In November 1987, Jamaican sprinter Derice Bannock trains to compete in the 100 metres race at the forthcoming Summer Olympics, but fails to advance in the trails after fellow runner Junior Bevil accidentally stumbles and falls, knocking down Derice and another competitor, Yul Brenner. Derice petitions for the race to be rerun, but is denied by committee leader Barrington Coolidge, though he shows sympathy for Derice. While in Coolidge's office, Derice sees a photograph of his late father, Ben, standing next to a fellow Olympic gold medalist. Coolidge identifies the man as Irving "Irv" Blitzer, a former bobsled champion who was disqualified for cheating in the 1972 Winter Olympics and now works as a bookie close to Derice's home. Derice realizes he could enter the upcoming Winter Olympics in Calgary by forming a bobsled team, recruiting his friend Sanka Coffie, a pushcart derby champion. Derice and Sanka track down Blitzer, who initially refuses to help Derice but eventually agrees to coach the team after learning that he is Ben's son. A recruitment drive fails when other athletes see how dangerous bobsledding is, though Junior agrees to join the team as, like Derice, he does not want to wait four years for the next summer Olympics. Yul also joins in order to get off the island, though he is unhappy at having Junior as his team mate, still angry at him for what happened at the trials. The newly-formed team trains with Blitzer, though Coolidge refuses to provide the money needed to participate, believing the team's inexperience will embarrass Jamaica. After Derice fails to find sponsors and he, Sanka and Yul are unsuccessful raising funds themselves, Junior sells his car to finance the trip. Upon reaching Calgary, Blitzer registers the team and borrows a rundown bobsled from Roger, one of his past teammates. The Jamaicans struggle to adapt to the cold and race conditions but improve through exercise and hard work. Derice begins to copy the techniques of the very efficient Swiss team, while the East German team – the current bobsled world record holders – constantly heckle the Jamaicans during their practices. When the team gets into a bar fight with the East Germans, Blitzer reprimands them and reminds them they are representing all of Jamaica through their actions, inspiring the team to be more serious about their conduct and training in order to qualify for the Olympics. Overseen by Olympic committee members, which includes Blitzer's former coach Kurt Hemphill, the Jamaican team successfully complete their qualifying run, only to be excluded, supposedly for lack of competitive experience. Blitzer confronts Kemphill, who is still bitter at Blitzer for cheating, and pleads with him not to punish the Jamaicans for his past actions. The team is reinstated, and Junior, with encouragement from Yul, rebuffs his father's attempt to bring him home, firmly stating his intent to compete for Jamaica. The team's first run in competition puts them in last place, with Sanka unhappy with Derice for copying the Swiss team and believes they need to find their own rhythm. On the second day of competition they significantly improve, but on the final run their bobsled flips and crashes. Determined to finish the race, the team pick up their sled and carry it over the finish line, to the applause of other teams spectators, including all those who had doubted and ridiculed them. An epilogue says that the team returned to Jamaica as heroes, and returned to the Winter Olympics four years later to participate as equals.

In 35,000 B.C. during the Ice Age, in what will become North Texas, two cavemen hunters encounter an extraterrestrial life form in a cave, which kills one and infects the other with a black oil -like substance. In 1998, a boy falls into a hole and is infected by the black oil that seeps from the ground. Firefighters who enter the hole to rescue him do not come out. A team of men wearing hazmat suits later extracts the bodies of the boy and the firefighters. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, investigating a bomb threat against a federal building in Dallas, discover the bomb in a building across the street. As the building is evacuated, Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud remains, ostensibly to disarm the bomb. Instead, he simply waits for the bomb to detonate. At the Office of Professional Review hearing supervised by FBI Assistant Director Jana Cassidy, Mulder and Scully are chastised because the firefighters and the boy were also in the building during the bombing. That evening, Mulder is accosted by paranoid doctor Alvin Kurtzweil, who explains that the "victims" were already dead and that the bombing was staged to cover up how they died. At the hospital morgue, Scully examines one of the victims, finding evidence of an alien virus. Meanwhile, The Smoking Man goes to Texas, where Dr. Ben Bronschweig shows him one of the lost firefighters, who now has an alien organism residing inside his body. The Smoking Man orders Bronschweig to administer a vaccine to it, but to burn the body if it fails. Later, the alien organism gestates and kills Bronschweig. Mulder and Scully travel to the site of the hole in Texas, where they find it has been hastily turned into a new playground, and encounter the boys whose friend fell in. Driving in the direction the boys indicated, the pair encounters a train of white gasoline tankers and follows it to a cornfield surrounding two glowing domes. Inside the domes, grates in the floor open and swarms of bees fly out, overwhelming the agents. They flee through an adjacent cornfield, chased by black helicopters, and escape when the helicopters disappear. In D.C., Scully attends another OPR hearing; meanwhile, Mulder meets with Kurtzweil to obtain more information. Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment to tell him she has been transferred to SLC but plans to resign from the FBI. The two are about to kiss when Scully is stung by a bee that had lodged itself under her shirt collar. She falls unconscious while Mulder calls paramedics, but the ambulance driver shoots Mulder and takes Scully away. She is seen later in an isolation unit being loaded onto a plane. An unconscious Mulder is picked up by another ambulance. Not severely injured, he slips out of the hospital with the help of The Lone Gunmen and FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He then meets a former adversary, the Well-Manicured Man, who gives him Scully's location and a vaccine against the virus that has infected her. As Mulder leaves, the Well-Manicured Man shoots his driver and then kills himself in a car bomb before his betrayal of The Syndicate is discovered. 48 hours later, Mulder finds Scully in an underground facility in Antarctica, which also contains many humans suspended in ice-like enclosures. He breaks Scully's confinement and uses the vaccine to revive her, but this disrupts the facility, and the cocooned aliens begin trying to escape. After Mulder and Scully escape to the surface, an alien vessel emerges from beneath the ice and travels into the sky. Mulder watches it disappear into the distance as Scully regains full consciousness. At another hearing, Scully's testimony is disregarded, and evidence in Texas is destroyed. To the hearing moderator, she hands over the only remaining proof of their ordeal—the bee that stung her—while noting that the FBI is currently unable to investigate this evidence. Outside, Mulder reads an article about the domes and crop fields in Texas that have been covered up. Scully reveals that she is willing to continue working with him: "If I quit now, they win." At another crop outpost in Tunisia, the Smoking Man warns Conrad Strughold that Mulder remains a threat, explaining what Mulder has found out about the virus. He then hands him a telegram revealing that the X-files unit has been reopened.

Star is living in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She lives a painful life, caring for two children that are not hers and living with their sexually abusive father, Nathan. While trying to hitchhike home one day, she spies a van full of young people and makes eye contact with Jake, one of the boys in the group. Star follows them to a local Kmart and sees Jake dancing to " We Found Love " on top of the registers before being escorted out by security. Star returns Jake's phone, as it had fallen out of his pocket, and he offers her a job as part of their magazine sales crew, telling her to come with him to Kansas City. Star declines but Jake nevertheless tells her to meet them in the parking lot of the local Motel 6 the next morning. Packing her belongings while Nathan is in another room, Star secretly escapes and takes the children to the club where their mother Misty dances. Star confronts Misty and tells her it's her turn to care for the kids, and though Misty refuses, Star runs away from the club to the motel and sleeps outside the crew's van until morning. Star is interviewed by the crew's leader, Krystal, who hires her after she establishes that Star is a legal adult, that no one will miss her, and that she promises to work hard. In the car on the way to Kansas, Star meets the other members of the crew. When they get there, they are to work in pairs. Star is paired with Jake, the veteran of the group, to be trained. Star upsets potential customers because she disapproves of Jake's behaviour. Jake lies, shows he has a gun, although he doesn't really know how to use it, and he steals a ring from one of the houses. But Star is attracted to Jake, flirting with and eventually kissing him. That night, Krystal calls Star in and tells her that Jake has posted his lowest sales ever. Krystal then has Jake put tanning lotion on her body as Star watches, and Star promises to improve. The following day, annoyed by Jake, Star vows to outsell him. Star is picked up by three strangers in cowboy hats, who offer to help her, thinking she is being harassed by Jake. The trio bring her to their home and offer to buy several subscriptions if she eats the worm at the bottom of a bottle of mezcal. Star does, and makes the sale. Jake, however, fearing the worst, arrives and threatens the men with a gun before stealing their car. Initially angry at Jake, Star is later touched that he came to find her, and the two have sex in the car. When they return to the hotel for the evening, Jake tells her not to mention their relationship, and he gives the money Star earned to Krystal. For a while, things between Jake and Star are tense, and Krystal threatens to drop her on the side of the road if she keeps causing trouble. The crew ends up living temporarily in a rundown house, and Jake and Star renew their relationship. Star asks him what his dreams are, and he shows her his private stash of cash and items he's stolen from the houses he visits, which he intends to use to buy a home. Krystal dumps the girls off where oil workers are about to go to work in the morning. Star climbs in the back of their truck and tries to sell to them, but one of the oil workers tells her he'll pay her five hundred dollars to go on a 'date' with him. Star asks for a thousand dollars and meets him when he gets off work, but although the encounter is sexual he barely touches her. After the guy drops her off, she hears Jake fighting. Shortly after, a bloodied Jake asks if she slept with the man. Star just asks, "what do you care?". Jake gets angry, smashing things before taking off on a stolen motorbike. The following morning, the crew get in the car and there is a new girl there, while Jake is missing. Krystal calls Star to her room and informs her she has let Jake go, that she paid him money for each girl he recruited, and that he slept with all of them. Krystal later takes them to a poor area in Rapid City, South Dakota to sell subscriptions. Star enters a house and meets several affable children whose mother is on drugs. As Star's own mother died of a meth overdose, she feels sympathetic toward them and goes out to buy them groceries. At the pickup that day, Jake is in the van, and Star is confused as to whether to be happy to see him or not. That evening, the crew light a bonfire. Dancing around the fire, Star is pulled aside by Jake, who hands her a turtle. Star takes it to the edge of the water and releases it before following the turtle into the water. She immerses herself fully, long enough for the viewer to think she may not come up, before dramatically rising up out of the water. There is no conclusion.

Giovanni is a young, bluish-colored cat, whose father is away on a fishing trip and whose mother is ill at home. At school, during a lesson about the Milky Way, Giovanni's teacher asks him what the galaxy is composed of. Giovanni knows that it is made of stars, but is unable to say so, and his classmate Campanella does the same to save Giovanni from their fellow schoolmates' teasing. After school, Giovanni works a typesetting job at a print shop, and buys a loaf of bread and some sugar. He returns home to find that no milk was delivered that day, so he heads to the dairy, where he is told by an elderly cat to return at a later time. That night, the Centaurus Festival, or the Festival of Stars, takes place in the town. Upon reaching the festivities, Giovanni is mocked by his classmates for expecting an otter-skin coat from his father. Giovanni runs to the top of a hill at the edge of town and gazes up at the night sky. A steam train suddenly appears, and Giovanni boards it. On board, he is joined by Campanella, and as the train sets in motion, the two observe fields of flowers outside the windows of their train car. The train travels past the Northern Cross and halts at a stopover, where Giovanni and Campanella disembark. They walk down a flight of steps and are directed by a sign towards "The Pliocene Coast", where they find their teacher leading an excavation of fossils from crystallized sands. They return to the train, where they meet a bird-catcher who catches herons and turns the birds into candy. Giovanni and Campanella help a blind wireless operator to his radio system. He picks up a transmission which an elderly passenger identifies as the hymn " Nearer, My God, to Thee ". When a ticket inspector appears, Giovanni discovers in his pocket a rare ticket which allows him to go anywhere that the train runs. They are then joined in their seats by a tutor and two children, who were on board a ship that sank after hitting an iceberg. They share apples and pass by a vast cornfield where they hear the " New World Symphony ". As the train passes Scorpius, one of the children recalls a story about a scorpion who perished in a well after escaping a weasel; regretting that it did not sacrifice itself for a good cause, the scorpion prayed to bring happiness to others in its next life, and its body burst into a bright flame that still burns in the night sky. The train stops at the Southern Cross, where every passenger except for Giovanni and Campanella disembark for the Christian Heaven. Giovanni pledges that he and Campanella should continue on the train's journey together forever, but as the train approaches the Coalsack, Campanella sees what he claims to be "the true Heaven", where his mother is waiting for him. Campanella vacates the train, leaving Giovanni alone. Giovanni awakens on the hilltop. He returns to the dairy, where this time he collects a bottle of milk from a farmer. As Giovanni passes through town on his way home, he learns that Campanella fell into a river while saving one of their classmates, Zanelli, from drowning. Giovanni hurries to the river, where he finds Campanella's father giving up searching for his son, as his disappearance occurred 45 minutes prior. He tells Giovanni that he has received a letter from his father, stating that he will be home soon. Giovanni believes Campanella is "at the edge of the universe", which he says he knows "because we explored it together". He vows to be like the scorpion who promised to bring happiness to others, and continues homeward.

In 2017, aliens known as Scavengers attack Earth and destroy the Moon, triggering global natural disasters. Although humanity wins the war using nuclear weapons, Earth is left uninhabitable. Sixty years later, the remnants of humanity have relocated to a colony on Saturn 's moon Titan, except for Unit 49—technician Jack and his communications officer Victoria—who are scheduled to join them in two weeks. The pair oversee hydro rigs that convert seawater into fusion energy for the Tet, the last remaining human colony ship in orbit. Though Jack and Victoria are romantically involved and have had their memories erased for security reasons, Jack experiences recurring dreams of an unknown woman. He also secretly visits a hidden, verdant valley where he has built a lakeside cabin and collects relics of Earth's past. While investigating a missing drone—autonomous, highly advanced, and heavily armed machines—Jack is nearly captured by Scavengers. Later, he discovers the Scavengers are transmitting a signal into space. A NASA pod crash-lands at the signal's coordinates, carrying five humans in suspended animation, including the woman from Jack's dreams. A drone arrives and destroys four of the pods, but Jack rescues the remaining one and brings the unconscious woman to Unit 49's base. After reviving her, Jack and Victoria learn that the woman, Julia, has been in stasis aboard the Odyssey spaceship since 2017. Julia insists on recovering the ship's flight recorder. She and Jack are captured by Scavengers and brought to the Raven Rock Mountain Complex. Their leader, Malcolm, reveals that the Scavengers are surviving humans. Malcolm needs Jack to reprogram a captured drone to deliver a nuclear bomb, built from Odyssey's reactor, to the Tet. Jack refuses, so Malcolm releases him and Julia, urging him to seek the truth in the radiation zone, which is supposedly deadly and off-limits. Julia helps Jack recall that she is his wife, and fragments of his memories begin to return. When they arrive back at Unit 49, a devastated Victoria informs Sally, the Tet's mission controller, that she and Jack are no longer an "effective team". A drone activates and kills Victoria. Jack and Julia destroy the drone but crash their aircraft inside the radiation zone. There, they encounter another version of Jack—"Jack-52"—who arrives to repair the drone. Jack subdues him, but Julia is seriously injured in the fight. Jack impersonates his clone to infiltrate Unit 52, meets Victoria-52, and steals medical supplies for Julia. They rest at his cabin. At Raven Rock, Malcolm reveals the truth: humanity lost the war, and the Tet is an alien machine intelligence harvesting Earth's resources. After the Moon's destruction, the Tet deployed thousands of clones of astronaut Jack Harper—brainwashed into obedience—to exterminate the remaining humans. Malcolm had assumed that these clones were inhuman until witnessing Jack show interest in a discarded book, hinting at lingering humanity. Jack reprograms the captured drone, but it is destroyed in a surprise attack by other drones, leaving Malcolm badly wounded. Jack and Julia resolve to deliver the bomb; Julia enters a stasis pod. En route, Jack listens to the Odyssey's flight recorder, which reveals the original Jack Harper and Victoria were astronauts sent to explore Titan before being confronted by the Tet. The pair were captured but not before Jack ejected the remaining crew—including Julia—in stasis pods to protect them. Jack gains access to the Tet by claiming he is delivering Julia, as previously instructed. However, the stasis pod contains a dying Malcolm. Jack and Malcolm detonate the bomb, destroying the Tet and themselves. Julia later awakens at the cabin. Three years later, Julia lives there and it is revealed she had a daughter with Jack. A group of Raven Rock survivors arrives, with Jack-52, who has begun regaining fragments of his identity.

On July 2, 1996, an extraterrestrial mothership, entering Earth's orbit outside the Moon, deploys its flying saucers, each 15 mi (24 km) in diameter, over major cities worldwide. U.S. Marine Captain Steven Hiller and his unit, the Black Knights fighter squadron stationed out of MCAS El Toro, are called back from Independence Day leave; his girlfriend, Jasmine Dubrow, decides to flee Los Angeles with her son, Dylan. Retired combat pilot Russell Casse, now an alcoholic single father and crop duster, sees this as vindication of the alien abduction he has been claiming for 10 years. In New York City, technician David Levinson decodes a signal embedded within global satellite transmissions, realizing it is the aliens' countdown for a coordinated attack. Aided by his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, David and his father Julius reach the Oval Office in Washington, D.C. and alert President Thomas Whitmore. Whitmore orders evacuations of Los Angeles, New York City, and the District of Columbia, but it is too late. Each saucer fires a beam, incinerating every targeted city, killing millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others barely escape aboard Air Force One while Jasmine, Dylan, and their dog Boomer take shelter in a tunnel's inspection alcove and escape the destruction of Los Angeles. On July 3, Earth's military retaliations against the invaders are thwarted by the alien warships' force fields. Each saucer launches shielded fighters, devastating the human fighter squadrons and military bases, including Steven's. Steven lures one fighter into the Grand Canyon before ejecting from his plane, blinding the fighter using his parachute and causing it to crash in the Mojave Desert. He subdues the downed alien and flags down the convoy of refugees Russel joined with, transporting the alien to Area 51, where Whitmore's plane has landed. U.S. Defense Secretary Albert Nimziki reveals that a government faction has been involved in a UFO conspiracy since 1947, when one of the invaders' fighters crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. Area 51 houses the refurbished ship and three alien corpses from the crash. Chief scientist Dr. Brackish Okun examines the alien captured by Steven, which awakens, telepathically invades Okun's mind, and psychically attacks Whitmore before the alien is killed by Secret Service agents and military personnel. Whitmore learns the invaders' plan from the psychic attack; they intend to annihilate Earth's inhabitants while harvesting its natural resources, as they have done to other civilizations. Whitmore reluctantly authorizes a trial nuclear attack against a saucer above an evacuated Houston, but while Houston is destroyed, the saucer's force field protects it from the blast. All subsequent nuclear attacks are aborted. Jasmine and Dylan, having commandeered a highway maintenance truck and rescued several survivors, including the badly injured First Lady, Marilyn Whitmore, reunite with Steven who takes them to Area 51, where Marilyn succumbs to her injuries after reuniting with her own family. On July 4, inspired by Julius, David devises a plan to write a computer virus on his laptop and, using the refurbished fighter to dock with it, upload the virus into the mothership's operating system to disable the alien's shields, then using a tactical nuclear weapon to destroy the mothership. Steven volunteers as the mission's pilot, and the U.S. military contacts the remaining airborne squadrons through Morse code to organize a united counterattack. Lacking pilots, Whitmore and General William Grey enlist volunteers with flight experience, including Russell, to fly the remaining jets. Steven marries Jasmine, with David and Constance present, during which the divorced pair reconciles before Steven and David leave on the mission. Entering the mothership, they upload the virus. With the shields down, Whitmore's squadron engages a saucer targeting the Area 51 base. They exhaust their ammunition, and as the saucer readies to fire, Russell sacrifices himself by crashing into its primary weapon, destroying the saucer. Grey orders notifications to resistance groups worldwide about the saucers' critical weakness, leading to their destruction. Steven and David launch the nuclear missile and narrowly escape the destruction of the mothership and all the aliens in it. As humanity celebrates its victory against the aliens, Steven and David are rescued after surviving the crash, and are reunited with their families.

During the French Revolution, Marquis d'Apcher writes his memoirs in his castle. He recounts his experiences in 1764, when a mysterious beast terrorized the county, or historical area, of Gévaudan. Grégoire de Fronsac, a knight and the royal naturalist of King Louis XV, and his Iroquois companion Mani, arrive to capture the beast. Fronsac becomes interested in Marianne de Morangias, the daughter of a local count, whose brother, Jean-François, was also an avid hunter and a world traveller, whose arm was mangled and rendered useless while overseas. Fronsac is also intrigued by Sylvia, an Italian courtesan at the local brothel. While investigating another victim, Fronsac finds a fang made of steel. A traumatized child witness swears that the beast is controlled by what seems to be a human master. As the investigation proves unfruitful, the king's weapons master, Lord de Beauterne, arrives to put an end to the beast, and Fronsac is sent back to Paris. He realizes that the beast is actually an instrument of a secret society: The Brotherhood of the Wolf, which is working to undermine public confidence in the king and ultimately take over the country. Back in Gévaudan, the attacks by the real beast continue, and Fronsac returns to put an end to the beast's killings. At a secret rendezvous with Marianne, they are attacked by the beast, where it mysteriously refrains from attacking her. Fronsac, Mani, and a young Marquis set out into the forest and set up an array of traps to capture the beast; it is severely injured but escapes. Mani sets off alone in pursuit, where he finds a catacomb used as the beast's holding pen, inhabited by the Brotherhood. Outnumbered, Mani is shot and killed. Fronsac discovers Mani's body and performs an autopsy, finding a silver bullet —Jean-François' signature choice of ammunition. In a fit of rage, a vengeful Fronsac goes to the catacombs and slaughters many members, but is overpowered by the local authorities and imprisoned. Sylvia visits him in jail and reveals that she is a spy for the Holy See. She explains that Henri Sardis, the local priest and leader of the Brotherhood, believes that he is restoring worship of God to France. Pope Clement XIII has decided that Sardis is insane, and has sent her to eliminate him. She then poisons Fronsac, saying that he knows too much. Meanwhile, Jean-François comes to Marianne's room and reveals to her that he is the beast's master; it recognized his scent on her when it came near her, which is why it did not attack. He then rapes her when she rejects his advances. Sylvia's agents exhume Fronsac and he appears at one of the Brotherhood's sermons. He kills several members, including Jean-François, who reveals that he had regained use of his supposedly mangled arm. Sardis escapes into the mountains, but is mauled to death by a pack of wolves. Fronsac and the Marquis go to the beast's lair, where it lies severely wounded. It turns out that the beast was a lion that Jean-François brought back from Africa as a cub that was tortured into becoming vicious and trained to wear spiked metal armor. Fronsac takes pity and kills the beast in an act of mercy. Marquis d'Apcher finishes writing his account just before he is led to his execution by a revolutionary mob. He states that he doesn't know what happened to Fronsac and Marianne after the death of the beast; but he hopes that somewhere, they are happy together. A final scene shows Fronsac and Marianne sailing on a ship named Frère Loup—Brother Wolf.

A man narrates a letter addressing people he will miss. In the Indian Ocean eight days earlier, the man wakes to find water flooding his boat. It has collided with a wayward shipping container, ripping a hole in the hull. The man uses a sea anchor to dislodge the container, then changes course to tilt the boat away from the hole. He patches the hole and uses a manual bilge pump to remove the water from the cabin. The boat's navigational and communications systems have been damaged by saltwater intrusion. The man tries to repair the marine radio and connects it to one of the boat's batteries. When he climbs the mast to repair an antenna lead, he sees an oncoming tropical storm. When the storm arrives, the man runs before the wind. He intends to heave to, but as he crawls to the bow to hoist the storm jib, he is thrown overboard and regains the deck only after a desperate struggle. The boat capsizes and rights itself; during a second roll, which throws the man overboard again, the boat is dis-masted and most of the equipment is destroyed. After going below deck and being knocked out by colliding with a post, he regains consciousness to find the boat sinking, so he abandons ship in an inflatable life raft. When the storm has passed, he salvages whatever he can from his sinking boat and transfers it to the raft. Before the boat sinks, he tends to the gash on his forehead. As the man learns to operate a sextant, he discovers he is being pulled towards a major shipping lane by ocean currents. He survives another storm, but his supplies dwindle and he learns too late that his drinking water has been contaminated with sea water. He improvises a solar still from his water container, a plastic bag, and an aluminum can, producing fresh water, and he snags a fish, but it is snapped up by a shark before he can reel it in. The man's raft is passed by two container ships, but it is unseen despite his using signal flares. He drifts out of the shipping lane with no food or water. On the eighth day, he writes a letter, puts it in a jar, and throws it into the ocean as a message in a bottle. Later that night, he sees a light in the distance. He uses pages from his journal along with charts to create a signal fire. The fire grows out of control and consumes his raft. Falling into the water, he loses hope and attempts to drown himself. Underwater, he sees the hull of a boat with a search light approaching his burning raft. He swims towards the surface to grasp an outstretched hand.

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

The minuscule European Duchy of Grand Fenwick is bankrupted when an American company comes up with a cheaper imitation of Fenwick's sole export, its fabled Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. Crafty Prime Minister Count Mountjoy devises a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation's economy. Duchess Gloriana is hesitant but agrees to the plan. Mild-mannered game warden Tully Bascomb is charged as Field Marshal to lead the Grand Fenwick troops, aided by Sergeant Will Buckley. The contingent of 20 soldiers, in medieval chain mail uniform, travel across the Atlantic on a small merchant ship, arriving in New York Harbor during an air-raid drill that leaves the city deserted and undefended. They chance upon a civil defence truck and are mistaken for invading Martians, prompting an investigation by blustering but ineffectual General Snippet. Puncturing the tyres of the general's jeep with their bows and arrows, the Grand Fenwick troops take him and four police officers hostage. Still looking for a place to surrender, Tully and Will stumble across Alfred Kokintz, whose invention of the Q Bomb, capable of destroying an entire continent, has prompted the defence drills. He has built a football-sized prototype of the unstable bomb, which Tully takes possession of. With Kokintz and his attractive daughter Helen as additional hostages, Tully declares victory and returns with them to Grand Fenwick. The duchess indulges Tully's victory, and the prime minister resigns in disgust at Tully's blunder, leaving him as acting prime minister. When the incident is discovered, the U.S. government is thwarted from retaking the weapon and hostages by force, fearing the dishonour of attacking such a small and defenceless nation. Instead, they send the U.S. Secretary of Defense to discuss terms of surrender and get back the bomb. Meanwhile, Grand Fenwick receives competing offers of defensive aid from each of the world's powers, in exchange for the weapon. Tully becomes smitten with Helen, who initially despises him for taking them but falls for his simple charm. Then Snippet and Mountjoy conspire to steal the bomb and return it (and Helen) to America, but Tully gives chase and retrieves it. The Secretary of Defence and Tully agree to terms: the knock-off wine will be taken off the market, Grand Fenwick will receive monetary aid from the US, Helen and her father will remain in Grand Fenwick, and so will the bomb: held by "the little countries of the world" as a weapon of last resort if the superpowers refuse to disarm. Checking the bomb for damage, Tully, Helen and Kokintz find it was "a dud" all along, and leave it in the dungeon, conspiring to keep its impotence secret. However, after they leave, a mouse emerges from it, and it appears to rearm, sitting ready to explode if disturbed.

Darius Britt is an intelligent but disillusioned graduate of the University of Washington who lives at home in Seattle with her widower father and works as an intern at Seattle Magazine. One of the magazine's writers, Jeff Schwensen, proposes to investigate a newspaper classified ad that reads: WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke...You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before. Jeff's boss Bridget approves of his story idea and Jeff selects his team: Darius and Arnau, a studious UW student interning at the magazine to diversify his résumé for medical school applications. They travel to the seaside community of Ocean View to find and profile the person who wrote the ad. Jeff's ulterior motive for this out-of-town assignment is to track down his long-lost love interest who lives in town. Darius discovers the ad was placed by Kenneth Calloway, a stock clerk at a local grocery store. Jeff's attempt to approach Kenneth alienates him, so Jeff orders Darius to make contact. Darius's disaffected attitude serves her well, and she quickly endears herself to Kenneth as she poses as a candidate to accompany him on his mission. While Kenneth is paranoid and believes secret agents are tracking his every move, Darius gains his trust as she participates in a series of training exercises in the woods around his house and she begins to develop feelings for him. She tells Kenneth about losing her mother when she was young and says that her mission is to prevent her mother's death. Kenneth says that his mission is to go back to 2001 and prevent the death of his former girlfriend, Belinda, who was killed when someone drove a car into her house. Meanwhile, Jeff tracks down Liz, a fling from his teenage years. Although she is not as attractive as he had recalled, they reconnect and sleep together. He asks her to come back with him to Seattle, but she believes this is just another fling for him, so she refuses. Upset by her rejection, Jeff takes Arnau out on the town and they pick up some young women. Jeff tells Arnau to not waste his youth and convinces him to spend the night with one of the women. The next morning, Jeff receives a phone call from Bridget, who has been following up the team's notes on the story. She informs Jeff that Belinda is still alive and lives an hour away from where they are. During an interview, Darius learns that Belinda was only friends with Kenneth, and that Kenneth was actually the one who had driven into her then-boyfriend's house, and that nevertheless no one had been injured. After the interview, Darius is questioned by two government agents who have been following Kenneth and believe that he may be a spy because of his communication with government scientists. They know Kenneth has been breaking into labs and stealing equipment. Darius returns to Kenneth's house to confront him, but Kenneth rationalizes that the reason Belinda is now alive is that his time travel mission succeeded. Jeff runs in to warn them that the government agents are also on the property. Kenneth panics and runs into the woods. Darius follows Kenneth, who has boarded his time machine, which has been integrated into a small boat on the lake. Darius apologizes for lying to Kenneth, tells him that everything else they shared was real, and joins him on the boat. Kenneth tells Darius that his mission is now only to go back for her. Jeff, Arnau, and the agents watch as Kenneth and Darius activate the time machine and vanish. A filmed interview, presumably from earlier, shows Kenneth explaining why he chose to enlist a partner for his time travels.