software, Ruth, impersonating her, answers and offers her old life back in exchange for the disk. She contacts the only other person who knows her by sight, psychiatrist and former lover Alan Champion. He checks her into a hotel, offers to contact a friend at the FBI, and arranges to have her mother moved for her safety. Using her knowledge of the backdoor and a password found in Devlin's wallet, Angela logs into the Bethesda Naval Hospital 's computers and learns that Under Secretary of Defense Bergstrom, who had opposed Gatekeeper's use by the federal government, was murdered by altering the results of his HIV test, leading to a misdiagnosis. Fellow hacker "Cyberbob" connects π with the "Praetorians", a group of cyberterrorists linked to recent computer failures around the country. Angela and Cyberbob plan to meet, but the Praetorians intercept their online chat. Angela escapes from Devlin, who is revealed to be a contract killer for the cyberterrorists, but the Praetorians kill Champion by tampering with pharmacy and hospital computer records. After Angela is arrested by the California Highway Patrol, a man identifying himself as Champion's FBI friend frees her from jail. She realizes he is an impostor and escapes again, resulting in the impostor's death in a car crash. Now wanted for murder and thought to be Ruth, Angela hitchhikes to Cathedral's office where, using Ruth's computer, she connects the cyberterrorists to Gregg Microsystems and uncovers their scheme: once the Praetorians sabotage an organization's computer system, Gregg sells Gatekeeper to it and gains unlimited access through the backdoor. Angela emails evidence of the backdoor and Gregg's involvement with the Praetorians to the FBI from the Moscone Center and tricks Devlin into releasing a virus into Gregg's mainframe, destroying Gatekeeper and undoing the erasure of her identity. During a battle on the catwalks of the convention center, Devlin accidentally shoots Ruth dead, but Angela ambushes him, causing him to fall to his death. Regaining her identity and life, Angela reunites with her mother, and the conspiracy is exposed, with Gregg being arrested by the FBI.

In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station and lands. The passenger fumbles a grenade and destroys the helicopter as the pilot continues the chase on foot with a rifle. The pilot shouts in Norwegian and fires at the dog, hitting one of the Americans, before he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R. J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burnt corpse of a malformed humanoid, which they transfer to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, autopsies the remains and finds a normal set of human organs. Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs several of the station dogs. This disturbance alerts the team, and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the Dog-Thing and surmises it is an organism that can perfectly imitate other life forms. Data recovered from the Norwegian base leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, which Norris estimates has been buried for over a hundred thousand years and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Blair grows paranoid after running a computer simulation that indicates the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The group implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation. The remains of the malformed humanoid assimilate an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. The team also imprisons Blair in a tool shed after he sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. Copper suggests testing for infection by comparing the crew's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry's leadership, and MacReady takes command. He, Windows, and Nauls find Fuchs' burnt corpse and speculate that he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. During their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack. The team debates whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt. MacReady thinks that the Norris-Thing demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life-form with its own survival instinct. He proposes testing blood samples from each survivor with a heated piece of wire and has each man restrained, but is forced to kill Clark after he lunges at MacReady with a scalpel. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood recoils from the heat. Exposed, the Palmer-Thing transforms, breaks free of its bonds, and infects Windows, forcing MacReady to incinerate them both. Childs is left on guard in the main building while MacReady, Garry and Nauls go to test Blair. They find that he has escaped and has been using vehicle components to assemble a small flying saucer, which they destroy. Upon their return, Childs is missing, and the power generator has been destroyed, leaving the men without heat. MacReady surmises that, with no escape left, the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. The three men agree that the Thing cannot be allowed to escape and set explosives to destroy the station but the Blair-Thing kills Garry, and Nauls disappears. The Blair-Thing transforms into an enormous creature and breaks the detonator but MacReady triggers the explosives with a stick of dynamite, destroying the station and the Blair-Thing. While MacReady sits by the burning remnants, Childs returns, claiming he got lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of J&B Scotch whisky.

Ryan Bingham works for a human resources consultancy firm specializing in employment-termination assistance. His work constantly takes him around the country, conducting company layoffs on behalf of employers. Ryan also gives motivational speeches, using the analogy "What's in Your Backpack?" to extol living free of burdensome relationships and material possessions. A frequent flyer, Ryan aspires to earn ten million frequent flyer miles with American Airlines. While traveling, he meets a woman named Alex Goran, a businesswoman who also flies frequently. They begin a casual relationship, meeting up in various cities as their respective schedules allow. Ryan is recalled to his company's offices in Omaha. Natalie Keener, a young and ambitious new hire, promotes cutting costs by conducting layoffs via video-conferencing. Ryan raises concerns that the new system is impersonal and undignified, arguing that Natalie lacks understanding about the firing process and how to handle emotionally vulnerable people. His boss, Craig Gregory, has Natalie accompany a reluctant Ryan on his next round of terminations to observe the process. Ryan tutors Natalie on traveling more efficiently by using smaller luggage and moving quickly through airport security. As they travel together, Natalie challenges Ryan's philosophies on life, particularly regarding relationships and love. During the trip, Natalie's boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her by text message, but Ryan and Alex comfort her. On a video termination test run, Ryan's earlier concerns prove valid when Natalie is unable to properly console a laid-off person who breaks down on camera. Natalie castigates Ryan for his inability to commit to Alex despite their obvious compatibility, but he dismisses her criticisms and chastises her for lacking empathy and never appreciating her surroundings. Before returning home, Ryan heads to Wisconsin for his sister Julie's wedding, taking Alex as a plus one. He has a strained reunion with his semi-estranged family, who resent his constant absence. When the groom Jim gets cold feet prior to the ceremony, Ryan's older sister Kara asks him to intervene. Although counter to his personal philosophy, Ryan uses his motivational skills to persuade Jim to proceed with the wedding. Ryan begins questioning his lifestyle and philosophies after the wedding. In Las Vegas for a prestigious speaking engagement, he abruptly walks offstage mid-presentation and impulsively flies to Chicago to see Alex. Arriving at her front door, he is stunned to discover that she is married with children. She later calls him in a fury, bluntly telling him he was just an escape from her real life. On Ryan's flight home, the crew announces that he has just crossed the ten-million-mile mark. The airline's chief pilot is aboard to personally congratulate Ryan and notes he is the youngest person to achieve the milestone. Back in Omaha, Ryan transfers the frequent flyer miles to Julie and Jim so they can have a honeymoon. Craig informs Ryan that an employee he and Natalie had laid-off has committed suicide; upset over the news, Natalie quits via text message upon learning this. The remote-layoff program is stopped and Ryan is sent back on the road. Natalie applies to the same San Francisco company where she had previously declined a position, due to having followed her now ex-boyfriend to Omaha. Impressed by her qualifications and Ryan's glowing written recommendation, the interviewer hires her. The film concludes with Ryan at the airport, standing in front of a vast destination board, contemplating where he should travel next (something Natalie encouraged him to do earlier). Looking up, he lets go of his luggage.

On a hot summer day in the New York County Courthouse, the trial has just concluded of an 18-year-old boy, characterized as a "slum kid", who is accused of killing his abusive father. The judge instructs the jury that if there is reasonable doubt, they must return a verdict of "not guilty". If found guilty by unanimous verdict, the defendant will receive a mandatory death sentence via the electric chair. At first, the case seems clear. A neighbor who lives opposite testifies to having seen the defendant stab his father, as she lay in bed looking out of her window and through the windows of a passing elevated train into the apartment where the killing took place. A disabled neighbor living below testifies that he heard the defendant threaten to kill his father, then heard the body hitting the floor. He says that on going to his door and opening it, he saw the defendant running down the stairs. The defendant had recently purchased, but claims he had lost, a switchblade of the same type that was found at the murder scene, wiped of fingerprints. In a preliminary vote, all jurors vote "guilty" except Juror 8, who believes there is reasonable doubt and wants discussion before any verdict. When his first few arguments – including proving that the switchblade, believed to be unique, is in fact not – fail to convince the other jurors, he suggests a secret ballot. This reveals one other "not guilty" vote; Juror 9 reveals that he, too, now agrees there should be more discussion. Juror 8 argues that the noise of the passing train would have obscured everything the second witness claimed to have overheard. Several jurors question whether the death threat, even if correctly overheard, was simply a figure of speech. Jurors 5 and 11 change their votes. After looking at a diagram of the second witness's apartment and conducting an experiment, the jurors determine that it was impossible for the disabled witness to have made it to the door in the time he stated. Infuriated at a comment made by Juror 8, Juror 3 lunges at him and threatens to kill him; all go silent as they realize his words cannot reasonably be taken literally. Jurors 2 and 6 change their votes; the jury is now evenly split. The victim's stab wound was angled downwards. Juror 5, who has had personal experience with switchblades, points out that such blades are designed to be thrust upwardly, and that a downward thrust from a shorter, experienced assailant is inconceivable, as it would have required the blade to have been repositioned in the killer's hand. Jurors 7, 12 and 1 change their votes, leaving the jurors split 9:3. Juror 10 delivers a prejudiced rant against people from slum backgrounds, and the other jurors distance themselves from him. Juror 4 states that the evidence from the woman who saw the killing from her bed is incontrovertible, convincing Juror 12 to revert to a guilty vote. After watching Juror 4 remove his glasses and rub the impressions they made on his nose, Juror 9 realizes that the witness was constantly rubbing similar marks on her own nose, showing that she was a regular glasses-wearer despite not wearing them in court. Juror 8 remarks that the witness's evidence must be questionable, as she said she was in bed trying to sleep at the time, when she would not have been wearing her glasses, nor would she have had time to put them on. All jurors apart from Juror 3 now vote not guilty. After failing to convince the others, Juror 3 finally realizes that his strained relationship with his son is the reason for his certainty. He rips up a photograph of himself and his son in a fit of rage, breaks down in tears, and changes his vote. The jurors leave the jury room, now unanimous that the defendant should be acquitted. Juror 8 helps Juror 3 with his jacket. As they leave the courthouse, Jurors 8 and 9, jointly the strongest for acquittal, briefly exchange names before parting ways.

In a prehistoric veld, a tribe of hominins is driven away from a water hole by a rival tribe, and the next day finds an alien monolith. The tribe learns how to use the bones of dead animals as weapons and, after a successful first hunt, uses them to drive away the rival tribe. Millions of years later, Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics, travels to Clavius Base, an American lunar outpost. During a stopover at Space Station Five, he meets Russian scientists who are concerned that Clavius seems to be unresponsive. He refuses to discuss rumours of an epidemic at the base. At Clavius, Floyd addresses a meeting of personnel, stressing the need for secrecy regarding their newest discovery. His mission is to investigate a recently found artefact, a monolith buried four million years earlier near the lunar crater Tycho. As Floyd and others examine and photograph the object, it emits a high-powered radio signal. Eighteen months later, the American spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter, with mission pilots and scientists Dr Dave Bowman and Dr Frank Poole on board, along with three other scientists in suspended animation. Most of Discovery ' s operations are controlled by HAL, a HAL 9000 computer with a human-like personality. When HAL reports the imminent failure of an antenna control device, Bowman retrieves it in an extravehicular activity (EVA) pod, but finds nothing wrong. HAL suggests reinstalling the device and letting it fail so the problem can be verified. Mission Control advises the astronauts that results from their backup 9000 computer indicate that HAL has made an error, but HAL blames it on human error. Concerned about HAL's behaviour, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod so they can talk in private without HAL overhearing. They agree to disconnect HAL if he is proven wrong. HAL follows their conversation by lip reading. While Poole is floating away from his pod to replace the antenna unit, HAL takes control of the pod and attacks him, sending Poole tumbling away from the ship with a severed air line. Bowman takes another pod to rescue Poole. While he is outside, HAL turns off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation, killing them. When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, HAL refuses to let him back in, stating that their plan to deactivate him jeopardises the mission. Bowman releases Poole's body and opens the ship's emergency airlock with his remote manipulators. Lacking a helmet for his spacesuit, he positions his pod carefully so that when he jettisons the pod's door, he is propelled by the escaping air across the vacuum into Discovery ' s airlock. He enters HAL's processor core and begins disconnecting HAL's memory, ignoring HAL's pleas to stop. When he is finished, a prerecorded video by Heywood Floyd plays, revealing that the mission's actual objective is to investigate the radio signal sent from the monolith to Jupiter. At Jupiter, Bowman finds a third, much larger monolith orbiting the planet. He leaves Discovery in an EVA pod to investigate. He is pulled into a vortex of coloured light and observes bizarre astronomical phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colours as he passes by. Finally, he finds himself in a large neoclassical bedroom where he sees, then becomes, older versions of himself: first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a foetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light, which afterwards floats in space above the Earth.

Ex- fighter pilot Ted Striker is a traumatized war veteran turned taxi driver. Because of his pathological fear of flying and subsequent "drinking problem"—he splashes beverages anywhere but into his mouth—Ted has been unable to hold a responsible job. His wartime girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson, now a flight attendant, breaks off her relationship with him before boarding her rostered flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Ted abandons his taxi and buys a ticket on the same flight to try to win her back. Once on board, however, Elaine continues to reject him, causing Ted to inadvertently drive several other passengers to suicide due to boredom as he windily reminisces. After the in-flight meal is served, the entire flight crew and several passengers fall ill. Passenger Dr. Rumack discovers that the fish served during meal service has caused food poisoning. With the flight crew incapacitated, Elaine contacts the Chicago control tower for help and is instructed by tower supervisor Steve McCroskey to activate the plane's autopilot, a large inflatable dummy pilot dubbed "Otto", which will get them to Chicago, but cannot land the plane. Elaine and Rumack convince Ted to take the controls. When Steve learns Ted is piloting, he contacts Ted's former commanding officer, Rex Kramer—now serving as a commercial pilot—to help talk Ted through the landing procedure. Ted becomes uneasy when Kramer starts giving orders, and he briefly breaks down amid more wartime flashbacks. Elaine and Rumack both bolster Ted's confidence, and he manages to once again take the controls. As the plane nears Chicago, the weather worsens, complicating the landing. With Elaine's help as co-pilot and Rex's guidance from the tower, Ted is able to land the plane safely, despite the landing gear shearing off, and the passengers suffer only minor injuries. Rescue vehicles arrive to help unload the plane. Impressed by Ted's courage, Elaine embraces and kisses him, rekindling their relationship. "Otto" restarts the plane and takes off as a female companion inflates beside him.