The entirety of the film takes place within the course of one day in the summer of 1936 in the Soviet Union. Mitya (Dmitri), a former nobleman and veteran of the anti-communist White Army, contemplates suicide. The film cuts to Komdiv Sergei Petrovich Kotov, his wife Maroussia, and their young six-year-old daughter Nadia relaxing in a banya (sauna) when a peasant from the local collective farm frantically tells them the Red Army 's tanks are about to crush the wheat harvest as part of general maneuvers. After hearing this news, Kotov rides out to order the tank officer to halt. Kotov carries authority as a senior Old Bolshevik and legendary hero of the Russian Civil War, and he is also very popular with the common people and local villagers. The opening scene makes it clear that Kotov is a devoted family man, and he claims to be a personal friend of Stalin. Following this incident, the happy family returns to their country dacha (country estate), where they join Maroussia's relatives, a large and eccentric family of Chekhovian aristocrats. Mitya (Dmitri), who had been Maroussia's fiancé before disappearing in 1927, arrives in a costume to disguise himself, but when he takes it off he is joyfully embraced by the family and introduced to Nadia as "Uncle Mitya". Maroussia is left feeling deeply conflicted, as she had suffered deeply when Mitya left without explanation and even contemplated suicide, as shown by the self-inflicted marks on her wrists. Despite his personable nature, it is clear that Mitya has returned with a secret agenda. It is slowly revealed throughout the duration of the afternoon that he works for the Soviet political police, the NKVD, and has arrived to arrest Kotov for a non-existent conspiracy that Mitya had framed him for. Mitya is abusing his power for the purpose of revenge, since ten years ago Kotov had conscripted Mitya into the OGPU, the predecessor of the NKVD, and was therefore the reason for Mitya being taken away. Mitya detests Kotov, whom he blames for causing him to lose Maroussia, his love for Russia, faith, and his profession as a pianist. Kotov confronts Mitya about his activities in Paris, where he gave up eight White Army generals to the NKVD. All were kidnapped, smuggled to the Soviet Union, and shot dead without trial. Although eventually realizing that Mitya intends to take him away, Kotov believes that his close relationship with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin will save him. However, a black car carrying NKVD agents arrives to remove Kotov, just as a group of Young Pioneer children arrives at the dacha to pay tribute to him. Kotov willingly goes with Mitya, pretending to be Mitya's friend and even lets Nadia briefly ride in the car with them. While riding away in the car with his captors, Kotov reminds them who he is and his status, but he quickly realizes that they don't care and that it was Stalin himself who ordered his arrest. Only after looking into Mitya's eyes does Kotov realize the severity of the situation, causing him to breakdown in tears. Kotov is forced to make a false confession to all the charges Mitya framed him for and is shot dead in August 1936. Meanwhile, following Mitya's success in his revenge against Kotov, he ultimately commits suicide, as his revenge did not satisfy him in the way he thought it would. In addition, Maroussia is arrested and dies in the Gulag in 1940. Although arrested with her mother and taken to a concentration camp, Nadia lives to see all three sentences overturned during the Khrushchev Thaw, in 1956, and works as a music teacher in Kazakhstan.

In March 1945, American bombers destroy most of Kobe during the waning days of the Pacific War. Seita and his sister Setsuko, children of an Imperial Japanese Navy captain, survive, but their mother dies. She is cremated in a mass grave outside and Seita is seen carrying a small wooden box containing her ashes. Seita conceals their mother's death from Setsuko. The siblings move in with an aunt. He hides his mother's box of ashes in the garden. Seita retrieves a supply cache he buried before the bombing and gives everything to his aunt, save for a tin of Sakuma drops, which he gives to Setsuko. The aunt convinces Seita to sell his mother's silk kimonos for rice, which devastates Setsuko. As rations dwindle, the aunt becomes resentful of the children as Seita does nothing to earn the food she prepares for them. At her suggestion, Seita withdraws some money from his mother's bank account to buy a charcoal stove and other supplies. Following an air raid, the siblings move into an abandoned bomb shelter. Among the belongings is the wooden box of his mother's ashes. They capture fireflies from the marshes and release them into the refuge for light. The following morning the fireflies have died. Setsuko buries them and reveals their aunt told her their mother died, then tearfully asks why the fireflies had to die so soon. The situation becomes dire when they run out of rice. A friendly farmer recommends that Seita swallow his pride and return to his aunt, but he refuses, instead stealing crops from farms and breaking into homes during air raids. A farmer catches him and brings him to the police station, but the sympathetic policeman lets him go. Setsuko falls ill, and a doctor explains she is suffering from malnutrition. Seita withdraws the last of the money from their mother's bank account. He is distraught to learn that Japan has surrendered and that his father is most likely dead, as most of Japan's naval fleet has been sunk. Seita returns to Setsuko with food and finds her hallucinating. She dies as Seita finishes preparing the food. Seita cremates Setsuko's body and her doll in a straw casket. He carries her ashes in the candy tin along with his father's photograph. Seita dies of starvation a few weeks later at a Sannomiya train station surrounded by other malnourished people. A janitor, tasked with removing the bodies before the Americans' arrival, sorts through Seita's possessions. He finds the candy tin and throws it into a field. Setsuko's ashes spread out, and her spirit springs from the container, joined by Seita's spirit and a cloud of fireflies. The two board a ghostly train and, throughout the journey, look back at the events leading to Seita's death as silent, passive observers. Their spirits, healthy and content, arrive at their destination: a hilltop bench overlooking present-day Kobe, surrounded by fireflies.

Jay Bulworth, a Democratic U.S. Senator from California, faces a primary challenge from a fiery young populist. Once politically liberal, Bulworth has over time conceded to more conservative politics and to accepting donations from large corporations. While he and his wife have been having affairs with each other's knowledge for years, they maintain a happy facade for the sake of their public image. Tired of politics and unhappy with life, Bulworth makes plans to kill himself, and negotiates a $10 million life insurance policy with his daughter as the beneficiary. Knowing that a suicide would void the policy, he contracts to have himself assassinated within two days. He arrives extremely drunk at a Los Angeles campaign event, where he freely speaks his mind in the presence of the C-SPAN film crew following his campaign. After dancing all night in an underground club and smoking marijuana, he begins rapping in public. His frank, offensive remarks make him an instant media darling and re-energize his campaign. He becomes romantically involved with Nina, a young black activist, who begins to join him on campaign stops. He is pursued by the paparazzi, his insurance company, his campaign managers, and an increasingly adoring public, all the while awaiting his impending assassination. After a televised debate during which Bulworth derides insurance companies and the American healthcare system while drinking from a flask, he retreats to the home of Nina's family in impoverished South Central Los Angeles. He witnesses a group of children selling crack and intervenes to rescue them from an encounter with a racist police officer, and later discovers they work for L.D., a local drug kingpin to whom Nina's brother owes money. Bulworth eventually makes it to a television appearance arranged earlier by his campaign manager, during which he raps and repeats verbatim statements that Nina and L.D. have told him about the lives of poor black people and their opinions of various American institutions, such as education and employment. Eventually he offers the solution that "everybody should fuck everybody" until everyone is "all the same color," stunning the audience and his interviewer. Bulworth spends the film fearful of a man who had been following him under the assumption that he was the assassin trying to murder him. After the man finally pushes Bulworth to complete terror, he corners Bulworth on a set at the television studio and begins photographing Bulworth with Nina, revealing himself to be simply paparazzi. Bulworth, frustrated, flees with Nina, who reveals that she is the assassin he indirectly hired (ostensibly to make the money needed to pay off her brother's debt) and will now not carry out the job. Relieved, Bulworth falls asleep for the first time in days in Nina's arms. He sleeps for 36 hours, during which the media speculates over his sudden absence leading up to election day. Bulworth wins the primary in a landslide, and L.D. allows Nina's brother to work off the debt. Bulworth accepts a new campaign for the presidency during his victory speech, but is suddenly shot by Graham Crockett, an agent of the insurance company that was fearful of Bulworth's recent push for single-payer health care, who makes a quick escape. Bulworth's fate is left ambiguous. The final scene shows an elderly vagrant, whom Bulworth met previously, standing alone outside a hospital. He exhorts Bulworth, who is presumably inside, to not be "a ghost" but "a spirit" which, as he had mentioned earlier, can only happen if you have "a song". In the final shot of the film, he asks the same of the audience.

The characters drive to a remote location to hike at a site marked "Wilderness Trail". As they start, they see some other hikers passing by. In order to not be bothered by these hikers, they decide to go off-trail. After some walking, talking, and an impromptu foot race, they decide to head back. Before long, they realize that they are lost. That night, they build a campfire. Over the next couple of days, the two hikers wander through the wilderness without food or water. They try to split up for a while, retrace their steps and follow some animal tracks, all to no avail. They grow increasingly irritated with each other as the situation becomes dire. They eventually find themselves slowly walking mostly in silence through a desert. They finally collapse due to fatigue and dehydration. The weaker of the two (Affleck) proclaims that he is "leaving" and reaches towards Damon's character. Damon's character rolls on top of Affleck and wordlessly strangles him before collapsing again. After some time, Damon's character awakens and realizes that a highway is not far away. In the final sequence, he is badly sunburned but watches the passing landscape from the car of the father and son who have seemingly rescued him.

The story begins in 1930s Germany, against the backdrop of the Third Reich's ascendancy. John Halder is a German university professor who lives with his overly anxious wife, 2 children and a mother with senile dementia. He writes a paper called, "The Case for Mercy Death on the Grounds of Humanity", to explore his personal predicament and the justification of euthanasia. His paper catches the attention of the Nazi party, who send a high-ranking Nazi officer, Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, to help them push their agenda and offer him a job. After publishing the paper his career and social status advance, but he does not realise the consequences his work will have. Halder is set on a path that will lead to him divorcing his wife, marrying a young Nazi sympathiser, Anne, and gaining an honorary SS commission. Halder's best friend, a Jewish psychologist called Maurice who fought alongside him in World War I, voices his concerns about Halder's choices. As it becomes more dangerous for Jews in Germany, Maurice approaches Halder to gain exit papers, but Halder is unwilling to risk his own standing and status to help save his best friend. By the time he is willing to do so, it is too late as Maurice has been turned into the SS by his wife. Halder dons an SS uniform and visits a concentration camp where he is confronted by the reality that his choices and actions helped put into motion.

George Jung and his parents Fred and Ermine live in Weymouth, Massachusetts. When George is 10 years old, Fred files for bankruptcy but tries to make George realize that money is not important. In the late 1960s, an adult George moves to Los Angeles with his friend "Tuna"; they meet Barbara, a flight attendant, who introduces them to Derek Foreal, a marijuana dealer. With Derek's help, George and Tuna make a lot of money. Kevin Dulli, a visiting college student from Boston, tells them of the demand for marijuana back home. They start selling marijuana there, buying marijuana directly from Mexico with the help of Santiago Sanchez, a Mexican drug lord. Two years later, George is caught in Chicago trying to import 660 pounds (300 kg) of marijuana and is sentenced to two years' imprisonment. After unsuccessfully trying to plead his innocence, George skips bail to take care of Barbara, who dies from cancer. Her death marks the disbanding of the group of friends. While hiding from the authorities, George visits his parents. George's mother calls the police, who arrest him. He is sentenced to 26 months in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. His cellmate Diego Delgado has contacts in the Medellin cartel and convinces George to help him go into the cocaine business. Upon his release from prison, George violates his parole conditions and heads down to Cartagena, Colombia to meet with Diego. They meet with cartel officer Cesar Rosa to negotiate the terms for smuggling 15 kilograms (33 lb) to establish "good faith". As the smuggling operation grows, Diego is arrested, leaving George to find a way to sell 50 kg (110 lb). George reconnects with Derek in California, and the two sell all the cocaine in record time. George then goes to Medellín, Colombia and meets Pablo Escobar, who agrees to go into business with them. With the help of Derek, the pair became Escobar's top U.S. importer. At Diego's wedding, George meets Cesar's fiancée Mirtha and later marries her. However, Diego resents George for keeping Derek's identity secret and pressures George to reveal his connection. George eventually discovers that Diego has betrayed him by cutting him out of the connection with Derek. Inspired by the birth of his daughter and a drug-related heart attack, George severs his relationship with the cartel. All goes well with George's newfound civilian life for five years, until Mirtha organizes a 38th birthday party for him. Many of his former drug associates attend, including Derek, who reveals that Diego cut him out as well. The FBI and DEA raid the party and arrest George. He becomes a fugitive, and his bank account—heretofore under Manuel Noriega 's protection in Panama—is seized by Noriega. One night, he and Mirtha get into a fight while driving. They are pulled over by police and Mirtha tells them George is a fugitive and has stashed a kilogram of cocaine in his trunk. He is sent to jail for three years. During his term, Mirtha divorces him and takes custody of their nine-year-old daughter, Kristina Sunshine Jung. Upon his release, George struggles to maintain his relationship with his daughter. He promises Kristina a vacation in California and seeks one last deal to garner enough money for the trip. George completes a deal with former accomplices but learns too late that the deal had been set up by the FBI and DEA, with Dulli and Derek having leaked the nature and location of the action in exchange for pardons for their involvement in his prior action. George is sentenced to 60 years at Otisville Correctional Facility in upstate New York. He explains in the end that neither the sentence nor the betrayal bothered him, but that he can never forgive himself for having to break a promise to his daughter. While in prison, George requests a furlough to see his dying father, Fred. His mother denies the request. George records a final message to Fred, recounting his memories of working with his father, his run-ins with the law, and finally, too late, his understanding of what Fred meant when he said that money is not "real". An old man in prison, George imagines that his daughter finally comes to visit him. She slowly fades away as a guard calls for George. The film concludes with notes indicating that Jung will not be eligible for parole until 2015 and that his daughter has yet to visit him.