In Dorchester, Boston, private investigator Patrick Kenzie and his partner and girlfriend Angie Gennaro witness a televised plea by Helene McCready for the return of her abducted four-year-old daughter Amanda, who was last seen with her favorite doll, Mirabelle. Amid the media frenzy, Amanda's aunt Bea and uncle Lionel hire the pair to find her. Patrick and Angie meet with Boston Police Department detectives Remy Bressant and Nick Poole, who tell them about Corwin Earle, a known child molester whom they consider a suspect. Patrick asks a criminal associate, Bubba, to look for Earle and also discovers that Helene and her boyfriend Ray are addicts and drug mules for local Haitian drug lord Cheese, and had recently stolen $130,000 from him. After finding Ray has been murdered by Cheese's men, Patrick and Angie join Remy and Nick to find Amanda, whom they now believe has been taken by Cheese. Helene reveals she buried the money in Ray’s backyard and tearfully makes Patrick promise he will bring Amanda home alive. Patrick meets with Cheese and tries to negotiate returning the stolen money in exchange for Amanda, but he denies any involvement in the girl's disappearance. The following day, Captain Jack Doyle reads Patrick a telephone transcript of Cheese calling the station to set up an exchange for the girl. The exchange at a nearby quarry is botched after a gunfight breaks out, and Cheese is killed. It is believed that Amanda fell into the quarry's pond and drowned; Angie retrieves Mirabelle and returns it to Helene. Doyle, whose own daughter was killed years before, takes responsibility for the botched exchange and goes into early retirement. Two months later, a seven-year-old boy is abducted in Everett, a city near Boston, and Patrick receives information from Bubba that Corwin Earle is living with two married cocaine addicts. The two visit the house and Patrick observes evidence of the abducted boy, so he returns with Remy and Nick late at night to rescue him. Before they can enter the house, the woman starts shooting and fatally wounds Nick before chasing Patrick into Corwin's room. He discovers the dead child and executes Corwin as Remy arrives and kills the woman. The following evening, an intoxicated Remy tries to alleviate Patrick's guilt, confiding that he once planted evidence to help a family escape from an abusive husband. When Remy discloses that Ray was the one who told him about the abusive husband, Patrick becomes suspicious, as Remy had previously said that he did not know Ray. Following Nick's funeral, Patrick speaks to police officer Devin, telling him that Remy lied to him about knowing Ray. Devin tells him Remy knew about Cheese's stolen money before Cheese did. Patrick goads Lionel into meeting him in a bar and pieces together that he and Remy had staged a fake kidnapping to keep the drug money for themselves and to teach Helene a lesson, which Lionel finally admits. Remy enters the bar wearing a mask and stages a robbery. Patrick realizes it is just a ruse to kill them, so he yells about Remy's involvement in Amanda's kidnapping. The bartender shoots Remy, but he flees, pursued by Patrick, and succumbs to his injuries. While being questioned, Patrick realizes Doyle's involvement when he is told the police do not use phone transcripts. Arriving at Doyle's house, Patrick and Angie find Amanda alive and well. He admits his part in the kidnapping and setting up the fake exchange to frame Cheese. When Patrick threatens to call the police, Doyle tries to convince him that Amanda would have a better life with him and his wife than with her neglectful mother. Patrick discusses the choice with Angie, who says she will hate him if he returns Amanda to her mother, making the case that the girl would grow up much safer and happier if they leave her to be raised by Doyle and his wife. However, he makes the call regardless. Doyle, his wife, and Lionel are arrested, and Patrick and Angie break up. Patrick later visits Helene as she is preparing for a date. On discovering she has not arranged for a babysitter, he volunteers. After she leaves, Patrick sits down with Amanda and asks about Mirabelle, but is told her name is Anabelle. Realizing Helene does not even know the name of her daughter's favorite doll, Patrick is left to wonder whether returning Amanda to her mother was a mistake.

In 1939, Suffolk landowner Edith Pretty hires local self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown to tackle the large burial mounds at her rural estate in Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge. At first, she offers the same money he received from the Ipswich Museum, the agricultural wage, but he says it is inadequate; so she increases her offer by 12% to £2 a week which he accepts. His former employers fail to persuade Brown to work on a Roman villa they deem more important. They ignore Brown, who left school aged 12, when he suggests the mounds could be Anglo-Saxon rather than the more common Viking era. Working with assistants from Pretty's estate, Brown slowly excavates the more promising of the mounds. One day the trench collapses on him, but they dig him out in time. He spends more time with Edith, a widow, and her young son Robert, finding common interest in archaeology and astronomy with them. Brown's wife, May, supports his jobs as excavator despite the poor pay. Edith struggles with her health, warned by her doctor to avoid stress. Brown is astonished to uncover iron rivets from a ship, suggesting that it is the burial site of someone of tremendous distinction, such as a king. Prominent local archaeologist James Reid Moir attempts to join the dig but is rebuffed; Edith instead hires her cousin Rory Lomax to join the project. News of the discovery soon spreads, and Cambridge archaeologist Charles Phillips arrives, declares the site to be of national importance, and takes over the dig by order of the Office of Works. As the Second World War approaches, Phillips brings in a large team, including Stuart Piggott, and his wife Peggy Piggott who uncovers proof that it is Anglo-Saxon in origin. Brown is demoted to only keep the site in order but Edith intervenes and he resumes digging. Brown discovers a Merovingian Tremissis, a small gold coin of Late Antiquity and Phillips declares the site to be of major historical significance. Phillips wants to send all the artefacts to the British Museum but Edith, concerned about air raids in London, asserts her rights. An inquest finding confirms that she is the owner of the ship and its priceless treasure trove of grave goods but she despairs as her health continues to decline. Peggy, neglected by her husband Stuart, is attracted to Rory, but he is soon called up by the Royal Air Force; Peggy ends her marriage and sleeps with Rory before he leaves. Edith decides to donate the Sutton Hoo treasure to the British Museum, requesting that Brown be given recognition for his work. The film ends with Brown and his co-workers replacing earth over the ship to preserve it. As the end credits begin, text explains the fate of Edith and the recovered objects. The treasure was hidden in the London Underground during the war and first exhibited — without any mention of Basil Brown — nine years after Edith's death. Only much later was Brown given full credit for his contribution and his name is now displayed permanently alongside Pretty's at the British Museum.

The film is set shortly before Christmas in the North Country of Upstate New York, near the Akwesasne ('Where the Partridge Drums') St. Regis Mohawk Reservation and the border crossing to Cornwall, Ontario. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is a discount store clerk struggling to raise two sons with her husband, a compulsive gambler who has disappeared with the funds she had earmarked to finance the purchase of a double-wide mobile home. While searching for him, she encounters Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a Mohawk bingo-parlor employee who is driving his car, which she claims she found abandoned with the keys in the ignition at the local bus station. The two women, who have both fallen on hard economic times, form a desperate and uneasy alliance and begin smuggling undocumented immigrants from Canada into the United States across the frozen St. Lawrence River for $1,200 each. Ray's older son T.J. wants to find a job and help support the family so they can afford to eat something more substantial than popcorn and Tang. He and his mother clash over whether he should remain in high-school and look after his little brother Ricky or drop out to work. To make matters worse, T.J. sets an outside corner of the trailer afire with a torch in an attempt to unfreeze the water pipe. Lila longs for the day she will be able to reclaim and live with her young son, who was taken from her by her mother-in-law immediately after his birth. Because the women's route takes them from an Indian reservation in the US to an Indian reserve in Canada, they hope to avoid detection by local law-enforcement. However, their problems escalate when they are asked to smuggle a Pakistani couple and Ray, fearful their duffel bag might contain explosives, leaves it behind in sub-freezing temperatures, only to discover it contained their infant baby when they arrive at their destination. She and Lila retrace their route and find the bag and the baby, which Lila insists is dead, but which she revives moments before being reunited with the baby's parents. The experience leaves her shaken, and she announces she no longer wants to participate in the smuggling operation. But Ray, needing just one more crossing to finance the down payment on her mobile home, coerces her into joining her for one last journey. They pick up two Asian women from a strip club for crossing. When the club owner tries to short them, Ray successfully threatens him with a gun. When she is re-entering her car, the irate club owner retaliates by shooting Ray in the ear. Shaken, her fast and erratic driving catches the attention of the provincial police. Ray tries to elude capture by crossing the frozen river where one of the wheels of the car breaks through the ice. The four women abandon the vehicle and take refuge at the Indian reservation. Because the police are demanding a scapegoat, the tribal head decides to excommunicate Lila for five years due to her smuggling history which involved the death of her Mohawk husband. Surprised then saddened by the news, Ray gives in to Lila's pleas to go free for the sake of her children. However, running through the woods, Ray has a fit of conscience and returns. Ray gives her share of money to Lila with instructions for taking care of her (Ray's) sons and seeing through the purchase plans for a mobile home. Ray and the undocumented immigrants are surrendered to the police and a trooper speculates she will have to serve four months in jail. Ray calls her son T.J. to explain what has happened. Lila pushes her way into her mother-in-law's home and reclaims her infant son. She and the baby show up at the Eddy trailer while T.J. is still on the phone with his jailed mother. In a day scene, T.J. completes the welding of a bicycle-propelled carousel bearing his younger brother and Lila's strapped in baby. He pedals the carousel while Lila smiles on. A truck nears carrying the new mobile home.

Set in Saint Petersburg in 1860, the story revolves around retired officer Yakovlev. A deadly shot, Yakovlev is effectively a kind of mercenary in that he is available for hire through his associate Baron Staroe to stand in for others in formal duels. Much later in the film, flashbacks reveal that years ago an Aleut shaman has predicted he would never die, and so far that seems about right as Yakovlev wins duel after duel, wounding and more often killing noble opponents. Although duels of honor are technically illegal in Russia at the time, most people turn a blind eye to the law. The code of practice is not written down anywhere, and yet everyone knows the rules and rituals, while many participants see it as an almost mystical rite. To take part in a duel is to accept that one's fate is ultimately in the hands of God, hence the practice of Russian roulette. Eventually, it turns out that all of Yakovlev's recent duels were secretly arranged by Count Beklemishev. He is a shadowy puppet master with a grudge and designs on Princess Martha Tuchkova whose brother (Prince Tuchkov) Yakovlev is scheduled to duel with next. When attraction stirs between him and the pretty blond princess, problems arise, especially since, as the flashbacks reveal, Yakovlev has an agenda of his own.

After a night of partying, an intoxicated Bobby Moore and his friends are killed when their car collides head-on with a truck on a bridge on their way home to the town of Bomont, Georgia. The tragedy prompts his father Shaw Moore, the town reverend, to persuade the city council to pass several draconian laws and ordinances, one of which bans all unsupervised dancing within city limits. Three years later, Boston -raised teenager Ren McCormack moves to Bomont to live with his uncle Wes Warnicker, his aunt Lulu, and cousins Sarah and Amy after his mother's death from leukemia and his father's desertion. On his first day at Bomont High School, Ren becomes friends with fellow seniors Willard Hewitt and Woody, who explain the ban on dancing. He is attracted to Shaw's rebellious daughter Ariel, who is secretly dating dirt-track driver Chuck Cranston. After Chuck insults him, Ren ends up in a school bus motocross race and wins despite his inability to drive one and almost getting himself killed when the bus catches fire. Shaw mistrusts Ren and forbids Ariel from ever seeing him again. Ren and his classmates want to do away with the law against dancing and have a senior prom. He also teaches Willard how to dance. After a while, Ariel begins to fall for Ren, prompting her father to complain to Ren's uncle, who explains the circumstances of Ren's mother's death and his opinion that while Shaw may think Ariel is too good for Ren, perhaps the opposite is true. Ariel dumps Chuck, resulting in a fight between them in which Ariel is physically assaulted and gets a black eye. Later in church, Shaw finds out about it and believing Ren responsible, demands his arrest, but Ariel tells him that he cannot blame everything on Ren as he did with Bobby. She then reveals that she lost her virginity, to which Shaw begs for her to not say that in the church, and Ariel sarcastically asks him if he will pass another law, as it did not stop her and Chuck from having sex. Shaw abruptly slaps her without warning, shocking his wife Vi and prompting Ariel to tearfully and angrily criticize his domineering ways and storm out. When Shaw tries to apologize, Vi stops him, telling him he has gone too far. Supporting the dancing movement, she tells him that he is not being good to Ariel; he cannot be everyone's father; and dancing and music are not the problems. Ren goes before the City Council to request the anti-dancing laws be abolished. As part of his statement, he reads several Bible verses given to him by Ariel, which describe that even in ancient times people would dance to rejoice, exercise, celebrate, or worship. However, Reverend Moore walked into the meeting with the votes to defeat Ren's motion already in his pocket, and it goes down to defeat. Despite the City Council's refusal to abolish the anti-dancing ordinances, Ren's boss Andy Beamis offers his cotton mill, which is technically in the neighboring town of Bayson, as a site where the seniors can have their prom. Knowing that Moore still has enough influence of pressuring parents to not let their teenagers come, Ren visits him at the church one evening. In conversation, they realize their common ground is the loss of a loved one. After Shaw tells the story of Bobby, Ren describes his mother's death. He states with quiet determination that even though the City Council refused the motion to abolish the law, they cannot stop the dance. He then respectfully requests permission to take Ariel to the prom, and Shaw agrees. A few days before the prom, Shaw unexpectedly asks his congregation to pray for the high school students putting on the event. The students (and many parents) prepare and decorate the mill for the big night. On prom night, not long after Ren and Ariel arrive, Chuck and several of his friends show up, intending to start trouble. Chuck's gang is subdued and run off by Ren, Ariel, Willard, Ariel's best friend Rusty Rodriguez, and Andy. They enter the mill where Ren flings confetti into a shredding machine and yells, "Let's dance!" as everyone joins in dancing to a country rendition of " Footloose ".

Sidney Stratton, a gifted research chemist and former Cambridge scholar, is obsessed with developing a fibre that never wears out and resists dirt. His fixation and insistence on costly laboratory facilities lead to repeated dismissals from jobs at several textile mills across Northern England. At Birnley Mills, where he is employed as a labourer, Stratton secretly gains access to research equipment and, through persistence, succeeds in producing a revolutionary synthetic fibre. A suit is tailored from the material: it is brilliantly white, as it cannot absorb dye, and faintly luminous due to traces of radioactive compounds in its structure. At first, Stratton is celebrated as a scientific pioneer. Mill owners recognise the brilliance of his discovery, and the press hails his work as a breakthrough. However, both management and organised labour quickly grasp the broader consequences. If clothing made from the fibre never wears out, the textile trade will collapse once consumers purchase sufficient garments, leaving thousands unemployed and destroying the profitability of the industry. Industrialists attempt to coerce Stratton into relinquishing his formula, while union leaders also pressure him to suppress the invention. Stratton, proud of his achievement and convinced of its benefit to humanity, refuses to compromise. The mill owner's daughter, Daphne Birnley, is enlisted to persuade Stratton to abandon his work in return for a monetary settlement. Though initially willing, she comes to admire his integrity and instead encourages him to make his discovery public. Stratton, however, slowly realises that his creation has no allies: employers, workers, and even acquaintances oppose its release, fearing economic ruin. The film reaches its climax with Stratton pursued through the streets at night, wearing the glowing white suit. Chased by a mob of industrialists and workers, he appears cornered, but suddenly the fabric begins to fail. The chemical structure of the fibre proves unstable, and the suit disintegrates before the crowd's eyes. Triumphant, the mob strips away the remnants, leaving Stratton in his underclothes. Only Daphne and Bertha, a sympathetic mill worker, express pity for his plight. The following morning, Stratton is dismissed from his position at Birnley Mills. As he gathers his belongings, he examines his laboratory notes. A sudden insight strikes him, and he exclaims, "I see!" He departs with renewed determination, suggesting he will resume his quest elsewhere.

Recently widowed Walt Kowalski is an ill-tempered and racially prejudiced Korean War veteran and retired Ford factory worker. His Rust Belt neighborhood in Metro Detroit has become ridden with gang violence among poor Hmong immigrants, including Walt's next-door neighbors, the Vang Lor family. Walt is estranged from his spoiled family, and on his eightieth birthday angrily rejects his son's suggestion that he move to a retirement community in favor of living alone with his aging Labrador retriever Daisy. A chronic smoker, Walt suffers from coughing fits, occasionally spitting up blood. As Walt's late wife requested, her priest, Father Janovich, tries to comfort Walt and persuade him to go to confession. Despite being harshly rejected by Walt, Father Janovich persists. Thao Vang Lor is coerced by a Hmong gang led by his cousin, "Spider," to steal Walt's 1972 Ford Gran Torino as an initiation. Walt catches Thao and thwarts the theft; Thao escapes after Walt nearly shoots him. When the gang tries to abduct Thao forcefully, Walt scares them off with his M1 Garand rifle, earning the local Hmong community's respect. As penance, Thao's mother makes Thao work for Walt performing tasks that improve the neighborhood. The two men soon form a tenuous mutual respect. Walt mentors Thao, helping him obtain a construction job. Walt also rescues Thao's sister, Sue, from being raped by three African American gangsters. Despite his initial prejudices, Walt bonds with the Vang Lor family. With his cough worsening, Walt consults a doctor who provides a dismal prognosis, which he conceals. After the gang assaults Thao on his way home from work, Walt physically assaults a member as a warning. In retaliation, the gang beats and rapes Sue, and then injures Thao in a drive-by shooting. Out of fear, the family refuses to report the crimes. The following day, an enraged Thao seeks Walt's help to exact revenge; Walt convinces him to return later that day. Walt buys a suit, gets a haircut, and finally confesses to Father Janovich. When Thao arrives, Walt takes him to his basement and gives him his Silver Star, telling him that he is haunted by the memory of killing an enemy child soldier who was trying to surrender to him, and he wants to spare Thao from shedding blood. He locks Thao in the basement and departs to the gang's residence. When Walt arrives, the gang members draw their guns as he berates them for their crimes, drawing the attention of the neighbors. Walt puts a cigarette in his mouth, slowly reaches into his jacket pocket, and pulls his hand out quickly. Thinking Walt is brandishing a pistol, the gang members shoot and kill him. Walt's hand opens to reveal his Zippo lighter bearing the 1st Cavalry insignia. Following Walt's direction, Sue frees Thao, and they arrive at the scene. A police officer tells Thao and Sue that Walt was unarmed and that the gang members are arrested for murder. The officer goes on to say that the gang members will be going to prison for a very long time, thanks to witnesses coming forward. Father Janovich conducts Walt's funeral, which his family, his barber, and the Hmong community attend. Afterward, Walt's last will and testament is read. Much to the dismay of Walt's family, Walt leaves his house to the church and his cherished Gran Torino to Thao, on the condition that Thao does not modify the car. Sometime later, Thao drives along Detroit's Jefferson Avenue with Daisy at his side.

In 1903, American seaman Henry Adams is stranded penniless in Britain and gets caught up in an unusual wager between two wealthy, eccentric brothers, Oliver and Roderick Montpelier. They persuade the Bank of England to issue a one million pound banknote, which they present to Adams in an envelope, only telling him that it contains some money. Oliver asserts that the mere existence of the note will enable the possessor to obtain whatever he needs, while Roderick insists that it would have to be spent for it to be of any use. Once Adams gets over the shock of discovering how much the note is worth, he tries to return it to the brothers, but is told that they have left for a month. He then finds a letter in the envelope, explaining the wager and promising him a job if he can avoid spending the note for the month. At first, everything goes as Oliver had predicted. Adams is mistaken for an eccentric millionaire and has no trouble getting food, clothes, and a hotel suite on credit, just by showing his note. The story of the note is reported in the newspapers. Adams is welcomed into exclusive social circles, meeting the American ambassador and English aristocracy. He becomes very friendly with Portia Lansdowne, the niece of the Duchess of Cromarty. Then fellow American Lloyd Hastings asks him to back a business venture. Hastings tells Adams that he does not have to put up any money himself; the mere association will allow Hastings to raise the money that he needs to develop his gold mine by selling shares. Trouble arises when the Duke of Frognal, who had been unceremoniously evicted from the suite Adams now occupies, hides the note as a joke. When Adams is unable to produce the note, panic breaks out amongst the shareholders and Adams's creditors. All is straightened out in the end, and Adams is able to return the note to the Montpelier brothers at the end of the month.

Particle physicists and estranged friends Abby Yates and Erin Gilbert co-authored Ghosts from Our Past, a book detailing their paranormal investigations since high school. Erin later disavowed the work, while Abby continues her research at the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science in Manhattan, with engineering physicist Jillian "Holtz" Holtzmann as her partner. Now a professor at Columbia University and in line for tenure, Erin, discovering that Abby republished their book, convinces her to cease its publication if she helps Abby and Holtzmann investigate a haunting at the Aldridge Mansion. They encounter the malevolent ghost of the family’s eldest daughter before she escapes, restoring Erin's belief in the supernatural and friendship with Abby. Erin loses her bid for tenure at Columbia after their vlog becomes viral. Erin offers to join Abby and Holtzmann as the latter are dismissed from Higgins Institute. After stealing equipment, they establish temporary headquarters above a disused Chinese restaurant. They verbosely name themselves "Conductors of the Metaphysical Examination", build trappings and hire jock Kevin Beckman as a receptionist. MTA staffer Patty Tolan encounters a ghost in a subway terminal built under a former prison and contacts the team. They find the ghost and test Holtzmann's prototype proton packs on the entity, but fail to capture it. They advertise their services with a "no ghosts allowed" logo that Holtzmann had based on a graffiti artist's defacement and the name pundits have labeled them "Ghostbusters". Patty joins the team, providing city expertise, PPE and a repurposed hearse from her uncle dubbed " Ecto-1 ". Mad scientist and occultist Rowan North has triggered supernatural events by attracting ghosts across Manhattan with self-developed ionizers modeled after the Ghostbusters' technology, allowing him to experiment and create a dimensional vortex powered by turned PSI energy. When Rowan plants another device at a music festival, the Ghostbusters are called and capture a demonic ghost there, becoming city sensations but antagonizing him. When debunker Doctor Martin Heiss challenges the quartet, Erin releases the ghost as evidence; it throws him out of a window and escapes. The group is brought before Mayor Bradley and his deputy, Jennifer Lynch, who reveal that they and the DHS are aware of the city's supernatural activities. While privately acknowledging the team's work, they publicly denounce them as fraudsters. The Ghostbusters realizes Rowan is planting his devices along ley lines, with their alignments intersecting at the Mercado Hotel in Times Square, a site of violent occurrences where Rowan's vortex will breach the netherworld, potentially triggering an apocalypse. When they confront him in the building's basement, Abby warns him of apprehension, but unwilling to turn himself in, Rowan electrocutes himself with his main machine. After deactivating it, Holtzmann finds an annotated copy of Ghosts from Our Past that explains the similarity between their technologies. Erin later discovers that Rowan planned his suicide to become a ghost himself. Rowan returns as a deity-like ghost and attacks the Ghostbusters at their headquarters by possessing Abby, but Patty thwarts him. He then possesses Kevin, escapes to the hotel, opens the portal and releases galvanized ghosts. Rowan subdues the authorities, but the Ghostbusters fight through his army to reach the portal. After leaving Kevin's body, Rowan takes on a kaiju -sized form based on the ghost in the Ghostbusters' logo and becomes rampant. The team uses the Ecto-1's nuclear reactor to incite a nuclear explosion inside the vortex; it reverses the portal, forcing Rowan and the ghosts back in and saving the city. Rowan attempts to take Abby with him, but Erin leaps into the portal and rescues her. Despite the city's fascination with the supernatural and its lauding of the Ghostbusters as heroes, the mayor continues to denounce them publicly while covertly funding their operations. With added resources, the Ghostbusters move to a disused firehouse, where they build more equipment, including an ecto-containment system. While investigating EVP, Patty hears the word " Zuul ".

The film consists of two parts. In the first part entitled "Encounters" a successful journalist from Moscow Yuri Aliabiev (Y.Vasiliev) travels to a small city in the Urals because a certain Anikina, woman living in the city, writes complaints about local authorities accusing them of dissipation and bribe-taking. Arriving in the city Aliabiev meets Shura Okaemova, a nice-looking girl who works at a local plant. Attracted by Shura's intelligence and beauty Aliabiev attempts to seduce her but Shura rejects his attempts. Aliabiev leaves for Moscow and then on a business trip for Paris. The second part ("Garden and Spring") tells about Aliabiev's life in Paris where he meets Annie Girardot, attends the rehearsal of Mireille Mathieu and conducts extensive discussions with his new friend, an American journalist, trying to persuade him in the advantages of Soviet way of life. Returning from Paris to Moscow Aliabiev travels to the city in the Urals again. He failed to forget Shura and wants to resume their relationship. On arriving to the city he finds out that Anikina wrote letters to local authorities accusing Shura of a liaison with him. The Komsomol meeting decided to move Shura from her house to a hostel. Aliabiev finds Sura to tell her about his love and they decide to marry.

The scientist Ludvík Jahn returns to his hometown after two decades away. He is interviewed by Helena, an attractive older woman whom he begins to seduce. Jahn then discovers Helena is married to Pavel, an old rival. Jahn flashes back to his college days and his love for Markéta, a devout believer in communism. In an attempt to make the humorless Markéta lighten up, Jahn sends her a postcard reading "Optimism is the opium of mankind. A 'healthy spirit' stinks of stupidity. Long live Trotsky! Yours, Ludvík". Markéta turns the postcard over to the Party, however, and Jahn is brought before a Party hearing to answer for his words. Pavel, a friend who had pledged to help him, calls in the meeting for Jahn's expulsion from the college and the Communist Party, and Markéta joins the vote against him. Jahn then undergoes six years of "reeducation", which are split between prison and army service in a technical auxiliary battalion under a sadistic drill sergeant. While in the army, Alexej, a true believer in communism, appeals to higher authorities against their treatment; when the man is consequently expelled from the Party, he commits suicide. In the present, Jahn successfully seduces Helena, motivated more by a desire for revenge on Pavel than attraction to her. Though Helena falls in love with him, he discovers that she and Pavel have long been estranged, and Pavel has a new lover of his own. The only person hurt by Jahn's attempt at revenge is Helena.

The Space Shuttle Explorer, commanded by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, is in Earth orbit to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Ryan Stone is aboard on her first space mission, to perform hardware upgrades on the telescope. During a spacewalk, Mission Control in Houston warns Explorer ' s crew about a rapidly expanding cloud of space debris caused by the Russians shooting down a defunct spy satellite, and orders the crew to return to Earth immediately. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly after, as more communication satellites are disabled by debris. Debris strikes Explorer and Hubble, tearing Stone from the shuttle. Kowalski, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), rescues her and they return to Explorer, discovering that it has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew are dead. Kowalski decides they should use the MMU to reach the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit about 1,450 km (900 mi) away. He estimates that they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again. On their way to the ISS, the two discuss Stone's home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident. As they approach the station, they see that the ISS's crew has evacuated using one of its two Soyuz spacecraft, with the remaining craft exhibiting damage and unable to return to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Chinese Tiangong space station, 100 km (60 mi) away, to board its similar Shenzhou spacecraft and return to Earth. They try to grab onto the ISS, but only make tenuous connection to the Soyuz's parachute cords, which are not strong enough for them both. Despite Stone's protests, Kowalski detaches himself to save her from drifting away with him. Stone enters the ISS as Kowalski floats away. Unable to establish communication with him, she concludes that she is the mission's sole survivor. Inside the station, a fire breaks out, forcing Stone to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers it away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers snag, preventing the spacecraft from leaving. She performs a spacewalk to cut the cables, succeeding just as the debris field returns, destroying the station. Stone angles the Soyuz towards Tiangong but discovers that the engine has no fuel. After an attempt at radio communication with an Inuk on Earth, Stone resigns herself to her fate and shuts off the cabin's oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, she experiences a hallucination of Kowalski telling her to rig the Soyuz's soft landing rockets to propel the capsule towards Tiangong. Stone regains the will to go on, restoring the spacecraft's oxygen flow and rigging the landing rockets accordingly. Unable to dock with Tiangong, Stone ejects herself from the Soyuz and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to the rapidly deorbiting station. She enters Tiangong ' s Shenzhou capsule just as the station enters the upper atmosphere, and undocks. The Shenzhou capsule re-enters the atmosphere and lands in a lake. Radio communication from Houston informs Stone that she has been tracked on radar and that rescue crews are on their way. Stone opens the hatch and sheds her space suit, allowing her to reach the surface and crawl onto the beach before standing and walking away.