In 1890s London, Robert Angier, Alfred Borden, and Angier's wife, Julia, work as magician's assistants under the mentorship of John Cutter. During a water tank trick, Julia drowns after Borden incorrectly ties her wrists. Angier blames Borden, and the two men become bitter rivals. Both men pursue separate careers in magic. Borden, a gifted inventor of illusions, marries a woman named Sarah, with whom he has a daughter named Jess, and hires an enigmatic assistant, Fallon. Angier, whose strength lies more in showmanship, continues working with Cutter and takes on a new assistant, Olivia. The feud escalates as Angier and Borden visit and sabotage each other's acts. Borden loses two fingers after being shot by Angier during a pistol trick, and Borden violently thwarts Angier's bird act in front of a live audience. Borden next debuts a spectacular illusion, The Transported Man, in which he appears to teleport from one side of the stage to the other almost instantly. Angier becomes obsessed with discovering the trick's secret and, with Cutter's help, roughly recreates the act using a lookalike named Root, a failed actor. Though Angier's version is successful, he resents remaining hidden beneath the stage while Root takes the applause. Desperate to outdo Borden, he sends Olivia to spy on him, but she falls in love with Borden and defects, and passes Borden's coded diary to Angier. Borden reveals to Angier that the key word, TESLA, supposedly decrypts the diary and reveals his method. Seeking answers, Angier travels to Colorado Springs to meet the inventor Nikola Tesla. Believing Tesla built a teleportation device for Borden, Angier commissions Tesla to make one. Tesla eventually delivers a working machine but warns that it will bring only misery. When used, the device creates a duplicate of its subject while leaving the original person intact. In London, Angier uses the machine in a new illusion, The Real Transported Man, which earns him acclaim. Sarah, suspicious of Borden's secrecy and affair with Olivia, hangs herself. Determined to uncover Angier's method, Borden sneaks backstage during a performance of The Real Transported Man and witnesses Angier fall into a water tank and drown. He attempts to open the tank and save Angier, but is arrested for Angier's murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Borden is approached by a solicitor for a wealthy Lord Caldlow, who offers to care for Borden's daughter Jess in exchange for the secret behind the original Transported Man. When Caldlow visits the prison, Borden is horrified to discover that he is actually Angier. Borden passes this Angier a note revealing the secret, but Angier tears it up, leaving him to hang. Cutter helps dispose of Tesla's teleportation machine. A disguised visitor shoots Angier in the basement of his theater, revealing himself as Borden. The mortally wounded Angier learns the truth: "Borden" is in fact a pair of identical twins sharing one identity. One twin loved Sarah, the other Olivia; one lost two fingers, and the other amputated his same two fingers to match; one has survived, while the other was executed. Together they performed The Transported Man by switching places undetected, and whenever one twin was performing, the other hid using prosthetics and makeup under the identity "Fallon". Dying, Angier confesses that each time he used Tesla's machine, it created a clone, one of whom drowned beneath the stage each night, and that he is no longer sure of his own identity. The surviving Borden brother reclaims his daughter, as Cutter narrates that the final act of any magic trick—the "prestige"—is the return of what was thought lost. Angier's death knocks over a kerosene lamp that sends his theater up in flames, revealing rows of water tanks holding the corpses of his many duplicates.

In a period of galactic civil war, Rebel Alliance spies have stolen blueprints to the Death Star, a colossal space station built by the Galactic Empire that is capable of destroying entire planets. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, secretly a rebel leader, has obtained the schematics, but her ship is intercepted and boarded by Imperial forces under the command of Darth Vader. Leia is taken prisoner, but the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO escape with the plans, crash-landing on the nearby desert planet of Tatooine. Darth Vader orders his troops to pursue the droids. The droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to the moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew, Luke Skywalker. While Luke is cleaning R2-D2, he discovers a recording of Leia requesting help from a former ally named Obi-Wan Kenobi. R2-D2 goes missing, and while searching for him, Luke is attacked by Sand People. He is rescued by the elderly hermit Ben Kenobi, who soon reveals himself as Obi-Wan. He tells Luke about his past as one of the Jedi Knights, peacekeepers of the former Galactic Republic, who drew mystical abilities from the Force and were all but exterminated by the Empire. Luke learns that his father, also a Jedi, fought alongside Obi-Wan during the Clone Wars until Vader, Obi-Wan's former pupil, turned to the dark side of the Force and murdered him. Obi-Wan gives Luke his father's lightsaber, the signature weapon of the Jedi. R2-D2 plays Leia's full message, in which she begs Obi-Wan to take the Death Star plans to Alderaan and give them to her father, a fellow veteran, for analysis. Luke initially declines Obi-Wan's offer to accompany him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force. However, he quickly changes his mind after Imperial stormtroopers murder his family and destroy his home while searching for the droids. Seeking a way off the planet, Luke and Obi-Wan travel with the droids to the city of Mos Eisley and hire the smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee partner Chewbacca, pilots of the starship Millennium Falcon. On the way to Alderaan, Obi-Wan begins Luke's training in the use of the Force. Meanwhile, the Death Star commander Grand Moff Tarkin has Alderaan obliterated by the station's superlaser. The Death Star's tractor beam captures the Falcon, but Luke and his companions manage to avoid detection and infiltrate the station. Vader, however, senses Obi-Wan's presence, and begins searching for him. As Obi-Wan deactivates the tractor beam, Luke persuades Han and Chewbacca to help him rescue Leia, who is scheduled for execution after refusing to reveal the location of the rebel base. After disabling the tractor beam, Obi-Wan sacrifices himself in a lightsaber duel against Vader, which allows the rest of the group to escape. Using a tracking device placed on the Falcon, the Empire locates the rebel base on the moon Yavin 4. Analysis of the Death Star schematics reveals a weakness in a small exhaust port leading directly to the station's reactor. Luke joins the Rebellion's X-wing squadron in a desperate attack against the Death Star, while Han and Chewbacca leave to pay off a debt to the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. In the ensuing battle, Vader leads a squadron of TIE fighters and destroys several rebel ships, while Tarkin prepares to destroy Yavin 4 with the Death Star. Han and Chewbacca unexpectedly return in the Falcon, knocking Vader's ship off course before he can shoot Luke down. Guided by the voice of Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke uses the Force to aim his torpedoes into the exhaust port, causing the Death Star to explode moments before it can fire on the rebel base. In a triumphant ceremony, Leia awards Luke and Han medals for their heroism.

The Asgardian Loki encounters the Other, the representative of an extraterrestrial race known as the Chitauri. In exchange for obtaining the Tesseract, a powerful energy source of unknown potential, the Other promises to provide Loki with an army to conquer Earth. Nick Fury, director of the covert agency S.H.I.E.L.D., arrives at a remote research facility where astrophysicist Dr. Erik Selvig is leading a team studying the Tesseract. It suddenly activates and opens a portal, allowing Loki to reach Earth. Loki steals the Tesseract and uses his scepter to enslave Selvig and other agents, including Clint Barton, to aid him. In response, Fury reactivates the " Avengers Initiative ". Agent Natasha Romanoff travels to Kolkata to recruit Dr. Bruce Banner so he can trace the Tesseract through its gamma radiation emissions. Fury approaches Steve Rogers to discuss his knowledge of the Tesseract, and Agent Phil Coulson visits Tony Stark so he can check Selvig's research. Loki is in Stuttgart, where Barton steals iridium needed to stabilize the Tesseract. This leads to a confrontation with Rogers, Stark, and Romanoff that ends with Loki's surrender. While Loki is being escorted to S.H.I.E.L.D., his adoptive brother Thor arrives and frees him, hoping to convince him to abandon his plan and return to Asgard. Stark and Rogers intervene, and Loki is imprisoned in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying base, the Helicarrier. The Avengers disagree on how to approach Loki and become argumentative once they realize S.H.I.E.L.D. plans to use the Tesseract to create weapons of mass destruction to use against extraterrestrial threats. During the argument, Loki's agents attack the Helicarrier, and Banner transforms into the Hulk in the chaos. Stark and Rogers restart the damaged engine while Thor attempts to stop the Hulk's rampage. Romanoff subdues Barton, freeing him from Loki's control. Loki escapes after mortally wounding Coulson. Fury uses Coulson's subsequent death to motivate the Avengers to work together as a team. Loki uses the Tesseract and a generator Selvig built to open a portal above Stark Tower in New York City, allowing his Chitauri fleet to invade. Rogers, Stark, Romanoff, Barton, Thor, and the Hulk work together to protect New York from the Chitauri. The Hulk incapacitates Loki while Romanoff learns from Selvig, now freed from Loki's mind control, that Loki's scepter can shut down the generator. Fury's superiors from the World Security Council attempt to end the invasion by launching a nuclear missile at Midtown Manhattan. Stark intercepts the missile and flies it toward the Chitauri fleet through the wormhole. The missile destroys the Chitauri mothership and disables their forces on Earth. Stark becomes unconscious, and his suit loses power, leaving him free falling towards Earth. The Hulk manages to catch him and the Avengers resuscitate him, while Romanoff uses Loki's scepter to close the wormhole. In the aftermath, Thor transports an imprisoned Loki and the Tesseract to Asgard, where Loki will face justice for his crimes. In a mid-credits scene, the Other confers with his master about the failed attack on Earth.

In 1980s Boston, Irish mob boss Frank Costello introduces himself to a young Colin Sullivan. Years later, Sullivan has been groomed as Costello's spy inside the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) and joins the Special Investigation Unit. Another police academy recruit, Billy Costigan, is selected by Captain Queenan and Sergeant Dignam to infiltrate Costello's organization. Serving a prison term as his cover, Costigan draws Costello's attention by committing several crimes, and is recruited into the gang. His mental state declines as he becomes increasingly involved in Costello's violent criminal enterprise, but Queenan and Dignam convince him to remain undercover. Sullivan begins dating police psychiatrist Madolyn Madden, who becomes Costigan's court-ordered therapist. Costigan notifies the MSP that Costello will be selling stolen microprocessors to Chinese mobsters, but Sullivan helps thwart the attempted sting operation. Costello and the MSP both realize they have been compromised, and both Costigan and Sullivan are tasked to find the opposing mole. Costigan learns Costello is a protected FBI informant, sharing his discovery with Queenan. He and Madden begin an affair. Following Costello, Costigan sees him give Sullivan an envelope of information on his crew. Costigan is unable to identify Sullivan, who realizes he is being followed and mistakenly stabs a passerby before fleeing. Lying to his fellow officers to have Queenan followed, Sullivan realizes Queenan is meeting with his mole, and informs Costello's gang. Costigan, fearing he will be discovered and killed for being the mole, meets with Queenan to abort the operation. However, Queenan helps Costigan escape as Costello's men arrive, and is thrown from the building to his death. Fatally wounded in the ensuing firefight with police, Costello's henchman Timothy Delahunt tells Costigan he knows that he is the mole before dying. In the wake of Queenan's murder, Dignam is suspended after an altercation with Sullivan, who learns from Queenan's files that Costello is cooperating with the FBI. A news report identifies Delahunt as a Boston Police Department undercover officer, but Costello suspects this is a ruse to protect the real mole. Sullivan directs the MSP to tail Costello, resulting in a gunfight that kills most of Costello's crew. Sullivan confronts a wounded Costello, who admits to being an informant. They exchange gunfire, and Sullivan kills him. His assignment finished, Costigan reveals himself to Sullivan but recognizes Costello's envelope on his desk, deducing Sullivan is Costello's mole. Costigan flees, and Sullivan realizes he has discovered the truth, deleting Costigan's police records. Costigan leaves an envelope of evidence with Madden, who finds a recording he mailed to Sullivan of Sullivan's incriminating conversations with Costello. Meeting Sullivan on the rooftop where Queenan was killed, Costigan arrests him. Trooper Brown, Costigan's police academy classmate, arrives as Costigan holds Sullivan at gunpoint, declaring he has evidence tying Sullivan to Costello. Taking the elevator to the lobby, Costigan is shot and killed by Trooper Barrigan, who reveals he is another of Costello's spies in the MSP. Brown is shot by Barrigan, who, in turn, is shot by Sullivan, framing Barrigan as Costello's only mole. Sullivan recommends Costigan be posthumously commended, but after Costigan's funeral, a pregnant Madden leaves him. He arrives home to find Dignam, who shoots him and departs.

Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Imperial fleet, led by Darth Vader, dispatches probe droids across the galaxy in search of the Rebel Alliance. One probe locates the Rebel base on the ice planet Hoth. A wampa captures Luke Skywalker before he can investigate the probe crash site, but he escapes by using the Force to retrieve his lightsaber and wound the beast. Before Luke succumbs to hypothermia, the Force spirit of his deceased mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, instructs him to go to the swamp planet Dagobah to train as a Jedi Knight under Jedi Master Yoda. Han Solo discovers Luke and insulates him against the weather inside a tauntaun carcass until they are rescued the next morning. Alerted to the Rebels' location, the Empire launches a large-scale attack using AT-AT walkers, forcing the Rebels to evacuate the base. Han, Princess Leia, C-3PO and Chewbacca escape aboard the Millennium Falcon, but the ship's hyperdrive malfunctions. They hide in an asteroid field, where Han and Leia grow closer amid the tension. Vader summons several bounty hunters, including Boba Fett, to find the Falcon. Evading the Imperial fleet, Han's group travels to the floating Cloud City on the gas planet Bespin, which is governed by his old friend Lando Calrissian. Fett tracks them there, and Vader forces Lando to surrender the group to the Empire, knowing Luke will come to their aid. Meanwhile, Luke travels with R2-D2 in his X-wing fighter to Dagobah, where he crash-lands. He meets Yoda, a diminutive creature who reluctantly accepts him as his Jedi apprentice after conferring with Obi-Wan's spirit. Yoda trains Luke to master the light side of the Force and resist negative emotions that will seduce him to the dark side, as they did Vader. Luke struggles to control his anger and impulsiveness and fails to comprehend the nature and power of the Force until he witnesses Yoda using it to levitate the X-wing from the swamp. Luke has a premonition of Han and Leia suffering, and, despite protestations from Obi-Wan and Yoda, he abandons his training to rescue them. Although Obi-Wan believes Luke is their only hope, Yoda asserts that "there is another." Leia confesses her love for Han before Vader freezes him in carbonite to test whether the process will safely imprison Luke. Han survives and is given to Fett, who intends to collect the bounty on Han from Jabba the Hutt. Lando frees Leia and Chewbacca, but they are too late to stop Fett's escape. The group fights its way back to the Falcon and flees the city. Luke arrives and engages Vader in a lightsaber duel over the city's central air shaft. Vader defeats Luke, severing his right hand and separating him from his lightsaber. He urges Luke to embrace the dark side and help him destroy his master, the Emperor, so they may rule the galaxy together. Luke refuses, citing Obi-Wan's claim that Vader killed his father, which prompts Vader to reveal that he is Luke's father. Distraught, Luke plunges down the air shaft and is ejected beneath the floating city, where he dangles from an antenna. He reaches out through the Force to Leia, and the Falcon returns to rescue him. They are pursued by TIE fighters and Vader's Star Destroyer, but manage to escape after R2-D2 repairs the Falcon ' s hyperdrive. After the group joins the Rebel fleet, Luke's missing hand is replaced by a robotic prosthesis. He, Leia, C-3PO, and R2-D2 observe as Lando and Chewbacca depart on the Falcon to find Han.

In 1985, teenager Marty McFly lives in Hill Valley, California, with his depressed alcoholic mother, Lorraine; his older siblings, who are professional and social failures; and his meek father, George, who is bullied by his supervisor, Biff Tannen. After Marty's band fails a music audition, he confides in his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, that he fears becoming like his parents despite his ambitions. That night, Marty meets his eccentric scientist friend, Emmett "Doc" Brown, in the Twin Pines mall parking lot. Doc unveils a time machine built from a modified DeLorean, powered by plutonium he swindled from Libyan terrorists. After Doc inputs a destination time of November 5, 1955 (the day he conceived his time travel invention), the terrorists arrive unexpectedly and gun him down. Marty flees in the DeLorean, inadvertently activating time travel when reaching 88 miles per hour (142 kilometers per hour). Arriving in 1955, Marty discovers he has no plutonium, so he cannot return to 1985. While exploring a burgeoning Hill Valley, Marty encounters his teenage father, discovering Biff was bullying George even then. George falls into the path of an oncoming car while spying on the teenage Lorraine changing clothes, and Marty is knocked unconscious while saving him. He wakes to find himself tended to by Lorraine, who becomes infatuated with him. Marty tracks down and convinces a younger Doc that he is from the future. Doc explains the only source available in 1955 capable of generating the 1.21 gigawatts of power required for time travel is a lightning bolt. Marty shows Doc a flyer from the future that documents an upcoming lightning strike at the town's courthouse. As Marty's siblings begin to fade from a photo he carries with him, Doc realizes Marty's actions are altering the future and jeopardizing his existence: Lorraine was supposed to tend to George instead of Marty after the car accident. Early attempts to get his parents acquainted fail, Marty gains the animosity of Biff, and Lorraine's infatuation with Marty deepens. Lorraine asks Marty to the school dance, and he plots to feign inappropriate advances on her, allowing George to intervene and rescue her, but the plan goes awry when Biff's gang locks Marty in the trunk of the performing band's car, while Biff forces himself onto Lorraine. George arrives expecting to find Marty but is assaulted by Biff. After Biff hurts Lorraine, an enraged George knocks him unconscious and escorts the grateful Lorraine to the dance. The band frees Marty from their car, but the lead guitarist injures his hand in the process, so Marty takes his place, performing while George and Lorraine share their first kiss. With his future no longer in jeopardy, Marty hurries to the courthouse to meet Doc. Doc discovers a letter from Marty warning him about his future and rips it up, worried about the consequences. To save Doc, Marty recalibrates the DeLorean to return ten minutes before he had left the future. The lightning strikes, sending Marty back to 1985, but the DeLorean breaks down, forcing Marty to run back to the mall. He arrives as Doc is being shot. While Marty grieves at his side, Doc sits up, revealing he had pieced Marty's note back together and is wearing a bulletproof vest. He takes Marty home and departs to 2015 in the DeLorean. Marty wakes the next morning, discovering his father is now a confident and successful science fiction author, his mother is fit and happy, his siblings are successful, and Biff is a servile valet in George's employ. As Marty reunites with Jennifer, Doc suddenly reappears in the DeLorean, insisting they return with him to the future to save their children from terrible fates.

The film starts with a Polaroid photograph of a dead man. As the sequence plays backward, the photo reverts to its undeveloped state, entering the camera before the man is shot in the head. The film continues, alternating between black-and-white and color sequences. The black-and-white sequences begin with Leonard Shelby, a former insurance investigator, in a motel room speaking to an unseen and unknown caller. Leonard has anterograde amnesia and is unable to store recent memories, the result of an attack by two men. Leonard explains that he killed the attacker who raped and strangled his wife Catherine, but a second clubbed him and escaped. The police did not accept that there was a second attacker, but Leonard believes the attacker's name is "John G" or "James G". Leonard investigates using notes, Polaroid photos, and tattoos to keep track of the information he discovers. Leonard recalls Sammy Jankis, another anterograde amnesiac, from his insurance industry days. After tests confirmed Sammy's inability to learn tasks through repetition, Leonard believed that his condition was at best psychological and turned down his insurance claim. Sammy's distraught wife repeatedly asked Sammy to administer her insulin shots for her diabetes, hoping he would remember having recently given her a shot and avoid giving her a fatal overdose. However, Sammy administered each injection, and his wife died. The color sequences are shown reverse-chronologically. In the story's chronology, Leonard self-directively gets a tattoo of John G's license plate. Finding a note in his clothes, he meets Natalie, a bartender who resents Leonard because he wears the clothes and drives the car of her boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz. After understanding Leonard's condition, she uses it to get Leonard to drive a man named Dodd out of town and offers to run the license plate as a favor through the Department of Motor Vehicle's database. Meanwhile, Leonard meets with a contact, Teddy, who helps with Dodd, but warns about Natalie. Leonard finds that he had previously annotated his Polaroid of Teddy, warning himself not to trust Teddy. Natalie provides Leonard with the driver's license for a John Edward Gammell, Teddy's full name. Confirming Leonard's information on "John G" and his warnings, Leonard drives Teddy to an abandoned building, leading to the opening where he shoots him. In the final black-and-white sequence, prompted by the caller, Leonard meets with Teddy, an undercover officer, who has found Leonard's "John G", Jimmy, and directs Leonard to the abandoned building. When Jimmy arrives, Leonard strangles him fatally and takes a Polaroid photo of the body. As the photo develops, the black-and-white transitions to the final color sequence. Leonard swaps clothes with Jimmy, hearing him whisper "Sammy". As Leonard has only told Sammy's story to those he has met, he suddenly doubts Jimmy's role in his wife's murder. Teddy arrives and asserts that Jimmy was John G, but when Leonard is undeterred, Teddy reveals that he helped him kill the real attacker a year ago, and Teddy has been using Leonard since. Teddy points out that since the name "John G" is common, Leonard will cyclically forget and begin his search again and that even Teddy himself has a "John G" name. Further, Teddy reveals that Sammy's story is Leonard's own story, a memory Leonard has repressed to escape feelings of guilt. After hearing Teddy confess all of this, Leonard burns the photograph of the dead Jimmy and the photo of himself right after killing the real attacker a year ago, pointing to his chest where he would get a tattoo to document his successful revenge. In a monologue, Leonard explains that he is willing to lie to himself in order to get justice against anyone who has wronged him. He targets Teddy by ordering a tattoo of Teddy's license plate number and writing a note to himself that Teddy is not to be trusted so that he will mistake Teddy for John G and kill him. Leonard drives off in Jimmy's car, confident that, despite this lie, he will retain enough awareness of the world to know that his actions have consequences.

Selected at birth and legally adopted by a television studio following an unwanted pregnancy, Truman Burbank is the unsuspecting star of The Truman Show, a reality television program filmed and broadcast worldwide, 24/7, through hidden cameras. Truman's hometown, Seahaven Island, is set inside an enormous soundstage in Los Angeles, which allows Christof, the show's creator and executive producer, to control nearly all aspects of Truman's life. Truman's world is populated by actors and crew members who serve as his community while keeping him from discovering the truth. To prevent Truman from escaping, Christof has orchestrated various scenarios such as the "death" of Truman's father in a boating accident to instill thalassophobia, and has the cast reinforce Truman's anxieties with messages about the dangers of traveling and the virtues of staying home. Though the producers intend for Truman to fall in love with and marry a woman named Meryl, he develops feelings for an extra named Sylvia. Sympathetic to Truman's plight, Sylvia tries to tell him the truth, but is promptly fired and removed from the set. Truman marries Meryl, but their relationship is stilted and passionless, and he continues to dream of traveling to Fiji, where he was told Sylvia had moved, and living a happy life with her. In the real world, Sylvia joins "Free Truman", an activist group that calls for Truman's liberation from the show. As the show approaches its thirtieth anniversary, Truman notices unusual occurrences such as a stage light falling from the sky; an isolated patch of rain that falls only over him; a radio transmission describing his movements; and the reappearance of his father, who is rushed away by crew members before Truman can confront him. Inferring that the city somehow revolves around him, Truman questions his life and asks his closest confidants to help him solve the mystery. Truman's suspicions culminate in an attempt to escape the island, but increasingly implausible occurrences block his path. Eventually, he is caught and returned home under a flimsy pretext. There, he confronts Meryl and challenges the sincerity of their marriage. As he holds her at knifepoint, Meryl breaks character to call for help and is removed from the show. Hoping to bring Truman back to a controllable state, Christof reintroduces his father to the show under the guise of him having developed amnesia following the accident. The show regains its ratings, and Truman seems to return to his routines. One night, however, Christof discovers that Truman has begun sleeping in his basement. Disturbed by this change in behavior, Christof sends Truman's best friend Marlon to visit and discovers that Truman has disappeared through a makeshift tunnel. Christof suspends the broadcast for the first time in its history, leading to record viewing numbers. Truman is found sailing away from Seahaven, having conquered his fear of water. Christof resumes the transmission and, unable to fetch Truman by rescue boat, creates a violent storm in an attempt to capsize Truman's boat, ignoring the protests of the executive producers and his assistants. Truman nearly drowns but continues to sail until his boat strikes the wall of the soundstage. He finds a staircase leading to an exit door. As he contemplates leaving, Christof speaks to Truman, revealing the truth about the show and encouraging him to stay by claiming that there is no more truth in the real world than in his artificial one. Truman utters his catchphrase—"In case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night"—before bowing to the audience and exiting. Sylvia races to greet him as the executive producers end the program with a shot of the open exit door, leaving Christof devastated. Viewers around the world celebrate Truman's escape, before quickly becoming bored and switching to the other TV channels.

Léon is an Italian-American hitman (or "cleaner", as he refers to himself) working for a mafioso named "Old Tony" in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City. One day, Léon meets Mathilda Lando, a lonely twelve-year-old who lives with her dysfunctional family in an apartment down the hall from Léon and has stopped attending class at her school for troubled girls. Mathilda's abusive father attracts the ire of corrupt DEA agents, who have been paying him to stash cocaine in his apartment. After they discover that he has been stealing from their stash, DEA agents invade the apartment, led by their drug-addicted boss, Norman Stansfield. During their search for the missing drugs, Stansfield murders Mathilda's family while she is out shopping for groceries. When she returns, Mathilda realizes what has happened just in time to continue down the hall to Léon's apartment; he hesitantly gives her shelter. Mathilda quickly discovers that Léon is a hitman. She begs him to take care of her and to teach her his skills, as she wants to avenge the murder of her four-year-old brother. At first, Léon is unsettled by her presence and considers killing her in her sleep, but he eventually trains Mathilda and shows her how to use various weapons. In exchange, she runs his errands, cleans his apartment, and teaches him how to read. Mathilda looks up to Léon and quickly develops a crush on him, often telling him she loves him, but he does not reciprocate. When Léon is out on a job, Mathilda fills a bag with guns from Léon's collection and sets out to kill Stansfield. She bluffs her way into the DEA office by posing as a delivery girl and is ambushed by Stansfield in a bathroom. One of his men arrives and informs him that Léon had killed Malky, one of the corrupt DEA agents, in Chinatown that morning. Léon, after discovering her plan in a note left for him, rescues Mathilda, killing two more of Stansfield's men in the process. An enraged Stansfield confronts Tony, who is roughed up and forced to disclose Léon's whereabouts. Léon tells Mathilda about how he became a hitman. When Léon was nineteen in Italy, he fell in love with a girl from a wealthy family, but Léon came from a poor family. The two made plans to elope. When the girl's father discovered their plans, he killed her out of anger. Léon killed the father in revenge and fled to New York, where he met Tony and trained to become a hitman. Later, while Mathilda returns home from grocery shopping, an NYPD ESU team sent by Stansfield captures her and infiltrates Léon's apartment. Léon ambushes the ESU team and rescues Mathilda. Léon creates a quick escape for Mathilda by smashing a hole in an air shaft. He tells her that he loves her and to meet him at Tony's place in an hour, moments before the ESU team fires a grenade into the apartment, wounding Léon and creating chaos. He manages to disguise himself as a wounded ESU officer and sneaks down through the staircase. He goes unnoticed by everyone except Stansfield, who follows him and shoots him in the back. As Léon dies, he presses a grenade pin in Stansfield's palm, saying that it is from Mathilda. Stansfield opens Léon's vest to find a cluster of grenades, which detonate, killing Stansfield. Mathilda goes to Tony and tries to convince him to hire her, but Tony flatly refuses to employ a twelve-year-old and tells Mathilda that he is holding Léon's money for her. Tony gives Mathilda $100 and orders her back to school, where the headmistress re-admits her after Mathilda reveals what has happened. Mathilda walks onto a field near the school to plant Léon's houseplant, as she had told Léon, to "give it roots".

In the 29th century, Earth is an inhospitable, garbage-strewn wasteland due to an ecocide caused by rampant consumerism, corporate greed, and environmental neglect. Humanity was evacuated to space by the megacorporation Buy n Large on giant spaceships 700 years earlier, leaving trash-compacting "WALL-E" robots to clean up the planet, but the cleanup was eventually abandoned after the planet became far too toxic. All but one of the robots have stopped functioning; the last remaining active WALL-E has developed a personality and uses a truck designed to carry the WALL-E robots as a home. WALL-E remains active by salvaging parts from other inactive robots, with his pet cockroach Hal as his only companion. One day, WALL-E's routine of compressing trash and collecting interesting objects is broken by the arrival of a sleek, futuristic robot called EVE, who scans the planet for sustainable life. WALL-E is smitten by her, and the two begin to connect until EVE goes into standby mode when WALL-E shows her his most recent find: a living seedling. WALL-E cares for EVE until she is collected by a large unmanned rocket; with WALL-E clinging on, it returns to its mothership, the starliner Axiom. In the centuries since the Axiom left Earth, its passengers have degenerated into helpless obesity due to microgravity and laziness, with robots catering to their every whim. Captain B. McCrea sits back while his robotic AI autopilot helm, nicknamed AUTO, pilots the ship. McCrea is unprepared for the positive probe response, but discovers that placing the plant in the ship's Holo-Detector will trigger a hyperjump back to Earth so that humanity can begin recolonization. When McCrea inspects EVE's storage compartment, the plant is missing, and EVE blames WALL-E for its disappearance. EVE is deemed faulty and taken to diagnostics. Mistaking this for torture, WALL-E intervenes and inadvertently releases the other faulty bots, causing him and EVE to be designated rogue robots. Frustrated with WALL-E's reckless actions, EVE tries sending WALL-E home in an escape pod, but as WALL-E refuses, the two witness McCrea's first mate robot, GO-4, stowing the plant in a pod set to self-destruct, proving WALL-E's innocence. WALL-E enters the pod to retrieve the plant just as it launches, and he and the plant survive the pod's destruction. EVE catches up to him and they reconcile, dancing in space around the Axiom. EVE brings the plant to McCrea, who watches her recordings of Earth, concluding that they must save it, and EVE is touched by seeing recordings of WALL-E caring for her while she is in standby mode, understanding his feelings for her. AUTO reveals his secret no-return directive A113, recorded by Shelby Forthright, Buy n Large's CEO, in 2110, which orders them not to return to Earth on account of its toxicity levels, unaware that the planet is actually starting to recover; AUTO had ordered GO-4 to get rid of the plant earlier. When McCrea tries overriding the directive, AUTO mutinies and electrocutes WALL-E, throws him and EVE down a garbage chute, and confines McCrea to his quarters. EVE and WALL-E are nearly ejected into space with the Axiom ' s garbage, but a cleaning robot named M-O inadvertently jams the airlock and rescues them. McCrea escapes by tricking AUTO with an image of the plant and fights for control of the Axiom, destroying GO-4 in the process, while humans and robots work to secure the real plant. AUTO crushes WALL-E using the Holo-Detector, but McCrea rises from his chair, activates the manual override and deactivates AUTO. EVE inserts the plant into the Holo-Detector, initiating the hyperjump back to Earth. Arriving on Earth, EVE repairs WALL-E, but his memory and personality have been erased. Heartbroken, EVE gives WALL-E a "smooch", which releases a static electricity shock, restoring him. WALL-E and EVE reunite as the Axiom inhabitants take their first steps on Earth. Humans and robots work to restore the ravaged planet with the help of WALL-E and EVE, and the plant grows into a tree, which WALL-E and EVE admire together.

In 2029, Earth has been ravaged by the war between the malevolent artificial intelligence Skynet and the human resistance. Skynet sends the T-1000 —an advanced, shape-shifting prototype Terminator made of virtually indestructible liquid metal —back in time to kill resistance leader John Connor when he is a child. To protect John, the resistance sends back a reprogrammed T-800 Terminator, a less advanced metal endoskeleton covered in living tissue. In 1995 Los Angeles, John's mother Sarah is incarcerated in Pescadero State Hospital for her violent efforts to prevent " Judgment Day "—the prophesied events of August 29, 1997, when Skynet will gain sentience and, in response to its creators' attempts to deactivate it, incite a nuclear holocaust. John, living with foster parents, also considers Sarah delusional and resents her efforts to prepare him for his future role. The T-1000 locates John in a shopping mall, but the T-800 intervenes, coming to John's aid and enabling his escape. John calls to warn his foster parents, but the T-800 deduces that the T-1000 has already killed them. Realizing the T-800 is programmed to obey him, John forbids it to kill people and orders it to help him rescue Sarah from the T-1000. The T-800 and John intercept Sarah as she attempts to escape the hospital. Initially horrified that the T-800 resembles the Terminator sent to kill her in 1984, she joins them and escapes the pursuing T-1000. Sarah uses the T-800's knowledge of the future to learn that a revolutionary microprocessor, being developed by Cyberdyne engineer Miles Dyson, will be crucial to Skynet's creation. Over the course of their journey, Sarah sees the T-800 serving as a friend and father figure to John, who teaches it catchphrases and hand signs while encouraging it to become more human-like. Sarah plans to escape to Mexico with John, but a nightmare about Judgment Day prompts her to decide to kill Dyson. She attacks him in his home but cannot bring herself to go through with it and relents. John arrives and reconciles with Sarah while the T-800 explains to Dyson the future consequences of his work. Dyson reveals that his research has been reverse engineered from the CPU and severed arm of the 1984 Terminator. Believing that his work must be destroyed, Dyson helps Sarah, John, and the T-800 break into Cyberdyne, retrieve the CPU and the arm, and set explosives to destroy the lab. The police assault the building and fatally shoot Dyson, but he detonates the explosives as he dies. The T-1000 pursues the surviving trio, cornering them in a steel mill. Sarah and John split up to escape while the T-1000 mangles the T-800 and briefly deactivates it by destroying its power source. The T-1000 assumes Sarah's appearance and voice to lure out John, but Sarah intervenes and, along with the reactivated T-800, pushes it into a vat of molten steel, where it disintegrates. John also throws the 1984 Terminator's arm and CPU into the vat. The T-800 explains that it must also be destroyed to prevent it from serving as a foundation for Skynet. Despite John's tearful protests, the T-800 persuades him that its destruction is the only way to protect their future. Sarah, having come to respect the T-800, shakes its hand and lowers it into the vat. The T-800 gives John a thumbs-up as it is incinerated. As Sarah drives down a highway with John, she reflects on her renewed hope for an unknown future, musing that if the T-800 could learn the value of life, so can humanity.

In the Pride Lands, a pride of lions rules over the kingdom from Pride Rock. King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi 's newborn son, Simba, is presented to the gathered animals by Rafiki, the mandrill who serves as the kingdom's shaman and advisor. Mufasa's younger brother, Scar, covets the throne and plots to eliminate Mufasa and Simba so that he may become king. When Simba grows into a young cub, Mufasa shows him the Pride Lands and forbids him to explore beyond its borders. Mufasa explains to Simba the responsibilities of kingship and the "circle of life," which connects all living things. Scar manipulates Simba into exploring an elephants' graveyard beyond the Pride Lands. There, Simba and his best friend, Nala, are chased by three spotted hyenas named Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed. Mufasa is alerted by his majordomo, the hornbill Zazu, and rescues the cubs. Though disappointed in Simba for disobeying him and endangering himself and Nala, Mufasa forgives him. He explains that the great kings of the past watch over them from the night sky, from which he will one day watch over Simba. Scar visits the hyenas and convinces them to help him kill Mufasa and Simba in exchange for hunting rights in the Pride Lands. Scar lures Simba into a gorge and signals the hyenas to drive a large herd of wildebeest into a stampede to trample him. He then alerts Mufasa, who saves Simba and tries to escape the gorge, but Scar betrays him by throwing him into the stampede to his death. Scar then deceives Simba into believing that Mufasa's death was his fault and tells him to leave the kingdom and never return. He orders the hyenas to kill Simba, but Simba escapes. Unaware of Simba's survival, Scar tells the pride that the stampede killed both Mufasa and Simba, and steps forward as the new king, allowing the hyenas into the Pride Lands. Simba collapses in a desert but is rescued by two outcasts, a meerkat and a warthog named Timon and Pumbaa. Simba grows up with his two new friends in their oasis, living a carefree life under their motto " hakuna matata " ("no worries" in Swahili). Years later, an adult Simba rescues Timon and Pumbaa from a hungry lioness, who is revealed to be Nala. Simba and Nala fall in love, and she urges him to return home, telling him that the Pride Lands have become drought -stricken under Scar's reign. Still feeling guilty over Mufasa's death, Simba refuses and leaves angrily. He encounters Rafiki, who tells Simba that Mufasa's spirit lives on in him. Simba is visited by the spirit of Mufasa in the night sky, who tells him that he must take his place as king. After Rafiki advises him to learn from the past instead of running from it, Simba decides to return to the Pride Lands. Aided by his friends, Simba sneaks past the hyenas at Pride Rock and confronts Scar, who shames Simba over his supposed role in Mufasa's death. Scar then reveals to Simba that he killed Mufasa. Enraged, Simba retaliates and forces Scar to confess the truth to the pride. A battle ensues between Simba and his allies and the hyenas. Scar attempts to escape but is cornered by Simba at a ledge near the top of Pride Rock. Scar begs for mercy and attempts to deceive Simba by blaming his actions on the hyenas. Simba spares Scar's life, but orders him to leave the Pride Lands forever. Scar refuses and attacks Simba. Following a brief battle, Simba throws Scar off the ledge. Scar survives the fall, but the hyenas, who overheard him betraying them, attack and maul him to death. With Scar and the hyenas gone, Simba takes his place as king, and Nala becomes his queen. With the Pride Lands restored, Rafiki presents Simba and Nala's newborn cub to the assembled animals, thus continuing the circle of life.