Aspiring scientist and inventor Flint Lockwood lives with his widowed fisherman father Tim in Swallow Falls, an island in the Atlantic Ocean. The island's economy is entirely based on sardine sales, which have plummeted due to the rest of the world deeming sardines "super-gross", forcing Swallow Falls residents to eat all the sardines themselves. Flint plans to expand the town's diet by inventing the "Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator" (FLDSMDFR), a device that transforms water into food. During his first test, he knocks out his house's power when he attempts to plug in the new device, annoying Tim, who struggles with wanting to support his son as he wishes that Flint would take over his fishing equipment store when he retires. Flint tries his plan again by connecting the FLDSMDFR to a local substation, but the device accidentally overloads, rocketing across town and into the sky. In the process, it destroys a new sardine-themed amusement park called Sardine Land that was meant to revitalize the island's economy, upsetting Mayor Shelbourne and the other townsfolk. Afterwards, a dejected Flint heads to the harbor where he meets Samantha "Sam" Sparks, a meteorologist from New York City whose big break was thwarted by the accident. As she and Flint talk together, cheeseburgers suddenly begin raining from the sky; Flint realizes his plan is a success because the FLDSMDFR is functioning successfully in the stratosphere, using the condensation from clouds to create food-based weather systems. The town rejoices in their new food choices. Swallow Falls is renamed Chewandswallow and becomes a food tourism destination, making Flint a local celebrity. Simultaneously, he and Sam begin to fall in love after Sam opens up to Flint about how she always dreamed of being a meteorologist as a young girl, but was made fun of by her peers for her intelligence and passion for science. Afterwards, Tim draws Flint's attention to the fact that the food has begun to "over-mutate", becoming both larger and less molecularly stable. Flint warns the now- morbidly obese Shelbourne that the FLDSMDFR is malfunctioning, but Shelbourne is only interested in more food and tourism. After a tornado made of spaghetti and meatballs threatens the town, Flint attempts to deactivate the FLDSMDFR. Shelbourne accidentally destroys Flint's control panel in an attempt to stop Flint, causing the FLDSMDFR to go rogue and create a massive "food storm" across the planet. Refusing to give up, Flint places a kill code in a USB flash drive and builds a flying car to reach and destroy the FLDSMDFR. Accompanied by his pet monkey Steve, Sam, her cameraman Manny, and the town's ex-mascot "Baby" Brent McHale, they approach the FLDSMDFR and discover it has surrounded itself with a giant meatball for protection and is producing sentient food. As they reach the interior, they lose the flash drive and are attacked by giant animated roast chickens. Brent is swallowed by one, but subdues it and wears it as armor to fight off the others. Flint and Sam attempt to climb down to the center of the meatball, but some peanut brittle triggers Sam's peanut allergies. She refuses to leave Flint and they profess their love for one another. To save Sam, Flint breaks the rope and falls to the FLDSMDFR, while Brent takes Sam back for medical attention. Back in Chewandswallow, the townsfolk evacuate on rafts made of giant food, while Tim stays behind to upload a new kill code to Flint's phone. Flint uses the code on the machine, which reveals it has developed a mind of its own. Realizing that Tim accidentally sent the wrong file, Flint uses a Spray-on Shoe formula to jam the device, causing it and the giant meatball to detonate as he falls back to Earth. The townsfolk cheer on Flint as a hero, Tim at last shows appreciation for his son, and Sam and Flint share a kiss. Meanwhile, Shelbourne has eaten his raft and is now stranded off the coast of Chewandswallow.

The pharmaceutical company Aston Laboratories sends biochemist Dr. Rae Crane into the Amazon rainforest to locate researcher Robert Campbell, after his wife (and research partner) abandons him. Crane is bringing equipment and supplies but Campbell is upset the research partner is not forthcoming. He tries to send Crane home but she demurs, as she has been assigned to determine whether Campbell's research deserves continued funding. Campbell has found a " cure for cancer ", but attempts to synthesize the compound have failed. With supplies of the successful serum running low, Campbell isolates a derivative of a species of flower from which the formula can be synthesized and with Crane's help is determined to find its source. Campbell earns the title " medicine man " of the village by giving a boy with a stomach ache Alka-Seltzer, insulting the real medicine man and driving him deep into the forest. A logging company is building a road headed straight for the village, threatening to expose the native population to potentially lethal foreign pathogens, as has happened before. In fact, Campbell's wife left him because he could not forgive himself for the tragedy. Imana, a small boy appears with malignant neoplasms and Campbell, Crane, Imana and his father Jahausa set out in search of Campbell's predecessor, a medicine man from whom Campbell once acquired his knowledge of flowers. Upon encountering Campbell's entourage, the medicine man flees in fear. Though he is reluctant to pursue the man further, Crane convinces him circumstances demand that he must. Campbell rescues Crane from a fall, then locates the medicine man, whom he is compelled to fight in order to heal the medicine man's wounded pride and gain further necessary information. Unfortunately, the medicine man reveals that the flowers have no "juju"—power to heal. Jahausa and Imana agree to return another time. Back at the village, Crane initially refuses to allow Campbell to inoculate Imana with the last of the serum until more can be synthesized. But when Imana's condition worsens, she gives in and Imana is inoculated. The next morning, Imana is better but the village is in tumult. The logging road is nearly finished. Campbell appeals to the company's workers to halt construction until he can conclude his research but it refuses. In desperation and after new samples fail to contain the missing compound, Crane runs the chromatograph one more time and accidentally discovers that the source of the cure is not the flower but a species of rare ant indigenous to the rainforest. Campbell demands the construction stop. A fight results and a bulldozer catches fire, destroying the village and the research station along with many acres of rainforest. The next day, Crane promises to send Campbell new equipment and the research assistant he'd originally requested. She is about to return home when she meets the medicine man. He symbolically passes on his mantle to Campbell. Crane accepts an invitation to continue working with Campbell in exchange for recognition for co-discovering the source of the compound.

The Roman Empire has been unable to fully conquer Britain, reaching a harsh stalemate in the North. The Picts engage in guerrilla warfare against the Romans along the Glenblocker forts and the Gask Ridge at the southern border of the Scottish Highlands. At the Roman outpost of Pinnata Castra, Pict warriors led by Vortix and Aeron kill the entire garrison, taking only the second-in-command, Centurion Quintus Dias, because he can speak the Pictish language. Brought before Pict king Gorlacon, who has united the northern tribes, Dias is brutally interrogated, but escapes on foot. A messenger from the fort reaches Gnaeus Julius Agricola, Roman governor of Britannia, who hopes to obtain favour with the Roman Senate and transfer back to the comforts of Rome. He dispatches the Ninth Legion under General Titus Flavius Virilus to eradicate the Pict threat, providing him with a Celtic Brigantian scout, Etain. Marching north, the legion rescues Dias from his pursuers. Etain leads them into an ambush where, surprised by flaming pitch-wood 'boulders', they are massacred and the wounded Virilus is captured. The few survivors – Dias, the legionaries Bothos, Thax, Brick, Macros and Leonidas, and the cook Tarak – set out to rescue Virilus, finding him at Gorlacon's village. Sneaking in at nightfall, they are unable to break his chains, and he orders them to return to Roman territory without him. In Gorlacon's hut, Thax suffocates the king's young son to prevent him giving them away. The next morning, Gorlacon burns his son's body on a funeral pyre and forces Virilus to fight Etain, who as a child witnessed her parents raped and slaughtered by the Romans; she kills him with a spear through the heart. Gorlacon sends her after the legionaries at the head of a group of mounted warriors, including Vortix and Aeron, to avenge his son's death. The Romans plan to travel north away from Roman territory, to throw the Picts off their trail, then head west and back south. After several days' pursuit, the Picts continually catch up with the fugitives, who jump off a cliff into a river to escape them; Tarak is killed before he can jump, and Macros and Thax become separated from the others. Dias' group camp for the night while their pursuers camp across the river. Dias and Brick raid the enemy camp, killing two men and wounding a third, who reveals they are being pursued because of the death of Gorlacon's son, which Thax had kept secret. Etain has launched her own attack on the Romans, and Dias and Brick return to discover Leonidas dead and Bothos wounded. Meanwhile, Macros and Thax have washed up further down river. The two encounter a wolf pack and end up running. When Thax falls Macros returns to help him, only for Thax to cut his Achilles tendon and leave him to the wolves. Dias, Bothos, and Brick find the forest hut of Arianne, an exiled Briton accused of witchcraft who learned Latin from a nearby Roman outpost. She gives them shelter, food, and medical attention for Bothos. When Etain and her warriors arrive, Arianne hides the Romans under her floorboards.When Bothos, Dias, and Brick leave Arianne's in the morning; Arianne, having become fond of Dias, is saddened to see him go. They find the outpost abandoned, with an order declaring that the Roman troops have retreated south by order of Emperor Hadrian. Seeing Etain's warriors approaching and tired of running, they set up a defensive position inside the fort. Brick is killed, as are Vortix, Aeron, and the rest of the Britons, with Dias finally killing Etain. Taking the Picts' horses, Dias and Bothos continue south, reuniting with Thax. Reaching Hadrian's Wall, now under construction, Thax threatens Dias, afraid he will report his dishonourable actions. They fight, with Dias choking Thax to death. Bothos, joyfully riding toward the Romans, is mistaken for a charging Pict and shot by an archer. Devastated, Dias reports to Agricola, who worries that news of the legion's annihilation will lead other tribes to revolt. Fearful of his reputation being tainted by a military failure, he decides the Ninth Legion's fate should remain a mystery and Dias must be silenced. Dias foils the attempt on his life by Agricola's daughter Drusilla. Badly wounded in the thigh, he knocks Drusilla unconscious and escapes from the camp, returning to Arianne in the forest. The film ends with Arianne kissing him after he falls from his horse.

In Los Angeles, a man known as Mr. Jigsaw murders Billie York because she possesses a microfilm containing a recipe that can turn cocaine into cookies. Her former partner, Wes Luger, who is about to retire, is assigned the case by the reluctant captain Doyle, who dismisses it as a suicide but gives Luger the case. The catch is that Luger will have to be partnered with Jack Colt, a burned out cop who recently lost his dog, Claire. The two visit Harold Leacher, who tells them that Colt's former general in the Vietnam War, Mortars, is heading the operation. Meanwhile, Jigsaw and Mortars visit Mike McCraken, whom Jigsaw murders for losing the microfilm. After finding the body, Colt and Luger go to Rick Becker, who claims that he laundered money with York (the money actually being in the laundry machine), but Rick is shot multiple times by unknown assailants, forcing Colt and Luger to go to the Wilderness Girls factory. The head, Destiny Demeanor, claims no knowledge of the operation during questioning, but she is revealed to be working for Mortars and his gang. Colt meets Luger's family, but he runs away when they try to seduce him. Destiny and Colt hang out at Colt's house, while Mortars sends a helicopter to destroy Colt's house (a trailer that is actually a mansion inside), but they accidentally destroy John McClane 's house. Due to lack of evidence, Doyle dismisses the case, but Colt still decides to stop the operation, much to the dismay of Luger. Luger is a by-the-book cop, after he took an unscheduled break from his crossing guard duties (as a child), which led to an old lady being run over by a car and killed. Colt breaks in and Destiny, now having fallen in love with Colt, attempts to stop Mortars, but Mortars shows that he was the one who kidnapped Claire, revealing Rick and Claire chained to a wall (Rick actually having survived the incident). Mortars shoots Destiny, who clings to life long enough to confess her feelings for Colt. Colt manages to catch up with Mortars, but then Luger shows up, having considered what Colt said to him earlier. He shoots and kills Mortars, and Colt kills Jigsaw, but starts a fire that destroys the whole factory. Doyle shows up, and asks Luger to stay in the force. Luger agrees, but as long as Colt is his partner. In the end, Destiny, having survived, shows up with Rick and Claire, and the team dances to " Bohemian Rhapsody ".

Class Action Park chronicles the life of penny stockbroker Eugene Mulvihill, who is described as having become rich from pump-and-dump schemes. It outlines his path to opening Vernon Township, New Jersey 's Action Park in 1978. He envisioned it as a park with "no rules". The park was funded by fraudster Robert E. Brennan, who had gotten his start working for Mulvill at Mayflower Securities, eventually becoming its president, and gaining a reputation as the "Penny Stock King." Mayflower was later suspended by the Securities and Exchange Commission for what The New York Times called "selling its customers worthless securities in a bankrupt electronics company." After being effectively kicked off Wall Street, Mulvihill purchased two ski resorts, Great Gorge and Vernon Valley in Vernon Township, an "idyllic", 68,000-square mile area of over 20,000 people whose open terrain had attracted investors such as Hugh Hefner, who chosen the town as the location of a Playboy Club in the early 1970s, where entertainers such as Tony Bennett and Wayne Newton performed. After New Jersey legalized casino gambling in 1976, investors thought Vernon could become another Orlando, Florida or Las Vegas. Because of New Jersey's short winters, Mulvihill became a pioneer in artificial snow-making, constructing one machine out of a jet engine, before deciding to build water rides to exploit the warm summers. Former Action Park guests and employees recall the park's more dangerous rides, such as the Cannonball Loop, the SuperSpeed Waterfalls, the Alpine Slides, and the Tarzan Swings, as well as the park's general atmosphere and culture, which reflected the culture of the 1980s and that of New Jersey as a " Wild West " where such a park was able to exist. The film mentions land dispute Mulvihill had with the state of New Jersey, which ended after the state got tired of dealing with him. The last third of the film chronicles the deaths that occurred there, the first of which was that of George Larsson Jr., which happened as he rode the Alpine Slide in 1980, but which was covered up by the park in order to conceal it from New Jersey authorities. Action Park maintained that no coverup was necessary because Larsson was not a member of the public, but an employee who rode the slide at night during a rain shower, but in fact, this was untrue. The suggestion that Mulvihill corrupted Vernon Township officials during Action Park's existence is also mentioned. After his chief source of money, Brennan, was convicted of money laundering and bankruptcy fraud, and sentenced to nearly a decade in prison, and concerns over safety became more ingrained in the public's consciousness, the park's parent company was forced into bankruptcy, making the park's 1996 Summer season its last. The Vancouver-based corporation IntraWest purchased the park, stripped out of most of its attractions, and renamed it Mountain Creek Water Park, which without Mulvilhill's vision, became, according to the film, "a generic, regional water park." Mulvihill died in October 2012, which George Larsson Jr.'s mother Esther says was the one time she and her husband George celebrated someone's death, saying that Mulvihill "deserved to be gone," as he "did not care about any of the riders any of the people." By contrast, Vernon newspaper editor Jessi Paladini, who became close to Mulvihill in the final four or five years of his life, remembers both the good and bad aspects of his personality. Insisting that she neither glorifies him nor extolls him as a "good, decent, honorable man," Paladini says that she did see a generous, benevolent side to him. Journalist Seth Porges says of Mulvihill, "It's so easy to romanticize him, because he does what a lot of people wish they coud do. A lot people wish they could ignore the law. A lot of people wish they could ignore rules. Gene actually did that." Former guests of the park reflect on Action Park as a whole. Financial journalist Mary Pilon observes that the park's vision continues to live on in schemes such as those surrounding the Fyre Festival and Theranos. Another former park guest, writer/comedian Chris Gethard, disputes this analogy, saying that Fyre Festival gave guests "a cheese sandwich", whereas "Gene gave you everything he fucking promised you." Writer/actress Alison Becker, another former guest of the park, says, "Even though I was scared to do those rides, I fucking did 'em. There's also a part of me that's like, 'If you can't do 'em, fucking get out of Jersey." Former park security director Jim DeSaye says Acion Park was "an 80s movie that was real life, and it's something that will never happen again." In the film's final minutes, it details that in May 2010, two years before his death, Gene Mulvill led a group of investors to take back the park and restore its previous name, in a bid to capitalize on nostalgia. This included plans for an updated version of the Cannonball Loop ride, but which was never built. By 2018, the park, now again called Mountain Creek, was acquired by Vernon native Joe Hession, who had been an Action Park employee in his teens. In the final shot before the closing credits, Esther Larsson is seen visiting George's grave with his younger brother Brian.

In an unknown Balkan city-state – "a place that calls itself Rome " – riots are in progress after stores of grain are withheld from citizens and civil liberties are reduced due to a war between Rome and neighbouring Volsci. The rioters are particularly angry at Caius Martius, a brilliant Roman general whom they blame for the city's problems. During a march, the rioters encounter Martius, who is openly contemptuous and does not hide his low opinion of the regular citizens. The commander of the Volscian army, Tullus Aufidius, who has fought Martius on several occasions and considers him a mortal enemy, swears that the next time they meet in battle will be the last. Martius leads a raid against the Volscian city of Corioles; much of Martius's unit is killed, but he gathers reinforcements and the Romans take the city. After the battle, Martius and Aufidius meet in single combat, which results in both men being wounded but ends when Aufidius's soldiers drag him away from the fight. Martius returns to Rome victorious, and in recognition of his great courage, General Cominius gives him the agnomen of "Coriolanus". Coriolanus's mother Volumnia encourages her son to run for consul within the Roman Senate. Coriolanus is reluctant but eventually agrees to his mother's wishes. He easily wins the Roman Senate and seems at first to have won over the commoners as well due to his military victories. Two tribunes, Brutus and Sicinius, are critical of his entrance into politics, fearing that his popularity would lead to Coriolanus taking power away from the Senate for himself. They scheme to undo Coriolanus and so stir up another riot in opposition to him becoming consul. When they call Coriolanus a traitor, Coriolanus bursts into rage and openly attacks the concept of popular rule as well as the citizens of Rome, demonstrating that he still holds the plebeians in contempt. He compares allowing citizens to have power over the senators as to allowing "crows to peck the eagles". The tribunes term Coriolanus a traitor for his words and order him banished. Coriolanus retorts that he will banish Rome from his presence: "There is a world elsewhere". After being exiled from Rome, Coriolanus seeks out Aufidius in the Volscian capital of Antium and offers to let Aufidius kill him, to spite the country that banished him. Moved by his plight and honoured to fight alongside the great general, Aufidius and his superiors embrace Coriolanus and allow him to lead a new assault on the city so that he can claim vengeance on the city which he feels betrayed him. Coriolanus and Aufidius lead a Volscian attack on Rome. Panicked, Rome sends General Titus to persuade Coriolanus to halt his crusade for vengeance; when Titus reports his failure, Senator Menenius follows but is also shunned. In response, Menenius, who has seemingly lost all hope in Coriolanus and Rome, commits suicide by a river bank. Finally, Volumnia is sent to meet with her son, along with Coriolanus's wife Virgilia and his son. Volumnia succeeds in dissuading her son from destroying Rome and Coriolanus makes peace between the Volscians and the Romans alongside General Cominius. When Coriolanus returns to the Volscian border, he is confronted by Aufidius and his men, who now also brand him as a traitor. They call him Martius and refuse to call him by his "stolen name" of Coriolanus. Aufidius explains to Coriolanus how he put aside his hatred so that they could conquer Rome but now that Coriolanus has prevented this, he has betrayed the promise between them. For this betrayal, Aufidius and his men attack and kill Coriolanus.

Werner Herzog found a kindred spirit in the German-American Navy pilot and Vietnam War veteran Dieter Dengler. Like Herzog, Dengler grew up in a Germany reduced to rubble by World War II, and Dengler's stories of hunger and deprivation in the years after the war echo similar stories from Herzog's past. Dengler recounts an early memory of Allied fighter-bombers destroying his village and says he decided he wanted to be a pilot after seeing one of these pilots fly past his house. At the age of 18, Dengler emigrated to the United States, where he served a two-year enlistment in the United States Air Force. Frustratingly, he was unable to gain a pilot's slot in that service, so he left the Air Force, attended college, and then joined the Navy. After completing flight training, he was assigned as a Douglas A-1 Skyraider pilot in Attack Squadron 65 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. In 1966, Dengler served aboard USS Ranger with Attack Squadron 145. At the time, the squadron was equipped with the Douglas AD-6/A-1H Skyraider, a single-engine, propeller-driven attack plane. On the morning of 1 February, Lieutenant Dengler launched from Ranger with three other aircraft on an interdiction mission near the Laotian border. Visibility was poor due to weather, and upon rolling in on the target, Dengler and the remainder of his flight lost sight of one another. Dengler was the last man in and was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He was forced to crash-land his Skyraider in Laos. Dengler was taken prisoner of war by the Pathet Lao and then turned over to soldiers of the Army of North Vietnam. After a period of torture and starvation spent handcuffed to six other prisoners in a bamboo prisoner-of-war camp, Dengler escaped. He was subsequently rescued after being spotted by United States Air Force pilot Eugene Deatrick. The bulk of the middle of the film consists of footage from a trip Herzog took with Dengler back to Laos and Thailand to recreate his ordeal three decades after the fact. Herzog hired locals to play the part of the captors and had Dengler retrace his steps while describing his experiences. A postscript consisting of footage from Dengler's funeral in 2001 was later added to the film. Herzog subsequently directed Rescue Dawn, a feature film based on the events of Dengler's capture, imprisonment, escape, and rescue. That film, starring Christian Bale as Dengler, was released on 24 July 2007.

Richard Phillips takes command of MV Maersk Alabama, an unarmed container vessel from the Port of Salalah in Oman, with orders to sail through the Guardafui Channel to Mombasa, Kenya. Wary of pirate activity off the coast of the Horn of Africa, he and First Officer Shane Murphy order strict security precautions on the vessel. During a practice drill, the captain notices the vessel being followed by Somali pirates in two skiffs. Knowing the pirates are listening to their radio traffic, he pretends to call a warship for help, requesting immediate air support. One skiff turns around in response, and the other – crewed by four armed pirates led by Abduwali Muse – loses engine power trying to steer through Maersk Alabama ' s wake. The next day, Muse's skiff returns, now fitted with two outboard engines. Despite the efforts of Phillips and his crew, the four pirates board the ship by ladder. Phillips tells the crew to hide in the engine room, just before the pirates storm the bridge and hold Phillips and the other crew members at gunpoint. Phillips offers Muse the $30,000 in the ship's safe, but Muse's orders are to ransom the ship and crew in exchange for millions of dollars of insurance money from the shipping company. Shane sees that the youngest pirate Bilal does not have sandals and tells the crew to line the engine room hallway with broken glass. Chief Engineer Mike Perry deactivates the onboard power, plunging the lower decks into darkness. Bilal cuts his feet when they reach the engine room, and Muse continues to search alone. The crew members ambush Muse, holding him at knifepoint, and arrange to release him and the other pirates into a lifeboat. However, Muse's right-hand man Nour Najee refuses to board the lifeboat with Muse unless Phillips goes with them. Once all are on the lifeboat, Najee attacks Phillips, forcing him into the vessel before launching the boat with all five on board. As the lifeboat heads for Somalia, tensions flare between the pirates as the effects of the plant-based stimulant khat wear off, and they lose contact with their mother ship. Najee, agitated, questions Muse's leadership when they are intercepted by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge. Bainbridge ' s captain Frank Castellano is ordered to prevent the pirates from reaching the Somali coast by any means. Even when additional ships arrive, Muse asserts that he has come too far and will not surrender. The negotiators are unable to change his mind, and a team from DEVGRU parachutes in to intervene. Phillips attempts to escape but is recaptured and beaten by Najee. While three DEVGRU marksmen get into positions, Castellano and DEVGRU continue to try to find a peaceful solution, eventually taking the lifeboat under tow. Muse agrees to board Bainbridge, where he is told that his clan elders are arriving to negotiate Phillips's ransom. Najee, in control of the lifeboat now, spots Phillips writing a goodbye letter to his wife and snatches it. Phillips attacks Najee but Bilal subdues him with his gun butt. Najee beats Phillips, now bound and blindfolded, and prepares to shoot him. Bainbridge ' s crew stops the tow, causing Elmi, Bilal, and Najee to lose balance, giving the American marksmen clear shots, and they simultaneously kill all three pirates. Muse is arrested and taken into custody for piracy. Phillips is rescued and his injuries are treated. Although in shock and tears, he thanks the rescue team for saving his life.

The film's plot is centered on an engineer Jim Ripple who invents universal robots to help workers, being himself from a workers' family. He theorizes that cheap production will make all goods so cheap that Capitalism will fall. The workers do not share his view and his family considers him a traitor. A key element of his invention is a high-capacity capacitor that powers the robots. The government becomes interested in the invention because the robots can be used as a weapon as well. Ripple is given a top secret factory and funding so that he can produce robots. The robots are not autonomous or intelligent, and controlled either by radio or by sound, for which purpose Ripple uses a saxophone. When drunk he even makes the robots dance. At a day of a universal workers' strike, the administration of a factory where the Ripple's brother works, located in the same town where the robot producing plant is located, replaces workers with robots. A workers' delegation visits the factory to see that there are no strike breakers, and finds that actually it is the robots who do the work. The meeting ends with an accident when Ripple tries to show the abilities of a robot to the workers; in an accident, one of the workers dies. This sparks a conflict between workers and the plant administration assisted by the military. The military decides to use robots against the workers as a weapon. The robots are commanded by an officer sitting in a tank using a radio remote control device. Trying to prevent the hostilities Ripple tries to stop the robots with a saxophone, but he is unsuccessful and is killed. Finally the workers gain control over the robots with their own remote control device, which they had covertly assembled before, making necessary measurements on the robot assembling factory and researching the Ripple's prototype robot "Micron", whom he left damaged at his home.

Young photographer Nev Schulman lives with his brother Ariel in New York City. Abby Pierce, an 8-year-old child prodigy artist in rural Ishpeming, Michigan, sends Nev a painting of one of his photos. They become Facebook friends, which broadens to include Abby's family, including her mother Angela (Wesselman); Angela's husband Vince; and Abby's attractive and older half-sister Megan, who lives in Gladstone, Michigan. For a documentary, Ariel and Henry Joost film Nev as he begins an online relationship with Megan. She sends him MP3s of song covers she performs for him, but Nev discovers that they are all taken from performances on YouTube. He later finds evidence that Angela and Abby have lied about other details of Abby's art career. Ariel urges Nev to continue the relationship for the documentary, although Nev seems reluctant to carry on. The trio decide to travel to Michigan to make an impromptu appearance at the Pierces' house and confront Megan directly. As they arrive at the house, Angela takes some time to answer the door, but is welcoming and seems happy to finally meet Nev in person. She also tells him that she has recently begun chemotherapy for uterine cancer. After leaving multiple messages while trying to call Megan, Angela drives Nev and Ariel to see Abby herself. While talking with Abby and her friend alone, Nev learns that Abby never sees her sister and rarely paints. The next morning, Nev wakes up to a text message from Megan saying that she has had a long-standing alcohol problem and has decided to check into rehab and cannot meet him, which is confirmed by one of Megan's Facebook friends, but Nev realizes that this is likely another lie from Angela. After meeting with the family back at their house, Angela admits that the pictures of Megan were of a family friend, that her daughter Megan really is in rehab downstate and that Angela had really painted each of the paintings that she had sent to Nev. Nev thus realizes that, while believing he was talking to Megan, it was really Angela posing as her with an alternate Facebook account and mobile phone. As he sits for a drawing, Angela confesses that the various Facebook profiles were all maintained by her, but that through her friendship with Nev, she had reconnected with the world of painting, which had been her passion before she sacrificed her career to marry Vince—who has two severely mentally disabled children who require constant care. Through a conversation with Vince himself, the siblings learn that Angela had told him (falsely) that Nev was paying for her paintings, and that he had encouraged her to seize the opportunity to have him as a patron. Vince, talking with Nev, tells the story about how live cod were shipped along with catfish in the same tanks to keep the cod active, and thus ensure the quality of the fish. He further explains this as a metaphor on how there are people in everyone's lives who keep them alert, active, and always thinking, It is implied that he believes Angela to be such a person. Some time after, Nev receives a package labeled as being from Angela herself; it is the completed drawing that she labored over during their meeting, although Nev seems ambivalent in his feelings about it. On-screen text then informs the viewer that Angela did not have cancer, there was no Megan at the downstate rehab facility, and she doesn't know the girl in the pictures. Over the course of their nine-month correspondence, Angela and Nev exchanged more than 1,500 messages. It was revealed later that the girl in the pictures was Aimee Gonzales, a professional model and photographer, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, with her husband and two children. In October 2008, two months after the events, Ronald, one of Vince's twin sons, has died. Angela deactivated her 15 other profiles and changed her Facebook profile to a picture of herself, and now has a website to promote herself as an artist. Nev is still on Facebook and has more than 732 friends, including Angela.

The film opens just as construction has been completed on a railway connecting mountainous regions of eastern Bosnia and western Serbia in 1992. Luka, a Serbian engineer, has moved to Bosnia from Belgrade with his mentally unstable wife, Jadranka, and his football-playing son, Miloš, to run a railway station and act as caretaker. Luka is at work preparing the opening of the railway while Miloš attempts to become a professional footballer with the Partizan team. Utterly engrossed in his work and blinded by natural optimism, Luka remains deaf to the increasingly persistent rumblings of war, which has broken out in Croatia and threatens to spread. When the conflict explodes, Miloš is denied his place on the football field when he is enlisted into the Serbian army, and Jadranka disappears on the arm of a Hungarian musician. Eventually, Luka receives news that Miloš has been taken prisoner of war. Luka considers suicide, but a profiteering acquaintance presents him with Sabaha, a Bosnian Muslim whom he has taken hostage. Luka intends to exchange Sabaha for Miloš, but the two fall in love after they are forced to flee deeper into Serb-controlled territory. When a UN-enforced prisoner exchange is finally arranged, Luka and Sabaha try to escape to Serbia at an attempt to cross the Drina river, but Sabaha is wounded by a Bosnian sniper after squatting to urinate behind a tree. Army nurses narrowly manage to save Sabaha's life, and she is exchanged for Miloš, along with other prisoners. Jadranka also returns, and the family is reunited in their old home, but Luka is lovesick. He lies down in front of a train, but when the train stops to avoid running over a mule, it is revealed that Sabaha is on board, and the two ride away on the mule.

Two students at a West Coast university, Arian and Ernest, at the urging of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley, attempt to do something important with their lives. They make the bold decision to enlist in the army to fight in Afghanistan after graduating from college. Dr. Malley also attempts to reach a talented and privileged but disaffected student, Todd Hayes, who is not at all like Arian and Ernest. He is naturally bright, comes from a privileged background, but has apparently slipped into apathy upon being disillusioned at the present state of affairs. Now, he devotes most of his time to extra-curricular activities like his role as president of his fraternity. Malley tests him by offering a choice between a respectable grade of 'B' in the class with no additional work required or a final opportunity to re-engage with the material of the class and "do something." Before Todd makes his choice, he must listen to Dr. Malley's story of his former students Arian and Ernest and why they are in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a charismatic Republican presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving, has invited liberal TV journalist Janine Roth to his office to announce a new war strategy in Afghanistan: the use of small units to seize strategic positions in the mountains before the Taliban can occupy them. The senator hopes that Roth's positive coverage will help convince the public that the plan is sound. Roth has her doubts and fears she is being asked to become an instrument of government propaganda. She informs her commercially-minded boss of her plans to call out the senator's new strategy for what she feels is a ploy, but is shot down. Ultimately, Irving's version of the story is run without the critical interaction. Whether Roth gave in and toed the company line or quit her job is not clear. In Afghanistan, a helicopter carrying Arian and Ernest is hit by Taliban insurgents. Ernest falls out, and Arian jumps after him. Ernest's leg is badly wounded, and he suffers a compound fracture, rendering him immobile as the Taliban arrive. After a drawn-out gunfight, the U.S. soldiers run out of ammunition. Rather than getting captured, Arian helps Ernest stand up, facing the enemies and turning their empty weapons against them, an action which prompts the Taliban to kill them. The unit commanders attempt a rescue of the downed soldiers, sending A-10 Warthogs, but weather, time, and distance interfere. Hayes is watching television with a friend. A reporter is discussing a singer's private life, while below runs a strip announcing Senator Irving's new military plan for Afghanistan. Hayes suddenly falls quiet, contemplating the choices with which his professor had left him.