Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Genta, a former samurai who became disillusioned with the samurai lifestyle and left it behind to become a wandering yakuza gang member. He meets Hanjirō Tabata (Etsushi Takahashi) a farmer who wants to become a samurai to escape his powerless existence. Genta and Tabata wind up on opposite sides of clan intrigue when seven members of a local clan assassinate their chancellor. Although the seven, led by Tetsutarō Oikawa (Naoko Kubo) rebelled with the support of their superior, Ayuzawa (Shigeru Kōyama), he turns on them and sends members of the clan to kill them as outlaws.

Havildar Ishar Singh is a soldier in the 36th Sikhs Regiment of the British Indian Army. His superior and commander is an arrogant British officer who deems all Indians to be cowards, and is jealous of Ishar Singh because of his superior fighting skills. The regiment is posted at Gulistan Fort, on the border between British-held territory and the Afghan border. Once, while on a border patrol, the troops see a group of Pashtun Afghan tribesmen, led by Saidullah, on the verge of killing a married Afghan woman because she refuses to accept her husband, who has been chosen by her family without her consent. The British officer refuses to intervene and save the woman, saying she is an Afghan citizen and does not reside in British territory; since it is a family matter pertaining to tribal custom, the policy of the British Raj is to not interfere. In defiance of the orders of his officer, Ishar Singh fights off the tribesmen and rescues the woman by killing her husband. The British officer writes a strong report informing his commanding officer, who sits at the nearby Lockhart fort, of Ishar Singh's disobedience and insubordination. Soon enough, the Afghans attack the British-controlled Gulistan fort, but are held at bay by Ishar Singh, who fights valiantly and kills many Afghans. Nevertheless, Ishar Singh is blamed by his superiors for his actions, which caused the breach of peace with the Afghans. He is given a punishment transfer to Saragarhi fort, which sits between Gulistan and Lockhart forts, and enables communication between them. Ishar Singh duly travels to Saragarhi fort, where he finds the troop in a mess. He enforces discipline by punishing all to stay without food for an entire week. The troops are furious at first, but later begin to respect Ishar Singh after learning that he too was living without food. Meanwhile, Saidullah forms an alliance between the Afghan tribes and motivates them to mount an attack on British territories as a unified force. Ishar Singh and Lal Singh go to a nearby village in search of their informant, who hadn't reported to them for over three days. The British Commanding Officer, Col. John Haughton from Lockhart fort, sees the Afghan Forces marching towards Sargarhi and alerts Ishar. Ishar and his battalion see ten thousand tribesmen approaching and encircling the fort. Saidullah, with the entire Afghan army at his back, beheads the woman Ishar Singh had rescued earlier in front of the Saragarhi Fort. Despite the commanding officer's orders to fight, Ishar lies to them and says that the commanding officer has told them to abandon the fort and flee. Ishar wants them to decide on their own to stay and fight, not due to an order from a British officer. Ishar Singh and his men decide to fight till death. Khuda Daad, the cook, volunteers to fight, but Ishar Singh asks him to instead provide water to the injured soldiers (including the Afghans). The Afghans initiate the battle, and Bhagwan Singh is the first to be killed. Gurmukh Singh, a young, inexperienced soldier, is unable to fight; Ishar Singh asks him to keep the CO updated regarding the battle, and decides to prolong the battle to prevent the Afghans from advancing to the Gulistan and Lockhart forts. As the battle prolongs, Lal Singh alone fights the Afghans outside the fort and dies while asking one of the sepoys to close the gate to the fort. The Afghans destroy the west wall of the fort using explosives. Ishar Singh remembers his wife, Jeevani, one last time after removing the stripes from his uniform, and starts fighting the Afghans with a red-hot sword until he gets fatally stabbed. Saidullah kills Khuda Daad before himself being stabbed to death by Ishar while trying to remove his turban. Ishar's bravery impresses an Afghan chieftain who orders his men not to touch any Sikh's turban. At this, the Head Afghan chieftain Gul Badshah orders the signaling post to be lit up so Gurmukh Singh's painful screams can be heard as a consolation. As the Afghans set the post on fire, Gurmukh Singh emerges with his body on fire. He chants " Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akaal " thrice, grabs Gul Badshah and triggers the grenades attached to his body, resulting in a huge explosion. The shout echoes and reaches both the nearby forts. The Sikh soldiers present there also start chanting in the name of their Guru. The Afghans loot the fort and eventually set it on fire. The British Parliament honours the fallen with a two-minute silence and posthumously awards them the First-Class Indian Order of Merit (IOM) - the highest gallantry award (equivalent to the Victoria Cross) an Indian soldier could receive in those times.

An army of the Teutonic Order invades and conquers the city of Pskov with the help of the traitor Tverdilo, and massacres its population. Novgorod is their next intended target. Despite resistance from the boyars and merchants of Novgorod (urged on by the monk Ananias, Tverdilo's henchman), an appeal is made to Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky, to again become their prince and defend Novgorod. To do so he rallies the common people of the Novgorod area. In the decisive Battle of the Ice, on the surface of frozen Lake Chudskoe, the Teutonic forces are defeated. Pskov is retaken, and there Nevsky passes judgment: the surviving Teutonic foot-soldiers are set free, while the surviving Teutonic knights will be held for ransom. Tverdilo the traitor, together with a Catholic priest who blessed the burning alive of Pskov children, disappear as they are mobbed by the onlookers. A subplot throughout is the rivalry and friendship of Vasili Buslai and Gavrilo Oleksich, two famous (and historic) warriors of Novgorod. Both become commanders of the Novgorod forces, and are engaged in a contest of courage and fighting skill in order to decide which will win the hand of Olga Danilovna, a Novgorod maiden whom both are courting. At the same time Vasilisa, daughter of a boyar of Pskov killed by the Teutons, joins the Novgorod forces as a soldier. She and Vasili wind up fighting side by side; she throws him a weapon when he is surrounded and weaponless, and it is she who finds and slays Ananias. Gavrilo and Vasili are seriously wounded and are found by Olga, who retrieves them from the battlefield. Though they defer to each other, in the end Vasili publicly states that neither was the bravest in battle: that honor goes to Vasilisa, followed by Gavrilo. Thus Gavrilo and Olga are united while Vasili chooses Vasilisa as his bride-to-be (with her unspoken consent).

Wong Fei-hung (sometimes dubbed as "Freddie Wong") is a young and mischievous son, who runs into a series of troubles. Firstly, he teaches an overbearing assistant martial arts teacher a lesson, and later makes advances on a woman to impress his friends. He is consequently thrashed by her older female guardian. His shame is compounded when these two are later revealed to be his visiting aunt and cousin, whom he had not met before. Lastly, he beats up a hooligan, who turns out to be the son of an influential man in town. His father decides to punish him for his behavior by making him train harder in martial arts. Wong's father arranges for Beggar So to train his son in martial arts. Beggar So has a reputation for crippling his students during training so Wong flees from home in an attempt to escape his punishment. Penniless, Wong stops at a restaurant and tries to trick a fellow patron into offering him a free meal. As Wong was about to leave after his meal, he discovers that the man is actually the owner of the restaurant. He fights with the owner's lackeys in an attempt to escape. An old drunkard nearby is drawn into the fight and helps him escape. The drunkard turns out to be Beggar So (who is known in some versions of the film as Sam Seed, So-Hi or Su Hua-chi), the Drunken Master. Beggar So forces Wong into his brutal and rigorous training programme, but he flees again to avoid the torturous training and runs into the notorious killer Yim Tit-sam (known in some versions as Thunderfoot or Thunderleg) by accident. Yim is known for his "Devil's Kick", a swift and deadly kicking style which has never been defeated. Wong provokes and challenges him to a fight and is soundly defeated and humiliated. He makes his way back to Beggar So and decides to commit himself to the Drunken Master's training program. The training resumes and soon Wong learns Beggar So's secret style of martial arts, a form of Drunken Boxing called " The Eight Drunken Immortals ", named after the eight xian that the fighting style references. Wong masters seven of the eight styles with the exception of Drunken Miss Ho 's as he feels that her style of fighting is too feminine. Meanwhile, Yim Tit-sam is contracted by a business rival to kill Wong's father. Wong's father fights with Yim and is defeated and injured by him. Wong and Beggar So arrive on time and Wong continues the fight with Yim. Beggar So promises not to interfere in the fight. Wong employs the new skills he has learned and outmatches Yim's kicking style. Yim then resorts to his secret technique, the Devil's Shadowless Hand, which is too fast for Wong to defeat. Wong confesses that he did not master the last style so Beggar So tells him to combine the seven styles and create his own version of the last style. Wong follows the instruction and discovers his own unique style of Drunken Miss Ho, which he uses to overcome the Shadowless Hand and finally defeats Yim.

On a Friday night in Chicago, mobster Johnny Ross briefly meets his brother, Pete, after fleeing the Outfit. The next morning, Lieutenant Frank Bullitt of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), along with his team, Delgetti and Stanton, are tasked by federal prosecutor Walter Chalmers with guarding Ross over the weekend, until he can be presented as a witness to a Senate subcommittee hearing on organized crime on Monday morning. The detectives are told he is in a cheap hotel on the Embarcadero. At 1:00 am Sunday, while Stanton is phoning Bullitt to say Chalmers and a friend want to come up, Ross unchains the room door. Two hitmen burst in, shooting Stanton in the leg and Ross in the chest. Chalmers, who has ambitions of public office and needs Ross as his star witness, holds Bullitt responsible. After Ross dies in the hospital, Bullitt sends the body to the morgue as a John Doe to keep the investigation open. An informant states that Ross was in San Francisco because he had stolen millions of dollars from the Outfit. Bullitt also discovers that Ross made a long-distance phone call to a hotel in San Mateo. While driving his Ford Mustang, Bullitt becomes aware he is being followed by a Dodge Charger. He eludes his pursuers, and then turns the tables as he follows the hitmen. An extended chase ensues through the city, ending in an explosion in Brisbane, when the Charger crashes into a gas station, killing the two hitmen. Bullitt and Delgetti are confronted by their superior, Captain Sam Bennett. Chalmers (who is assisted by SFPD Captain Baker) serves them a writ of habeas corpus, forcing Bullitt to reveal that Ross has died. Bennett ignores the writ because it is Sunday; this allows Bullitt to investigate the lead of the long-distance phone call to San Mateo. With his car damaged from the chase, Bullitt gets a ride from his architect girlfriend, Cathy. The two then find a woman garroted in her hotel room. Cathy confronts Bullitt about his work, saying, "You're living in a sewer, Frank." She wonders, "What will happen to us in time?" Bullitt and Delgetti examine the victim's luggage and discover a travel brochure for Rome, as well as traveler's checks made out to an Albert and Dorothy Renick. Bullitt requests their passport applications from Chicago. Bullitt, Bennett, Chalmers, and Baker gather around the telecopier as the applications arrive. Chalmers turns out to have sent Bullitt to guard a Doppelgänger, Albert Renick, a used-car salesman from Chicago, while his wife Dorothy was staying in San Mateo. Bullitt realizes that Ross was playing the politically-ambitious Chalmers by using Renick as a decoy so he could slip out of the country Sunday night. Delgetti and Bullitt watch the Rome gate at San Francisco International Airport, but Bullitt realizes the real Ross (on Renick's passport) probably switched to an earlier London flight, which is ordered to return to the terminal. Bullitt chases a fleeing Ross back to the crowded passenger terminal, where Ross guns down a deputy sheriff before being shot dead by Bullitt. Chalmers arrives to survey the scene, but leaves, saying nothing. Early Monday morning, Bullitt arrives home to find Cathy asleep in his bed, having chosen to stay. He places his gun on a banister to make it easier to wash his face. As he washes, he looks at himself in the mirror. The last moment of the film cuts away from showing his face in the mirror to a closeup of his gun resting on the banister outside the bathroom with the sound of running water from the faucet.

In a dystopian 2045, people seek to escape from reality through the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), a virtual reality entertainment universe created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow of Gregarious Games. After Halliday's death, a pre-recorded message left by his avatar Anorak announces a contest, granting ownership of the OASIS to the first to find the golden Easter egg within it, which is locked behind a gate requiring three keys players can obtain by accomplishing three challenges. The contest has lured several egg hunters, or "Gunters", and the interest of Nolan Sorrento, the CEO of Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who seeks to control the OASIS and insert intrusive online advertising. IOI uses an army of indentured servants and employees called "Sixers" to find the egg. Wade Watts, an avid orphaned Columbus, Ohio -based Gunter using the avatar Parzival, participates in the first challenge, an unbeatable race, along with his best friend Aech, and Art3mis, a female avatar whom Parzival has a crush on. Parzival regularly visits Halliday's Journals, a simulated archive of Halliday's life and hobbies, run by the Curator. Wade receives the Copper Key from Anorak after he wins by driving backward, while Art3mis, Aech, and his friends Daito and Sho, all win the race afterward, later being collectively named the High-5 on the OASIS' scoreboard. Sorrento hires the mercenary i-R0k to learn Wade's true identity, intent on bribing him to win the contest on IOI's behalf. Wade and Art3mis discover from the Journals that Halliday once dated Morrow's wife Karen "Kira" Underwood. Wade and Art3mis visit the Distracted Globe night club to look for clues, where Wade confesses his love and true name to Art3mis. They survive an IOI raid in which Art3mis abandons Wade, explaining that her father died in debt to IOI. i-R0k, who was eavesdropping on their conversation, informs Sorrento of his findings. Sorrento contacts Wade with his offer. When rejected, Sorrento attempts to kill Wade by bombing his house, killing Wade's aunt Alice among others. Art3mis' player Samantha Cook takes Wade in. Together, they realize the second challenge relates to Halliday's regret of not pursuing a relationship with Kira. Along with Aech, Daito, and Sho, Parzival and Art3mis search for the Overlook Hotel 's recreation. Art3mis asks Kira to dance and wins the Jade Key. Sorrento's subordinate F'Nale Zandor storms the Gunters' hideout, taking Samantha to an IOI Loyalty Center to pay off her father's debt. Wade escapes with the help of the other High-5 users, Helen Harris (Aech), Toshiro (Daito), and Zhou (Sho) in Helen's truck. Samantha escapes confinement after Wade and others hack Sorrento's OASIS rig. The third challenge is found in Castle Anorak on Planet Doom, where players must guess Halliday's favorite Atari 2600 game to earn the Crystal Key. iR0k places a forcefield around the castle using the Orb of Osuvox, but Art3mis eventually disables it. The High-5 lead an army of OASIS players against the Sixers. Sorrento fights back but Aech, Daito, and Art3mis destroy his avatar. Parzival destroys Samantha's avatar, allowing her to flee IOI while the High-5 pick her up, and reaches the console, but Sorrento uses the Cataclyst bomb to wipe out every avatar on Planet Doom including himself. Parzival survives using an extra life coin given to him earlier by the Curator in a bet. He plays the 1980 game Adventure and wins the Crystal Key by locating Warren Robinett 's Easter egg. He uses the three keys to enter a treasure room where Anorak offers him a contract. Parzival recognizes it as the one Morrow signed when Halliday forced him out of Gregarious Games and refuses to sign it. Anorak transforms into Halliday, who expresses his regrets in life and hands over the Easter egg. Sorrento and F'Nale are arrested in the aftermath of the bombing. Ogden Morrow appears, revealing he is the Curator. Wade decides to run the OASIS with the High-5, inviting Morrow to join them as a consultant. As the IOI Loyalty Centers shut down, the High-5 make the controversial choice to close the OASIS every Tuesday and Thursday, so people can spend more time in the real world.

In 1975, a time-traveling agent, whose face is not seen, suffers severe burns while trying and failing to disarm a bomb in a public building's basement. An unseen person helps him activate his time-travel device, called a "field kit", allowing him to escape to his agency's headquarters in 1992. He receives reconstructive surgery for his burns, but is told he will now look and sound different. He is further warned about the risk of mental instability from his long career. Once he recovers, the agent is sent on his final mission before retirement and goes undercover as bartender in 1970 New York City, where he meets John, a bitter columnist who writes under the pen name "The Unmarried Mother". When pressed on how he writes confession stories so well, John begins telling his life story. A baby was found on the steps of a Cleveland orphanage in 1945, where she was taken in and given the name Jane. Jane exceled both physically and academically in high school, and upon graduation was recruited by Agent Robertson to join the space program as a concubine, but was disqualified after a medical examination. In college, Jane fell in love with a mysterious man, but was abandoned shortly into the relationship. Jane went back to Robertson to try to join the space program, but Robertson admitted that he was using the space program as a front to recruit Jane for an elite covert agency that recruits people with no past and no certain future. Jane joined the agency, but was forced to drop out when she discovered she was pregnant. Jane gave birth to a baby girl at a hospital, telling the baby "you are the best thing that's ever happened to me", but, during the delivery doctors discovered that she was intersex. Complications during delivery rendered the female organs unviable, and the physicians began the process of gender reassignment surgery. Jane spent almost a year undergoing further treatment to become male, during which time the baby was kidnapped from the hospital by an older man. After being rejected from the space program again, Jane renamed himself John and relocated to New York City, eventually becoming a columnist and still harboring resentment toward the man who impregnated and abandoned him when he was Jane. When John finishes his story, the agent reveals that he works for the Temporal Bureau, in which Robertson is either a high-ranking officer or the head. He offers John the chance to kill his mysterious lover, who the agent thinks may be the Fizzle Bomber, in exchange for John joining the bureau as an agent. Together they go back to 1963, where John encounters and falls in love with Jane (his past self), realizing that he was his past self's lover all along. John, determined to change the past, goes ahead with the relationship and vows not to abandon himself. Meanwhile, the agent illegally returns to 1975 and helps his wounded past self, which Robertson allows as long as the agent kidnaps Jane's baby and delivers it to the Cleveland orphanage in 1945, completing the bootstrap paradox that makes John both of his own parents. Returning to 1963, the agent compels John to leave Jane and join the agency in 1985, as their troubled past is what will make them so effective at saving lives. They travel to headquarters, where John passes out and is hospitalized. Informed his field kit will decommission after one final jump, the agent retires to New York City in 1975, but the kit fails to decommission. With information left for him by Robertson, he finds the Bomber, only in his horror to discover that it is his future self. The bomber says that all his bombings were designed to prevent much greater disasters, and that the field kit still working is evidence that he was predestined to become the bomber. The bomber gives the agent a chance not to kill him and break the cycle, but the agent shoots him. The agent records a message to be delivered to John at headquarters when he wakes up in 1985, repeating the line "you are the best thing that's ever happened to me" that Jane told her baby. He then takes off his robe to reveal scars from gender reassignment surgery, confirming he is an older John—an orchestrated paradox created by Robertson.

Clyde Shelton lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia when two burglars break into their home one night. Rupert Ames, who only intended to steal, ties up and gags Clyde, and pleads with Clarence Darby to leave, but Darby silences Ames and stabs Clyde in the stomach before gagging his wife, raping and killing her and their daughter in front of him. Prosecutor Nick Rice is assigned to the case along with District Attorney Jonas Cantrell. Upon learning that the DNA evidence is inconclusive in linking Darby to the crime, Nick is unwilling to risk lowering his high conviction rate and agrees to a plea bargain. Clyde begs Nick not to make a deal with Darby, but he does so anyway, boldly claiming that it is a victory. Darby testifies against Ames, who is convicted of felony murder and is sentenced to death, while Darby pleads guilty to third-degree murder and serves only three years in prison before being released on parole. During a press conference, Darby thanks Nick for helping him and shakes his hand as Clyde watches from afar. Ten years later, Ames expresses remorse for his role in the burglary, but maintains his innocence in the murders. Ames is executed via lethal injection, but the procedure goes awry and he unexpectedly dies screaming and writhing in pain. Nick and Cantrell, who witnessed the botched execution, learn that the drugs were replaced with an anticonvulsant. Meanwhile, Darby is warned by an anonymous caller that the police are coming and instructs him to flee his apartment and take an officer hostage. The officer is revealed to be Clyde in disguise, who intentionally lured Darby into a trap and had the real officer locked inside the trunk of the car. Darby attempts to shoot Clyde, but as he pulls the trigger, he is paralyzed with tetrodotoxin coated spikes hidden inside the handle. Clyde records himself torturing and killing Darby as he is strapped to a table. After Darby's dismembered remains are found inside an abandoned warehouse owned by Clyde, he is arrested as he locks eyes with Nick. During his interrogation, Nick confronts Clyde for mailing a DVD copy of Darby's murder to Nick's daughter Denise. Clyde represents himself at his bail hearing, where Judge Laura Burch, who previously presided over Darby's plea deal, initially grants Clyde bail. When Clyde accuses Judge Burch of being too easily swayed by legal doctrine and willing to release a potential criminal, she holds him in contempt of court and has his bail denied. After Clyde gives his confession, he demands a steak lunch from Del Frisco's and his iPod be delivered to his prison cell at 1:00 p.m. in exchange for the location of Darby's lawyer, Bill Reynolds, who was reported missing by his wife three days earlier. Nick agrees to the deal, but after missing Clyde's deadline, Reynolds is found buried alive with a precisely-timed oxygen device strapped to him. Simultaneously, Clyde stabs his cellmate to death while eating his lunch, forcing him to be moved to solitary confinement. Suspicious of Clyde's skills, Nick and Cantrell meet with Bray, a CIA contact who reveals that Clyde previously worked for the agency and specialized in unorthodox assassinations. Bray warns Nick and Cantrell that the only way to stop Clyde is to kill him. During a meeting, Nick and Cantrell persuade Judge Burch to temporarily suspend Clyde's civil rights. Judge Burch answers her cellphone, but she is killed by an explosive device hidden inside. When Nick confronts Clyde, he explains that the murders are not about revenge, but the failures of the criminal justice system. Clyde tells Nick that he will end the killings by 6:00 a.m. if he is released from prison and all charges against him are dropped. Nick takes precautionary measures instead, moving his entire legal team to an office at the prison to work throughout the night. After Clyde's deadline passes without incident, Nick allows his team to go home. While walking to his car, six attorneys from Cantrell's office, including Nick's assistant, Sarah Lowell, are killed in car bombings. Consequently, Mayor April Henry assigns two security guards to protect both Nick and Cantrell. While leaving Sarah's funeral, Cantrell and the security guards are killed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot armed with automatic target recognition and a missile. Nick prepares to resign when Mayor Henry considers firing him, but she instead promotes him to acting District Attorney and puts the city in lockdown. After Nick learns that Clyde owns a building near the prison, he and Detective Dunnigan discover a tunnel inside that leads to a cache of guns, disguises, and other equipment below the solitary confinement cells, with secret entrances to each cell. Nick realizes that Clyde intentionally sought solitary confinement, allowing him to leave the prison undetected. Clyde arrives disguised as a janitor at City Hall, where Mayor Henry is holding an emergency meeting, and passes through security. Nick and Dunnigan fail to find Clyde, but they discover a suitcase bomb loaded with napalm planted in the room below the meeting. When Clyde returns to his cell and finds Nick waiting for him, Clyde tries to make another deal, but Nick refuses, having finally learned his lesson. Nick unsuccessfully urges Clyde not to activate the bomb before leaving, but he hears the detonator beeping and discovers the bomb hidden underneath his bed. Clyde briefly smiles and sits down, holding and looking at his daughter's handmade bracelet as the bomb explodes. Nick, officially the District Attorney, joins his wife Kelly at Denise's cello recital, having previously failed to do so.

At the White House, a teleporting mutant, Nightcrawler, attacks the President of the United States; he is shot and retreats. Meanwhile, Logan explores an abandoned military installation at Alkali Lake in Alberta for clues to his past, but finds nothing. Jean Grey has been having premonitions and struggles to concentrate as her powers become increasingly difficult to control. Later, Logan returns to Professor Xavier 's school for mutants, and Xavier tracks Nightcrawler using Cerebro. Xavier and Cyclops go to question the imprisoned Magneto about the attack, while Jean and Storm retrieve Nightcrawler. Military scientist Colonel William Stryker approaches the President and receives approval to investigate Xavier's mansion for their ties to mutants after the recent attack. Stryker's forces invade the school and abduct some of the students. Colossus leads the remaining students to safety while Logan, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro escape. Stryker's assistant Yuriko Oyama captures Cyclops and Xavier. During the attack, Logan confronts Stryker, who addresses him as "Wolverine" and appears to be aware of his past. The shapeshifting mutant, Mystique, helps Magneto escape and finds Cerebro schematics. Logan, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro visit Iceman's family in Boston. Iceman's brother calls the police after learning he's a mutant. Officers surround the house; one shoots Logan after feeling threatened. Pyro fights back against officers with his pyrokinesis before Storm, Jean, and Nightcrawler pick them up in their jet. The X-Jet is attacked by fighter jets and shot down while returning to the mansion, but Magneto saves them. He explains that Stryker built a second Cerebro to kill every mutant telepathically, using his mutant son Jason, who can control minds, to coerce Xavier. Stryker previously used Jason's powers on Nightcrawler to attack the White House to justify his excuse for invading Xavier's mansion. Magneto also tells Logan that Stryker grafted adamantium onto his bones and caused his amnesia. Jean discovers Stryker's underground base in a dam at Alkali Lake. Disguised as Logan, Mystique infiltrates Stryker's base, letting mutants in while she and Magneto head to disable Cerebro before Xavier, brainwashed, can activate it. Storm and Nightcrawler rescue students, and Jean fights a mind-controlled Cyclops; their fight frees Cyclops but damages the dam, causing it to rupture. Logan finds Stryker in an adamantium smelting lab, recalling where he got his skeleton. Logan fights and kills Yuriko, then chases Stryker to a helicopter pad and chains him to the wheel. Magneto stops Cerebro and, with Mystique impersonating Stryker to command Jason, has Xavier redirect its powers on humans. They escape in Stryker's helicopter, and Pyro, swayed to Magneto, joins them. Nightcrawler teleports Storm inside Cerebro, where she creates a snowstorm to break Jason's concentration and free Xavier. The X-Men flee the dam as water engulfs it, killing Stryker, but their X-Jet loses power and struggles to take off as floodwaters approach. Jean sneaks off, telepathically says goodbye, and holds back the water—raising the jet above it with flames erupting from her body—until she releases and the flood crashes down on her. The X-Men give Stryker's files to the President, with Xavier warning that humans and mutants must unite for peace. At the school, Xavier, Cyclops, and Logan remember Jean as Xavier begins a class. Meanwhile, a Phoenix-like shape rises from flooded Alkali Lake.

In post-Soviet Russia, civil war erupts as a result of the ongoing conflict in Chechnya. Military units loyal to Vladimir Radchenko, a Russian ultra-nationalist rebel, take control of a nuclear missile installation in the Russian Far East near the Chinese and North Korean borders and threaten nuclear war if confronted. USS Alabama, a U.S. Navy submarine, is dispatched on patrol with orders to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike if Radchenko fuels his missiles. Combat-hardened veteran Captain Frank Ramsey chooses Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter, who has an extensive education in military history and tactics but no combat experience, as his new XO. Tensions arise between the headstrong Ramsey and the more analytical and cautious Hunter, exacerbated by Ramsey's decision to order a missile drill amidst the chaos caused by a galley fire that results in the death of the chief mess officer. Hunter helps fight the fire and discreetly questions the decision but is chastised by Ramsey for the appearance of discord. Alabama receives an Emergency Action Message ordering a missile launch against the Russian base. As Alabama prepares to fire, a second radio message is detected before a rebel Russian Akula -class submarine attacks, damaging the boat’s radio and leaving the message incomplete. With the last confirmed order being to launch, Ramsey decides to proceed. Hunter disagrees, believing the partial second message may be a retraction. When Hunter refuses to consent as is required for a launch to be authorized, Ramsey tries to relieve him of duty. Hunter orders Ramsey arrested for attempting to circumvent two-man protocol. The Chief of the Boat sides with Hunter and has Ramsey relieved of command and confined to his stateroom, putting Hunter in charge. The Russian submarine attacks Alabama again. Alabama emerges victorious but is damaged when a torpedo detonates next to her hull. The main propulsion system is disabled, and the bilge bay begins flooding. As the crew tries to restore propulsion, Hunter orders the sealing of the bilge with sailors trapped inside, saving Alabama at the expense of the men. Propulsion is restored before Alabama reaches hull-crush depth. Officers and crew loyal to Ramsey unite and stage a mutiny. They retake the control room, confining Hunter, the Chief of the Boat, and some others to the officers' mess. Repairs to the radio continue, but Ramsey is determined to proceed without waiting for verification. Hunter escapes his arrest and prepares to retake the ship. He gains the support of weapons officer Peter Ince in the missile control room, further delaying the launch and leading Ramsey to go there. Hunter's party storms Alabama' s command center, removing the captain's missile key. Ramsey and his men return, resulting in an armed Mexican standoff. With news that the radio will soon be repaired, Ramsey and Hunter agree to wait until the deadline for a preemptive missile launch to be effective. Communications are eventually restored, revealing the full message from the second transmission – a retraction ordering that the missile launch be aborted because Radchenko's rebellion has been quelled. Ramsey turns the conn over to Hunter and returns to his cabin. The two men are put before a tribunal at Naval Station Pearl Harbor to answer for their actions. The tribunal concludes that both men were right and both men were wrong, and Hunter's actions were deemed lawfully justified and in the best interests of the United States. Unofficially, the tribunal reprimands both men for failing to resolve their differences. Thanks to Ramsey's personal recommendation, the tribunal agrees to grant Hunter command of his own sub while allowing Ramsey to save face via an early retirement with full honors. Outside, Hunter meets with Ramsey to express his gratitude, and the two men part ways amicably. A textual epilogue states that as of January 1996, only the President has the authority to launch nuclear missiles.

In 1977 Los Angeles, Holland March is a private eye hired by Mrs. Glenn to find her niece, porn star Misty Mountains, who she claims to have seen after her death. March's investigation leads him to Amelia Kuttner. A fearful Amelia pays Jackson Healy, a violent enforcer, to scare March away. After visiting March at his home and breaking his arm, he accepts a Yoo-hoo from March's teenage daughter, Holly, as he leaves. When Healy returns home (with a case of Yoo-hoo), he is interrogated by two thugs, "Blueface" —so named after he sets off a dye pack while searching Healy's apartment—and Older Guy, about Amelia. Believing Amelia is in danger, Healy wards them off and teams up with a reluctant March to find her. The duo visit Amelia's anti-pollution protest group and meet Chet, who brings them to the burnt-down house of Amelia's boyfriend Dean, who died in the fire. They learn that Amelia and Dean were working with Misty on an "experimental film" combining pornography and investigative journalism. The two infiltrate a party to search for the film's financier, Sid Shattuck. At the party, Healy discovers the film is missing, while March stumbles upon Shattuck's dead body and crosses paths with Amelia. Holly, having snuck along to the party, stops Blueface from killing Amelia. Blueface is struck in a hit-and-run and Amelia flees. Healy subdues Older Guy and finds Blueface dying. Blueface tells Healy that his boss has dispatched a hit man named John Boy to kill all witnesses. Healy discreetly kills Blueface by strangling him. The police arrive at the scene. March and Healy are met by Amelia's mother Judith Kuttner, a high-ranking official in the Justice Department. Judith claims Amelia is delusional and hires them to find her, for which March demands US$5,000 in payment. March and Healy go to an airport hotel where Amelia is meeting with distributors for the film. However, John Boy has arrived ahead of them and is slaughtering the distributors. The duo hastily retreat, only for Amelia to land on their car and accidentally knock herself unconscious. They take her to March's house, where she accuses her mother of colluding with car makers to suppress the catalytic converter, which regulates exhaust emissions. Amelia created the film to expose their collusion and believes her mother has been killing everyone connected to the film. A disbelieving March calls Tally, Judith's assistant, and tells her Amelia has been found. Tally tells him the family's doctor will arrive to check on Amelia. At the same time, she tasks them with delivering a briefcase of money to Judith. March accidentally crashes his car during the delivery, causing the briefcase to fly open, spilling out shredded paper; the delivery was really a diversion to draw them away from Amelia. John Boy arrives at March's house disguised as the family doctor, attacks Holly and her friend Jessica, and engages in a shootout with the returning March and Healy. As John Boy evades the police, Amelia flees the house and unwittingly flags down his car only to be shot and killed. The police question and release March and Healy, who have no evidence that Judith is behind the murders. March realizes that Mrs. Glenn saw Misty in a film projected against a wall. At Misty's house, they discover a film projector, with no film. They realize that Chet is the projectionist for the Los Angeles Auto Show and will try to screen the film at the event. At the auto show, Tally intercepts Healy and March at gunpoint. Holly distracts Tally, who is knocked unconscious. Amelia's film, which Chet spliced into the auto show presentation, implicates the auto executives. On the rooftop, March struggles with Older Guy; they both fall from the roof, but March lands in the pool while Older Guy falls to his death. Holly stops Tally from reaching the film. Healy overpowers John Boy, but spares his life at Holly's behest and March secures the film from thugs sent by the auto executives. Judith is arrested, but insists that it was Detroit who wanted Amelia dead; she hired March and Healy to keep Amelia safe. Judith remarks that while she will go to prison, Detroit has still gotten away with trying to suppress the catalytic converter. At a bar on Christmas Eve, March shows Healy an advertisement for their new detective agency called "The Nice Guys".

A prologue, set in the 12th century, where Rangarajan Nambi, a devout Vaishnavite, resists King Kulothunga II's efforts to desecrate a Vishnu idol. Nambi is executed by drowning, along with the idol, setting a thematic backdrop for the story. In 2004, Govindarajan Ramaswamy, an Indian scientist in the U.S., is working on a bio-weapon—a synthetic virus. When a lab monkey dies after ingesting the virus, Govind realizes the threat it poses. After discovering that his superior, Dr. Sethu, plans to sell the virus to terrorists, Govind flees with the vial. During a scuffle, the vial is mistakenly shipped to India. Christian Fletcher, a mercenary ex- CIA agent hired to retrieve the vial, kills several people in pursuit, including Govind's friend Suresh and his wife Yuka. Govind follows the package to Chidambaram, where it ends up with an elderly woman, Krishnaveni, who unknowingly hides it inside a Vishnu idol. Govind's attempts to retrieve it are complicated by Fletcher's pursuit, the local police, and Krishnaveni's devout granddaughter, Andal, who believes he is trying to steal the idol. Multiple subplots unfold: Fletcher's translator-wife and partner-in-crime, Jasmine, is killed during a skirmish involving a rogue elephant; Yukha's brother Shingen, a Japanese martial artist arrives to avenge Yuka's death; and Telugu police officer Balram Naidu investigates Govind's activities. Along the way, Govind and Andal encounter various characters, including social activist Vincent Poovaraghan and a Muslim family headed by the towering Khalifulla. The vial is accidentally switched with a medicine cooler belonging to singer Avatar Singh, who is being treated for throat cancer. Eventually, Fletcher takes hostages, demanding the virus in exchange. After a series of chases and confrontations—including one at Avatar's concert—the vial ends up back in the idol. Govind attempts to neutralize the virus by immersing it in the ocean after finding out that sodium chloride weakens it. A fight breaks out at a construction site between Govind and Fletcher, with Shingen intervening. Fletcher swallows the virus but dies as a massive tsunami hits the coast. The natural disaster wipes out the threat, killing Fletcher and causing widespread destruction. Govind, Andal, and others survive. Andal believes the tsunami was divine intervention, but Govind maintains a rationalist view, questioning the morality of such devastation as a means of salvation. They then profess their love for each other. Govind is honored for his efforts with an event, attended by world leaders, and a final glimpse of Nambi's idolized remains washed ashore.