In Waterloo, Ontario in 1996, Research in Motion (RIM) CEO Mike Lazaridis and his best friend and co-founder Douglas Fregin prepare to pitch their "PocketLink" cellular device to businessman Jim Balsillie. Their pitch is unsuccessful, but after Balsillie is fired from his job due to his aggressive ambition, he offers to invest $20,000 for 50% of the company and a position as CEO. Lazaridis, prompted by Fregin, initially declines Balsillie's offer, but after confirming Balsillie's suspicion that their $16 million deal with USRobotics was in bad faith, they bring Balsillie in as a co-CEO with Lazaridis and sell him a 33% stake in RIM for $125,000. After joining RIM, Balsillie discovers that the company is in a dire financial position and he mortgages his house to add a cash infusion to make payroll. Balsillie arranges a pitch for the PocketLink with Bell Atlantic and forces Fregin and Lazaridis to build a crude prototype overnight, which he and Lazaridis take to New York. Lazaridis forgets the prototype in their taxi, leaving Balsillie to attempt the pitch alone. Lazaridis recovers the prototype at the last second and finishes the pitch, and they rebrand the PocketLink as the " BlackBerry ", which becomes massively successful. In 2003, Palm Inc. CEO Carl Yankowski plans a hostile takeover of the immensely successful RIM, leading Balsillie to try to raise RIM's stockprice by selling more phones than Bell Atlantic's (now Verizon Communications) network can support. This does crash the network, as Lazaridis had warned, so Balsillie poaches engineers from around the world to fix the problem, as well as hiring a man named Charles Purdy as RIM's chief operating officer to keep the engineers in line. Purdy's employment upsets Fregin, who values the casual and fun work environment he and Lazaridis had created. The new engineers fix the network issue under Purdy's strict management, and RIM avoids Yankowski's buyout. In 2007, RIM's upcoming pitch of the BlackBerry Bold to Verizon is thrown into chaos when Steve Jobs announces the iPhone, much to Lazaridis and Fregin's irritation. Balsillie, a hockey fan with a long-term ambition of owning an NHL team, is occupied with trying to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins, forcing Lazaridis to pitch the Bold with Fregin instead. When it goes poorly, he panics and impulsively promises them the BlackBerry Storm, a touchscreen device. As Lazaridis finally agrees with Purdy's suggestion to outsource the labor of the Storm to China, he insults Fregin during an argument. Fregin later quits RIM as a result. Balsillie becomes nervous when he sees the iPhone's projected sales and tries to arrange a meeting with the CEO of AT&T, only to learn that the Penguins sale is being finalized that day. He prioritizes the Penguins but is rejected when the NHL owners reveal knowledge of his plan to move the team to Hamilton, which they learned of through his boasting to Yankowski. The US SEC raid RIM after learning that Balsillie hired the engineers in 2003 with illegally backdated stock options, threatening Lazaridis with legal action. Balsillie misses his chance to meet with AT&T's CEO, who snubs Balsillie by hinting that AT&T's partnership with Apple is predicated on the fact that data usage has superseded phone minutes as a priority. Balsillie returns to RIM to find that Lazaridis has exposed him to the SEC, leaving Lazaridis as the sole CEO of RIM. One year later, the Storms arrive from China, but Lazaridis finds them to be laden with bugs and can hear buzzing when he holds one to his ear. He begins manually fixing the buzzing phones one by one. Captions over the film's closing titles reveal that the Storms were almost universally inoperable and Verizon sued RIM to cover the financial loss. Lazaridis resigned as CEO in 2012, Balsillie avoided jail, and Fregin had secretly became one of the richest men in the world by selling his stock in 2007 after he left RIM. At the height of RIM's success, BlackBerry phones made up 45% of the cell phone market; today their market share is 0%, and BlackBerry phones are no longer produced.

In 1991, following the critical and commercial failure of her biography of Estée Lauder, author Lee Israel struggles with financial troubles, writer's block, and alcoholism. Her only friend is her cat, which has a health issue. Lee hopes to write a biography of comedian Fanny Brice, who died in 1951. Her literary agent Marjorie sharply rejects the idea, noting that Brice’s life no longer interests people. Marjorie explains that Lee, with her difficult personality, is responsible for her own career slump. With Marjorie unable to secure her an advance for a new book, regardless of subject matter, Lee resorts to selling her possessions to cover living expenses. She sells a personal letter she received long ago from Katharine Hepburn to a used bookstore merchant and autograph dealer named Anna. Lee begins spending time with old acquaintance Jack Hock after a chance encounter with him at a gay bar called Julius’. He reveals to her that he has been banned from all locations of the Duane Reade chain of stores because he was caught shoplifting. Lee visits a Manhattan library's special collections department to research Fanny Brice and discovers two letters typewritten by Brice. She removes one of them from the building, takes it to Anna's store, and shows it to her. Anna makes Lee an offer that is lower than what she was expecting, due to the letter's bland content. Lee returns home and uses a typewriter to add a postscript to the letter. Lee returns to the store where Anna, amused by what "Fanny Brice" wrote "several decades ago", offers Lee $350. Anna reveals to Lee that she has written some short stories and is soliciting advice about whether they are good enough to be published. The socially phobic Lee replies cautiously, as this is apparently the first time in many years that a woman has tried to befriend her and is asking for her help with getting something published. Lee uses some of the $350 Anna gave her to pay for veterinary treatment of her sick cat. The veterinary clinic previously had turned her and her cat away because of insufficient funds. Lee, emboldened by her success with selling the Brice letter, starts forging and selling letters supposedly written by deceased celebrities, incorporating intimate details to command high prices. Anna, a fan of Lee's biographies, tries to initiate a romantic relationship but may have another motive. On their dinner date, she gives Lee a manila envelope containing an original short story with the hope that Lee will critique it. Moments after they leave the restaurant, the socially phobic Lee appears to rebuff Anna. In some of Lee's letters, she has Noël Coward make references to his social life that reflects his homosexuality. A used-book dealer named Paul buys one of them from Lee and sends it to a friend of his who knew Coward. The recipient doubts Coward would have risked his privacy and relays his suspicions. Paul then raises an alarm that leads to Lee's customers blacklisting her. Unable to sell more forgeries, she has Jack sell them on her behalf, since the customers do not know he has a connection to Lee. She also starts stealing authentic letters from libraries and archives for Jack to sell, replacing them with forged duplicates. While Lee is out of town committing one such theft, she lets Jack stay in her apartment. He brings a young waiter from the gay bar Julius’ to join him there. Lee’s cat dies while under Jack’s care during the night he and the waiter spend together. Lee ends their friendship but continues their partnership out of necessity. The FBI arrests Jack while he is attempting a sale. He cooperates with them, resulting in Lee being served with a court summons. She retains a lawyer, who advises her to show contrition by getting a job, doing community service, and joining Alcoholics Anonymous. In court Lee says she enjoyed creating the forgeries but that her actions were ultimately not worth it because she lost her cat and her friendship with her criminal accomplice. He “may have been an idiot, but he tolerated me, and he was nice to have around.” The judge sentences Lee to five years' probation and six months' house arrest. During house arrest Lee skips her court-ordered AA meeting to meet with Jack, who is dying of AIDS, at the gay bar Julius’. They reconcile. Lee does not comment on or ask about his health. He grants her permission to write a memoir about their escapades. Sometime later, while Lee is passing a bookstore, she sees a Dorothy Parker letter she forged that is now on sale for $1,900. She writes the store owner a sarcastic note from the deceased Parker revealing that the letter is a fake. After reading the note, the owner goes to retrieve the letter but then decides to keep it on display.

In Pamplona, Spain, middle-aged friends Mitch Robbins, Ed Furrilo and Phil Berquist participate in the running of the bulls. As they fly back in the airplane, Mitch tells Ed he is getting fed up with their road trips. A year later, back home in New York City, Mitch realizes he and his friends use adventure trips as escapism from their boring lives, since he is disillusioned with his radio advertising sales job, Phil is trapped in a loveless marriage to his shrewish wife Arlene while managing a supermarket owned by his father-in-law who bullies him, and Ed is a successful and outgoing sporting goods salesman who recently married Kim, a significantly younger woman, but is unwilling to fully settle down. At Mitch's 39th birthday party, Phil and Ed give Mitch a trip for all three to go on a two-week cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado. Phil's 20-year-old employee Nancy unexpectedly arrives at the party and announces she tested positive in a pregnancy test, causing Arlene to walk out after a fight. Mitch's wife, Barbara, insists he go on the cattle drive to find his smile again. In New Mexico, the trio meet ranch owner Clay Stone and their fellow cattle drivers: brothers and ice cream company founders Barry and Ira Shalowitz, young and attractive Bonnie Rayburn, father-son dentists Ben and Steve Jessup, ranch hands Jeff and T.R., and Cookie the cook. Mitch confronts Jeff and T.R. when they begin sexually harassing Bonnie. Trail boss Curly intervenes, though he also humiliates Mitch. During the drive, Mitch accidentally causes a stampede which destroys the camp. While searching for stray cows, Mitch discovers Curly has a kind and wise nature beneath his gruff exterior. Curly encourages Mitch to discover the "one thing" in his life that is most important to him. Along the way, Mitch helps deliver a calf from a dying cow. Mitch names the calf Norman. Shortly after, Curly suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving the drive under Jeff and T.R.'s control. Cookie gets drunk and inadvertently sends the chuck wagon over a cliff, breaking his legs in the process. After the Jessups leave to take Cookie to a nearby town (being more qualified because of their medical training in dentistry), Jeff and T.R. become intoxicated with Cookie's secret stash. A fight ensues when they threaten to kill Norman and assault Mitch. Phil and Ed intervene, and Phil holds Jeff at gunpoint, which unleashes his pent-up emotions. Soon after, Jeff and T.R. abandon the group. Bonnie and the Shalowitzes continue on to the Colorado ranch, while Ed and Phil remain behind to finish the drive. Mitch also leaves but soon returns to rejoin his friends. After braving a heavy storm, the trio drives the herd to Colorado. When Norman nearly drowns as the herd crosses a river, Mitch acts to save him. Both are swept down current, but Phil and Ed rescue them. They safely reach the Colorado ranch. When Stone offers to reimburse everyone's fee, the Jessups prefer returning the herd to New Mexico. However, Clay reveals he is selling the herd to a meat-packing company. Mitch, Phil, and Ed initially believe they saved the cattle for nothing, but decide to use their experience to help re-evaluate their lives. The men return to New York City. Mitch, a happier man, reunites with Barbara and their two children Holly and Danny; he has also brought Norman home as a pet(he'll later put him in a petting zoo). Phil, having learned earlier Nancy was not pregnant, begins a relationship with Bonnie. Ed intends to start a family with Kim. Mitch is ready to restart his life with a new stance.

New York City taxi driver Jerry Fletcher is a passionate conspiracy theorist, happily sharing his ideas with anyone who will listen. His favorite audience is Justice Department lawyer Alice Sutton, who tolerates him because he once saved her from a mugging but is unaware he spies on her at home. She is haunted by the murder of her father, a judge, which her boss Mr. Wilson believes was ordered by an inmate her father denied an appeal. One day, Jerry notices some men he surmises to be CIA agents, who lure him into a trap. They bring him to a man who, claiming to know Jerry well, injects him with LSD and demands to know who he has been talking to "about us." Experiencing terrifying hallucinations and flashbacks, Jerry manages to escape after biting the interrogator's nose, but is injured when the wheelchair he is taped to falls down a flight of stairs and a metal rod pierces his abdomen. Accosting Alice in the Justice Department lobby, a frantic, bloodied Jerry grabs a security guard's gun and is arrested. Taken to the hospital, Jerry is handcuffed to a bed and drugged. Before losing consciousness, he begs Alice to switch his chart with the criminal in the next bed, claiming he will be dead by morning otherwise. When Alice returns the next day, the criminal has died from an alleged heart attack and the police, along with the FBI and the CIA, arrive to ID the body, believing it to be Jerry's. The CIA is led by a psychiatrist named Dr. Jonas, whose nose is bandaged. Jerry fakes a heart attack and, with a reluctant Alice's help, escapes again. Alice and FBI Agent Lowry examine Jerry's belongings before the CIA confiscates them. She returns to her car to find Jerry hiding in the back seat. While driving, Jerry explains someone is likely following her. Alice waves the suspicious car on to discover it is Lowry; she convinces him to leave her alone until she has more information to offer. At Jerry's apartment, he suspects that something in the conspiracy newsletter he produces has set off this sudden interest in him, but has no idea what it is. Alice, meanwhile, begins to grasp the depths of Jerry's paranoia and loneliness, including his compulsion to buy copies of Catcher in the Rye despite never reading it. Just as she's decided he is crazy, a SWAT team starts to break in. Jerry activates devices that incinerate the apartment and they leave through a hidden trapdoor. In the room below, Alice is startled by a mural of her riding a horse - something she gave up after her father's murder - and the triple smokestacks of the Ravenswood Generating Station. Jerry disguises himself as a firefighter and carries Alice past emergency services and an arriving Jonas. They go to her apartment, where Jerry inadvertently reveals he has been watching Alice and is kicked out. Down on the street, Jerry notices Lowry and his partner staking out the apartment and warns them off at gunpoint. After a compulsive purchase at a bookstore is flagged by the CIA, Jerry flees from agents into a theater and escapes by faking a bomb threat. Alice is told by Mr. Wilson that the Justice Department must cooperate with Dr. Jonas to locate Jerry. Suspicious, she calls each person on Jerry's mailing list and finds that all but one, Harry Finch, have recently died. Jerry disables the CIA's van and uses a ruse to get Alice out of the office. While escaping through a subway station, he tells her that he fell in love with her at first sight, fleeing on a subway train when she brushes off his feelings. Alice goes to see Harry Finch, who turns out to be Jonas. He explains that he helped develop the MKUltra program, unofficially continuing it after being shut down in 1973. His brainwashing techniques, which he used to turn people like Jerry into assassins, were stolen by an unknown party, who he needs Jerry to identify. He also claims that Jerry killed Alice's father. She agrees to help find Jerry, who sends her a message to meet him. Ditching the agents by causing a traffic jam on the Queensboro Bridge and switching cars, he drives her to her father's private horse stables in Connecticut. Along the way, Alice secretly calls her office so Jonas and Wilson can track her phone. At the stables, Jerry remembers that he was programmed to kill her father but the sight of Alice dissuaded him. Instead, he became friends with the judge, remembering the inmate who was denied the appeal was actually innocent, and promised to watch over Alice after her father was mortally wounded by another assassin. Jonas' men arrive, capturing Jerry and killing Wilson, but Alice manages to escape. Alice brings Lowry to the offices where she met Jonas, which they find cleared out. She forces Lowry at gunpoint to admit that he is not actually FBI, but from a "secret agency that watches the other agencies". They have been using the unwitting Jerry to flush out Jonas and find out who he has been building assassins for. Alice goes to Ravenswood and sees a mental hospital next door. She breaks in and finds Jerry just as groups led by Jonas and Lowry arrive, setting off a gun battle. Jerry attempts to drown Jonas, who pulls an ankle gun and shoots Jerry before being killed by Alice. She tells Jerry she loves him before he is taken away in an ambulance. Some time later, a grieving Alice visits Jerry's grave and leaves a pin that he had given her. She takes up horse riding again. Observing Alice from a car with Lowry, Jerry - whose death and burial had been faked by the secret agency - reaffirms his agreement not to contact her until the rest of Jonas's subjects are caught. As they drive away singing " Can't Take My Eyes Off You ", Alice finds the pin attached to her saddle, and smiles. Among the numerous conspiracy theories mentioned by Jerry include Rockefeller Center, fluoridation, the United Nations, the JFK assassination, Watergate funder Armand Hammer, the "New World Order", Freemasons, the CIA, the Vatican, microchipping of pets, Moon landings, Pearl Harbor, and silent "Black Helicopters".

Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff meets up with a former lover during a Chicago layover. She feels slightly ill; two days later, back home in Minneapolis, she suffers a seizure and dies from an unknown illness. Her 6-year-old son, Clark, also dies. Beth's husband, Mitch, is isolated but found to be naturally immune. After being released, he quarantines with his teenage daughter, Jory, at home. In Atlanta, Department of Homeland Security representatives meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over concerns that the disease may be a bioweapon. He dispatches Dr. Erin Mears, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis, where she traces everyone having had contact with Beth. She negotiates with reluctant local bureaucrats to commit resources for a public health response. Later, Mears becomes infected and dies, and is buried in a mass grave. As the novel virus spreads, citywide quarantine orders cause panic buying, widespread looting, and violence. At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall determines the virus is a combination of genetic material from pig and bat-borne viruses. Scientists are unable to discover a cell culture to grow the newly identified MEV-1 (Meningoencephalitis Virus 1). Cheever determines the virus too virulent to be researched at Biosafety level (BSL) 3 laboratories and restricts all work to BSL 4 labs only. Hextall orders University of California, San Francisco researcher Dr. Ian Sussman to destroy his samples. Believing he is close to finding a viable cell culture, Sussman secretly continues his research and identifies a usable cell culture from which Hextall develops a vaccine. Scientists determine MEV-1 is spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates; they project that 1 in 12 people on Earth will be infected, with a 25–30% mortality rate. Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede claims he cured himself of the virus using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. People seeking forsythia violently overwhelm pharmacies. Krumwiede, having faked being infected to boost forsythia sales, is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud, though his fanbase immediately bails him out. Meanwhile, Hextall inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine and then visits her infected father. She does not contract MEV-1, and the vaccine is declared successful. The CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birthdates. By this time, the death toll has reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide. Earlier in Hong Kong, World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes and public health officials comb through CCTV footage of Beth's contacts in a Macau casino and identify her as the index case. Government official Sun Feng, believing the US has secretly developed a vaccine, kidnaps and holds Orantes for months as leverage to obtain the first vaccines for his village. WHO officials provide the village with fake vaccines, and Orantes is released. Learning the vaccines were placebos, Orantes goes to warn the village. Meanwhile, life begins to return to normal, with public venues accessible for those with a vaccine bracelet. In a flashback to the spillover event, a bulldozer from Beth's company clears a tree in China, disturbing a bat colony. One bat takes shelter in a pig farm and drops a piece of infected banana, which is consumed by one of the pigs. The pig is slaughtered and prepared by a chef in a Macau casino, who, without washing his hands, transmits the virus to Beth via a handshake.

On an unspecified day during Christmas week, two years after the events of the previous film, John McClane is now a lieutenant with the LAPD, who arrives at Dulles International Airport to pick up his wife, Holly. He is met with hostility from airport police officer Vito Lorenzo, who issues him a parking ticket. Meanwhile, a plane carrying corrupt foreign military leader General Ramon Esperanza is headed to Dulles under extradition for using U.S. funds to buy drugs. Waiting to meet Esperanza's plane is disgraced former United States Army Colonel William Stuart and a group of ex-military sympathizers who supported Esperanza's actions. McClane follows two of Stuart's men into a baggage sorting area where a gun fight ensues. He kills one man, but the other escapes. With the help of his friend Sergeant Al Powell, McClane runs the dead man's fingerprints. They correspond to an American soldier who was listed as having died in a helicopter accident two years earlier. McClane reports his concerns to the ill-tempered airport police chief Carmine Lorenzo and air traffic control director Ed Trudeau, but neither believes him. Stuart and his men are operating out of a church on the outskirts of the airport. They cut all communications with incoming airplanes, disable runway lighting, and demand that Esperanza's plane be allowed to land without interference. Under Stuart's direction, Trudeau orders all planes in Dulles airspace held in the air despite their low fuel supplies. McClane becomes worried about Holly's plane, so enlists the help of airport janitor Marvin to fight back. Chief airport engineer Leslie Barnes decides to try using an unfinished antenna array to communicate with the airplanes. Lorenzo sends an airport SWAT team with him, but Stuart's men kill the officers and destroy the antenna. McClane saves Barnes and kills Stuart's men. In retaliation, Stuart impersonates air traffic control and fakes a British airplane's altimeter reading by recalibrating sea level. McClane is unable to warn off the airplane which crashes, killing everyone aboard. Esperanza's plane lands and McClane wounds Esperanza before Stuart and his men arrive. They blow up the plane and take Esperanza to the church. A Blue Light team arrives, led by Major Grant, of whom Stuart is a protégé. Grant's men and McClane attack the church. McClane kills one of Stuart's men and gives chase with his gun, but the mercenaries escape on snowmobiles. McClane follows but his vehicle is destroyed by gunfire. McClane realizes the gun was filled with blanks; the earlier firefight was staged and Grant's team is working with Stuart. Grant, Stuart, their men and Esperanza rendezvous at an airport hangar, where a Boeing 747 is waiting for them. On Holly's flight, reporter Richard Thornburg becomes suspicious as to why the plane has not landed. He taps into the cockpit communications and records a transmission from Barnes to all the circling airplanes describing the situation. From the airplane's lavatory, Richard broadcasts the recording, leading to a panic in the airport terminal which prevents McClane and Lorenzo from getting to the 747. Holly subdues Thornburg with a fellow passenger's taser. McClane asks reporter Samantha Coleman's crew to fly him via helicopter to intercept the 747. McClane jumps onto the wing and uses his coat to jam the aileron, preventing the plane from taking off. During a melee, McClane kicks Grant into a jet engine. While fighting Stuart, McClane opens a fuel valve in the engine pylon just as Stuart kicks him off the wing. McClane uses a cigarette lighter to ignite the fuel trail, causing the plane to explode and killing everyone on board. The fire trail serves as a landing guide for the circling aircraft to land safely. McClane and Holly are reunited. Marvin picks them up in his airport cart just as Lorenzo turns up asking if McClane got a parking ticket outside his airport. Lorenzo rips up the ticket and says "What the hell, it's Christmas!" Marvin drives McClane and Holly away.

After a spectacular and mysterious cosmic event, ants of different species undergo rapid evolution, develop a cross-species hive mind, and build seven strange towers with geometrically perfect designs in the Arizona desert. Except for one family, the local human population flees the strangely acting ants. Scientists James R. Lesko and Ernest D. Hubbs set up a computerized lab in a sealed dome located in an area of significant ant activity in Arizona. The ant colony and the scientific team fight each other, though the ants are the more effective aggressors. The narrative uses the scientific team as the main protagonists, but there are also ant protagonists going about their duties in the colony. The ants immunize themselves to the humans' chemical weapons and soon infiltrate their lab. Teams of ants penetrate the computers of the lab and short them out. After Lesko decodes an ant message, Kendra Eldridge (a young woman who has taken refuge with the scientists), becomes convinced that her actions have enraged the ants. Seeking to save the two scientists, she abandons the lab and apparently sacrifices herself. Hubbs and Lesko begin to have different plans for dealing with the ants. While Lesko thinks he can communicate with the ants by means of messages written in mathematics, Hubbs plans to wipe out a hill he believes to be the ants' central hive. Delirious from a venomous ant sting, Hubbs can barely get his boots on, but is determined to attack the hive and kill the ant queen. Instead, Hubbs literally falls into a trap – a deep pit that the ants fill with earth. Helpless to save Hubbs and convinced that the ants will soon move into desert areas where their growth will exceed man's ability to control them, Lesko chooses to follow Hubbs's plan. He sets out to the hive with a canister of insecticide. Descending into the hive, Lesko hunts for the queen, but instead finds Kendra reaching out from under the sand. The two embrace and Lesko realizes that, far from destroying the human race, the ants' plan is to adapt the human race and make them a part of the ants' world. In a voice-over, Lesko states that he and Kendra do not know what plans the ants have, but they are awaiting instructions.