Bill is a man whose daily routines, perceptions, and dreams are illustrated through multiple split-screen windows that are narrated by an uncredited Don Hertzfeldt. He often has meetings with his ex-girlfriend, but suffers from an unnamed illness which interferes with his seemingly mundane and uneventful life. One day, he visits his doctor, who informs him that his illness is getting worse; as the days pass, Bill's hallucinations and thoughts worsen until he has a hallucinogenic mental breakdown and passes out in an alley. To help him recuperate, Bill's mother comes to take care of him, but Bill mistakenly believes she is about to kill him and attacks her. He is then taken to a hospital but his health fluctuates rapidly and confuses his doctor, who concludes that Bill will not die, which surprises and inconveniences his relatives. He returns to work the following day. In a flashback to Bill's childhood, the narrator explains the death of Bill's half-brother Randall, who ran into the sea while chasing a bird. After Randall's death, Bill's mother soon became fiercely protective of Bill and rarely left home, eventually causing his stepfather to leave. The narrator details the surreal history of Bill's family, many of whom suffered from mental illness and died in unpleasant ways. A few days after leaving the hospital, Bill receives a call telling him that his mother died in a "fit of senile hysterics". After the funeral, Bill finds a notebook where his mother practiced writing love notes to send to him when he was young. Bill again visits his doctor, who is shocked to find that nothing appears to be wrong with him. However, on his way to lunch, he suffers a seizure and collapses. During the seizure, various memories of his infancy and childhood flash before him. Bill returns to the hospital, where his ex-girlfriend frequently visits him. His new doctor questions him, revealing that Bill cannot remember basic information about his life. After a brain exam, Bill is asked various questions and shown photographs that appear irregular or nonsensical. His doctor explains that Bill is having trouble understanding the difference between past and present tense, and it is implied that many of his childhood memories and family history could have been confabulated. Bill is allowed to go home for family care, but he arrives home to find no one there. He starts to repeat and then forget various tasks, such as buying food and going for walks, and he does not seem to understand that he is ill. His doctor eventually explains that he does not have long to live. Bill's outlook undergoes a stark change, such as noticing more of life's small details. This change is complemented by the film's animation style, with full-color photography of real-life images being merged into the animated scenery. Bill rents a car and starts driving to nowhere in particular, only to find that his instinct takes him to his childhood home. His uncle gives him the location of a nursing home where Bill can find his biological father, whom he has not seen since childhood. After spending time with his father, Bill forgives him and leaves to continue driving. Feeling his health failing further, Bill stops to lay down under a tree, and the film cuts to black. Rejecting the reality that Bill will almost certainly die under the tree, the narrator instead describes a different outcome: Bill becomes immortal, accomplishes many wonderful achievements, and outlives humankind and all future inhabitants of Earth. He survives until the death of the universe, looking up at the stars as they disappear one by one.

Selected at birth and legally adopted by a television studio following an unwanted pregnancy, Truman Burbank is the unsuspecting star of The Truman Show, a reality television program filmed and broadcast worldwide, 24/7, through hidden cameras. Truman's hometown, Seahaven Island, is set inside an enormous soundstage in Los Angeles, which allows Christof, the show's creator and executive producer, to control nearly all aspects of Truman's life. Truman's world is populated by actors and crew members who serve as his community while keeping him from discovering the truth. To prevent Truman from escaping, Christof has orchestrated various scenarios such as the "death" of Truman's father in a boating accident to instill thalassophobia, and has the cast reinforce Truman's anxieties with messages about the dangers of traveling and the virtues of staying home. Though the producers intend for Truman to fall in love with and marry a woman named Meryl, he develops feelings for an extra named Sylvia. Sympathetic to Truman's plight, Sylvia tries to tell him the truth, but is promptly fired and removed from the set. Truman marries Meryl, but their relationship is stilted and passionless, and he continues to dream of traveling to Fiji, where he was told Sylvia had moved, and living a happy life with her. In the real world, Sylvia joins "Free Truman", an activist group that calls for Truman's liberation from the show. As the show approaches its thirtieth anniversary, Truman notices unusual occurrences such as a stage light falling from the sky; an isolated patch of rain that falls only over him; a radio transmission describing his movements; and the reappearance of his father, who is rushed away by crew members before Truman can confront him. Inferring that the city somehow revolves around him, Truman questions his life and asks his closest confidants to help him solve the mystery. Truman's suspicions culminate in an attempt to escape the island, but increasingly implausible occurrences block his path. Eventually, he is caught and returned home under a flimsy pretext. There, he confronts Meryl and challenges the sincerity of their marriage. As he holds her at knifepoint, Meryl breaks character to call for help and is removed from the show. Hoping to bring Truman back to a controllable state, Christof reintroduces his father to the show under the guise of him having developed amnesia following the accident. The show regains its ratings, and Truman seems to return to his routines. One night, however, Christof discovers that Truman has begun sleeping in his basement. Disturbed by this change in behavior, Christof sends Truman's best friend Marlon to visit and discovers that Truman has disappeared through a makeshift tunnel. Christof suspends the broadcast for the first time in its history, leading to record viewing numbers. Truman is found sailing away from Seahaven, having conquered his fear of water. Christof resumes the transmission and, unable to fetch Truman by rescue boat, creates a violent storm in an attempt to capsize Truman's boat, ignoring the protests of the executive producers and his assistants. Truman nearly drowns but continues to sail until his boat strikes the wall of the soundstage. He finds a staircase leading to an exit door. As he contemplates leaving, Christof speaks to Truman, revealing the truth about the show and encouraging him to stay by claiming that there is no more truth in the real world than in his artificial one. Truman utters his catchphrase—"In case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night"—before bowing to the audience and exiting. Sylvia races to greet him as the executive producers end the program with a shot of the open exit door, leaving Christof devastated. Viewers around the world celebrate Truman's escape, before quickly becoming bored and switching to the other TV channels.

In 2032, American middle school teacher and former molecular biologist Ryland Grace wakes up from an induced coma on the interstellar spacecraft Hail Mary, suffering from amnesia. Grace learns that he is the sole survivor of a three-person crew that was traveling towards the Tau Ceti system, 11.9 light-years from Earth. In a series of flashbacks, Grace recalls that scientists discovered a "Petrova line" of infrared light stretching from the Sun to Venus; a substance in the line, dubbed "astrophage", was proliferating on the Sun's surface, dimming the Sun at a rate that would cause catastrophic global cooling within thirty years. The head of the Petrova Taskforce, Eva Stratt, recruited Grace to study the astrophage due to his background in speculative astrobiology. Grace discovered that astrophage was composed of unicellular organisms that absorb electromagnetic radiation from the Sun and expel it for propulsion. He also learned how to breed the astrophage on Earth. Grace joined Stratt's Project Hail Mary, an international "long-shot" mission to send a crewed spacecraft to Tau Ceti, the only star in Earth's solar neighborhood not occluded by astrophage. Grace helped to breed astrophage fuel for the ship, and planned the crew's research tasks. The flight to Tau Ceti would be a suicide mission, as the ship could only carry enough fuel for a one-way trip; any findings would have to return to Earth in smaller space probes. In the present, Grace encounters an alien spacecraft (" Blip-A ") that docks with the Hail Mary. It is made of a solid form of xenon, which Grace dubs xenonite. The ship's occupant is a rock-like, five-legged alien from Erid, a planet in the 40 Eridani A system. Grace names the alien "Rocky", deduces that Eridians "see" via echolocation, and creates a machine translation system to interpret Rocky's musical language. Rocky is a mechanical engineer, and the sole survivor of the Eridians' mission to save their own star from astrophage infection. Grace and Rocky agree to work together, and quickly become close friends. As neither can survive in the other's atmosphere, Rocky works aboard the Hail Mary inside a pressurized ball of xenonite. Grace and Rocky study the Petrova line of the planet Tau Ceti e, which Grace names "Adrian", and discover that the line hosts an entire microbial biosphere. Rocky theorizes that microbial organisms in Adrian's atmosphere are consuming the astrophage, keeping the population in check. Learning that Grace cannot return home, Rocky agrees to share some of his own ship's astrophage fuel with the Hail Mary. Grace remembers that an astrophage explosion killed the original crew's science officers; with no time to train replacements, Stratt asked Grace to join the suicide mission, but he fearfully refused. During a risky maneuver to gather the astrophage predator from Adrian's atmosphere, a fuel leak causes the Hail Mary to spin uncontrollably, rendering Grace unconscious. Rocky breaks out of his ball to save Grace, but is severely injured. While Rocky recovers, Grace studies the captured astrophage predator, dubbing it "taumoeba" and selectively breeding it to survive the nitrogen in Venus's atmosphere. Rocky revives, and the two celebrate their success; Grace then recalls that Stratt had him drugged and put aboard the ship, believing he was the only one capable of completing the mission. Rocky and Grace say their goodbyes and begin their journeys back home. Shortly thereafter, Grace discovers that the taumoeba has developed a way to escape its xenonite breeding tanks, and is starting to consume Hail Mary ' s astrophage fuel. Grace transfers the taumoeba to plastic containers, but realizes that, as Rocky's ship is made entirely of xenonite, he will have no way to contain the taumoeba on his ship; it will eat his fuel, stranding him and dooming Erid. Grace decides to rescue Rocky and the Eridians rather than return home, and sends his video logs and taumoeba samples to Earth via the probes. Stratt and her team use the taumoeba to cure the Sun's astrophage infection. Meanwhile, on Erid, Grace lives in an Earth-like biodome the Eridians have constructed for him. Rocky informs him that Eridian scientists are able to prepare the Hail Mary for a return to Earth. Grace ponders the news before beginning another day of teaching science to Eridian children.

In September 1936, amid the Great Depression, grifter Johnny Hooker and his partners, Luther Coleman and Joe Erie, con $11,000 in cash from an unsuspecting victim in Joliet, Illinois. Hooker loses his share of the con on a rigged roulette game, while Luther, buoyed by the windfall, decides to retire. He tells Hooker to seek out his old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago, to learn "the big con". Corrupt Joliet police lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing that their mark was a courier for vicious Irish-American crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Lonnegan's men murder Luther and the courier. After finding Luther dead, Hooker flees to Chicago. Hooker finds Gondorff drunk and in hiding from the FBI, running a carousel that is a front for a brothel, and asks for help taking down Lonnegan. Initially reluctant, Gondorff relents and recruits a team of experienced con men. They decide to resurrect an elaborate, obsolete scam known as "the wire", using a large crew to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Snyder and Lonnegan's men track Hooker to Chicago; Gondorff warns Hooker that if either of them finds him, the con will have to be called off. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited, Gondorff, posing as the boorish Chicago bookie "Shaw", buys into Lonnegan's private, high-stakes poker game, being facilitated by the train's conductor. "Shaw" infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior, then cheats him out of $15,000 ($ 348,022 in 2025). Hooker, posing as "Shaw's" disgruntled employee "Kelly", is sent to collect the winnings and convince Lonnegan to help him take over "Shaw's" operation – a tactic Lonnegan has used repeatedly to build his crime empire. Hooker returns home to find Lonnegan's men waiting to assassinate him, but he avoids their efforts. Their attempt spooks Gondorff, but Hooker convinces him to keep the con alive. Lonnegan, frustrated with his men's inability to kill Hooker for the Joliet con – and unaware that "Kelly" is Hooker – orders the job to be given to Salino, his best assassin. A mysterious figure, wearing black leather gloves, begins to follow and observe Hooker. Meanwhile, Snyder's pursuit of Hooker attracts the attention of undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders Snyder to bring Hooker in to entrap Gondorff. "Kelly" gives Lonnegan a tip on a 7-to-1 long shot in a horse race that pays off. When Lonnegan presses him for details, he reveals that he has a partner, "Les Harmon" (actually con man Kid Twist), in the Chicago Western Union office, who will help them topple "Shaw" by winning bets he books on horse races through past-posting. Lonnegan is convinced after being provided the trifecta of another race, and agrees to finance a $500,000 bet ($ 11.6 million in 2025) to break "Shaw" and get revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder captures Hooker and brings him before Polk, who forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to jail Luther Coleman's widow. Feeling despondent the night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with a diner waitress named Loretta. The next morning, as she walks toward him in an alley, the black-gloved man appears and shoots her dead before she can shoot Hooker. The man reveals to Hooker that Gondorff hired him to protect him, and that the waitress was, in fact, Salino. After "Harmon" telephones directions to "Place it on Lucky Dan", Lonnegan bets $500,000 at "Shaw's" parlor on the horse named Lucky Dan to win. As the race begins, "Harmon" arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan's bet: when he said "place it", he meant that the horse would "place" (i.e., finish second). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes to the teller window and demands his money back, at which point Polk, Snyder, and a half-dozen FBI agents storm the parlor. Polk tells Hooker he is free to go. Shocked at the betrayal, Gondorff shoots Hooker. Polk shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise ("bleeding" only from fake bullets) amid cheers and laughter. "Polk" is actually Hickey, a fellow con man, who has been running a con atop Gondorff's con with his "FBI agents" to divert Snyder and ensure that Lonnegan abandoned the money without ever realizing he was taken. As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, claiming he would lose it anyway, and walks away with Gondorff.

Kanji Lalji Mehta, a middle-class Gujarati atheist, owns a shop of Hindu idols and antiques in Mumbai. He mocks religious activities around him until one day, a low-intensity earthquake hits the city, with Kanji's shop being the only one destroyed; his family and friends blame this on his atheism. At the insurance office, Kanji learns that the disaster claim does not cover any damage caused by natural calamities classified under " Act of God." Running out of options, he decides to sue God but fails to find a lawyer for such a lawsuit. Hanif Qureshi, a working-class Muslim lawyer, helps him file the case after Kanji decides to fight on his own. Legal notices are sent to the insurance company as well as to religious people like Siddheshwar Maharaj, Gopi Maiyya, and their group's founder, Leeladhar Swamy, forcing them to court as representatives of God. As the court case commences and gains attraction for its bizarre quality, Kanji finds himself facing armed fundamentalists and harassment, with his mortgage provider occupying the house and his family leaving him. He is then rescued by Krishna Vasudev Yadav, who claims to be a real estate agent originally from Gokul, Uttar Pradesh, yet is also responsible for supernatural acts outside of the human realm. The lawsuit causes a public outcry. On Krishna's advice, Kanji goes to the media and gets wide coverage. Sympathisers join him in the lawsuit, causing the number of claims to skyrocket and Catholic fathers and Muslim Maulvis to also be forced as defendants. When the court demands written proof that the earthquake was an 'Act of God,' Krishna steers Kanji toward holy books such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran, and the Bible. Kanji reads them and finds a passage in each that says the world and all events are a creation of God and come from God's will alone. This strengthens his case and increases public support. However, Kanji suffers a stroke in court and is rushed to the hospital, where he goes into a coma and is paralyzed. When he opens his eyes after a month, he finds Krishna, who reveals that he is God and proves it by curing Kanji completely. He further reveals that while He created the entire world, animals and humans, religion was created by humans, and he was the one who destroyed Kanji's shop because he sought to punish the godmen who showed his fear to the public to earn money. He adds that he created the entire world and thus does not like to live in temples, contrary to what the godmen claim, and he is not interested in the offerings he gets from devotees. Instead, he created millions of humans who die of hunger and would be glad if those offerings were given to them instead. He figured out that an atheist like Kanji would end up exposing them if he destroyed his shop, and thus destroyed it by causing the disaster, and started to help him with the lawsuit by appearing as a human, befriending him, and revealing himself in his true form so that Kanji realises that although he does exist, he does not live in temples but in every creature he created. Kanji learns that the lawsuit's verdict was in his favour, and religious organizations were ordered by the court to pay the compensation to all the plaintiffs. As a result of this, people have begun revering Kanji himself as a god. Leeladhar, Gopi Maiyya, and Siddheshwar have taken advantage of this by opening a temple dedicated to Kanji and accumulating millions in donations. Krishna explains to Kanji that his job as God is to show people right and wrong – people do with it what they will. Moved by Krishna's words, Kanji breaks his own statue, admonishing the crowd about trusting in God-men and advises them to search for God in themselves and in others, not in statues; that God is everywhere, not just in temples, and faith should come from within. He tells them not to believe in fraudulent godmen, as their job is to turn religion into business. After successfully completing the job, he goes back to thank Krishna, only to find that he and his motorcycle have disappeared. Kanji's family arrives, and they get reunited. Kanji sees Krishna's keychain on the ground. When he is about to keep it, he hears Krishna's voice, telling him to get rid of the keychain, as fear of God and reliance on religious objects were what he'd fought against. Kanji smiles and throws it away, watching as it disappears into the sky with a flash.

In 1991, slacker and bowler Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, is attacked in his Los Angeles home by two enforcers for porn kingpin Jackie Treehorn, to whom a different Jeffrey Lebowski's wife owes money. One enforcer urinates on the Dude's rug before they realize they have the wrong man, and leave. After consulting his bowling partners, Walter Sobchak, a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, and Donny Kerabatsos, the Dude visits philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski ("the big Lebowski"), requesting compensation for the rug. Lebowski refuses, but the Dude tricks his assistant Brandt into letting him take a similar rug from the mansion. Outside, he meets Lebowski's much younger trophy wife, Bunny, and her German nihilist friend, Uli. Soon afterward, Bunny is apparently kidnapped, and Lebowski hires the Dude to deliver a ransom. That night, another group of thugs ambushes the Dude, taking his replacement rug on behalf of Lebowski's daughter, Maude. Convinced the kidnap was a ruse by Bunny, Walter fakes the ransom drop. He and the Dude return to the bowling alley, leaving the briefcase of money in the Dude's car. While they are bowling, the car is stolen. The Dude is confronted by Lebowski, who has an envelope from the kidnappers containing a severed toe, supposedly Bunny's. Maude asks the Dude to help recover the money her father illegally withdrew from the family's charity foundation. The police recover the Dude's car. The briefcase is missing, but the Dude finds a sheet of homework, signed by a teenager named Larry Sellers. Walter learns that Larry is the son of Arthur Digby Sellers, a writer for the television show Branded, which Walter reveres. The Dude and Walter visit Larry but get no information from him. An enraged Walter destroys a Corvette he thinks is Larry's, only to find out it belongs to a neighbor, who vandalizes the Dude's car in retaliation. Treehorn's thugs abduct the Dude and bring him to the porn kingpin, who demands to know where Bunny is. The Dude says Bunny faked her kidnapping and Larry has the money, then passes out from a spiked drink Treehorn gave him. He is briefly arrested while wandering intoxicated in Malibu. On his way home, Bunny, with all her toes, drives by, unnoticed by the Dude. Maude is waiting for the Dude at his home and has sex with him, wishing to become pregnant by a father with whom she will not have to interact. She tells the Dude that her father has no money of his own; he is dependent on an allowance that Maude gives him out of her inheritance from her late mother. The Dude and Walter confront Lebowski and find that Bunny has returned, having simply gone out of town. Bunny's nihilist friends took the opportunity to blackmail her husband, who in turn had tried to embezzle money from the family charity, blaming its disappearance on the blackmailers. The Dude believes the briefcase never contained any money. Walter suspects that Lebowski is faking his paralysis and lifts him out of his wheelchair, but his condition is real. Walter and the Dude are bowling when a rival bowler, Jesus Quintana, interrupts them. Walter had previously stated that he could not bowl on Saturdays since he is shomer Shabbos. Quintana implies that he does not believe Walter's excuse for not bowling on Saturday, threatens Walter and the Dude, and storms out. Outside the bowling alley, the nihilists set fire to the Dude's car and demand the ransom money. Walter fights them off, but Donny dies from a heart attack in the commotion. Unwilling to rent out an expensive receptacle at the funeral home, the Dude and Walter opt to put Donny's ashes in a coffee can instead. On a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Walter eulogizes Donny's death but ruins the moment by referring to his fallen comrades in Vietnam. As he scatters Donny's ashes, they are blown back onto the Dude by an updraft. As Walter tries to brush off the ashes, the Dude loses his temper and yells at him for everything that has happened. After Walter apologizes and consoles the Dude, the two go bowling. At the bowling alley, the Dude encounters the Stranger, the movie's narrator. Addressing the audience, the Stranger sums up the story, states that he remains inspired by the Dude, and reveals that Maude is pregnant with "a little Lebowski on the way."

In the fall of 1959, Todd Anderson begins his junior year of high school at Welton Academy, an Episcopal all-male preparatory boarding school in Vermont. He is assigned one of Welton's top students, Neil Perry, as his roommate, and meets Neil's friends: Knox Overstreet, Richard Cameron, Steven Meeks, Gerard Pitts, and Charlie Dalton. On the first day of classes, the boys meet their new English teacher, John Keating, a Welton alumnus who studied English literature at the University of Cambridge. Keating teaches them the Latin expression carpe diem, encouraging them to "seize the day". During his classes, he has the students take turns standing on his desk to demonstrate ways to look at life differently, tells them to rip out the introduction of their poetry books that explains a mathematical formula for rating poetry, and invites them to make up their own style of walking in a courtyard to form their individualism. These unusual methods attract the attention of strict headmaster, Gale Nolan. Upon learning that Keating had been a member of the unofficial Dead Poets Society during his time as a student, Neil restarts the club. He and his friends sneak off campus to a cave to read poetry. Keating's lessons and the conversations in the club encourage them to live on their own terms. Knox pursues Chris Noel, a cheerleader who is dating Chet Danburry, a football player whose family is friends with his. Neil discovers his love of acting and wins the role of Puck in a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream despite the disapproval of his authoritarian father, who wants him to attend medical school. Keating helps Todd come out of his shell when he takes him through an exercise in self-expression, resulting in his spontaneous composition of a poem in front of the class. Charlie publishes an article in the school newspaper on behalf of the Dead Poets Society recommending that girls be admitted to Welton. In response, Nolan paddles Charlie, attempting to force him to reveal the names of the other members of the Dead Poets Society; Charlie refuses. Keating gently admonishes him, advising the boys that one must assess all potential consequences of one's actions. On the eve of the play's opening performance, Neil's father discovers his involvement and demands that he quit. Neil performs in the play, but his father retaliates by telling him he plans to withdraw him from Welton and enroll him in Braden Military School in preparation for Harvard Medical School. Lacking support from his mother and unable to explain his feelings to his father, a devastated Neil commits suicide. At Neil's parents' request, Nolan investigates his death. Cameron shifts blame onto Keating to avoid punishment for his role in the Dead Poets Society, and he names the other members of the group. Charlie punches him for his betrayal and is expelled. Each of the boys is called to Nolan's office to sign a letter confirming Cameron's false allegations. Todd reluctantly signs under his parents' pressure, and Keating is fired. Nolan takes over Keating's English class. As Keating interrupts the class to gather his belongings, Todd confesses that the boys were pressured into signing the letter that led to his dismissal. Keating assures Todd that he believes him. Nolan threatens to expel Todd and anyone else who speaks out of line. Despite the threat, Todd stands up on his desk and says, " O Captain! My Captain! ". Several other members of the Dead Poets Society, along with several classmates, follow suit. Touched by their support, Keating proudly thanks the boys and departs.

In AD 932, King Arthur and his squire Patsy, who bangs coconut shells together as Arthur mimes riding a horse, travel Britain searching for men to join the Knights of the Round Table. Along the way, Arthur debates whether swallows could carry coconuts, passes through a town infected with a plague, recounts receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake to two anarcho-syndicalist peasants, and defeats the Black Knight. At an impromptu witch trial, he recruits Sir Bedevere the Wise, later joined by Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Galahad the Pure, Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, and the aptly named Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film, along with their squires and Robin's minstrels. Arthur leads the knights to Camelot, but changes his mind after the knights in the castle perform a musical number, deeming it "a silly place". God then appears and orders Arthur to find the Holy Grail. Arthur and his knights arrive at a castle occupied by French soldiers, who claim to have the Grail and taunt the Britons, driving them back with a barrage of barnyard animals. Bedevere concocts a plan to sneak in using a Trojan Rabbit, but forgets to tell the others to hide inside it; the Knights are forced to flee when it is flung back at them. Arthur decides the knights should go their separate ways to search for the Grail. Meanwhile, a modern-day historian filming a documentary on the Arthurian legends is killed by an unknown knight on horseback, triggering a police investigation. Arthur and Bedevere are given directions by an old man and attempt to satisfy the strange requests of the dreaded Knights Who Say "Ni!". Sir Robin avoids a fight with a Three-Headed Knight by running away while the heads are arguing amongst themselves. Sir Galahad is led by a grail-shaped beacon to Castle Anthrax, which is occupied exclusively by nubile young women, all of whom attempt to woo him, but is "rescued" against his will by Lancelot. Lancelot receives an arrow-shot note from the nearby Swamp Castle. Believing the author is a lady being forced to marry against her will, he storms the castle and slaughters several wedding party members, only to discover the author is an effeminate prince. Arthur and his knights regroup and are joined by Brother Maynard, his monk brethren, and three new knights: Bors, Gawain and Ector. They meet Tim the Enchanter, a pyromancer who directs them to a cave where the location of the Grail is said to be written. The entrance to the cave is guarded by the Rabbit of Caerbannog. Underestimating it, the knights attack, but the Rabbit easily kills Bors, Gawain and Ector. Arthur uses the " Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch ", provided by Brother Maynard, to destroy the creature; the police officers investigating the historian's murder hear the explosion and begin pursuing them. Inside the cave, they find an inscription from Joseph of Arimathea, directing them to "the Castle of Aarrgh". They are interrupted by an attack from the animated "Legendary Black Beast" that lives in the cave, which devours Brother Maynard and pursues the others. Arthur and the knights escape after the film's animator unexpectedly suffers a fatal heart attack, erasing the Black Beast. The knights approach the Bridge of Death, where the soothsaying bridge-keeper demands they each answer three questions in order to pass or else be cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. Lancelot easily answers simple questions and crosses. An overly cocky Robin is defeated by an unexpectedly difficult question, and an indecisive Galahad fails an easy one; both are magically flung into the gorge. When Arthur asks for clarification on a question regarding the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, the bridge-keeper cannot answer and is himself thrown into the gorge. Arthur and Bedevere cannot find Lancelot, unaware that he has been arrested by police investigating the historian's death. They find Castle Aarrgh occupied by the French soldiers from earlier in the film. After being repelled by showers of manure, they summon an army of knights and prepare to assault the castle. As the army charges, the police arrive, arrest Arthur and Bedevere on suspicion of the murder of the historian, and break the camera, abruptly ending the film.

In the late 1930s, the governor of an unnamed western state, Hubert "Happy" Hopper, appoints Jefferson Smith to replace deceased U.S. Senator Sam Foley. Smith is head of the Boy Rangers, and his appointment is supported by the governor's children. Corrupt political boss Jim Taylor sought the appointment of his handpicked stooge, while popular committees wanted another candidate. Smith, however, was chosen because his naivety about politics was expected to make him easy to manipulate. Smith is taken under the wing of the publicly esteemed, but secretly crooked, Senator Joseph Paine, who was Smith's late father's friend. Smith develops an immediate attraction to the senator's daughter, Susan. At Senator Paine's home, Smith has a conversation with Susan, fidgeting and bumbling, entranced by the young socialite. Smith's naïve and honest nature allows the unforgiving Washington press to take advantage of him, quickly tarnishing Smith's reputation with ridiculous front-page pictures and headlines branding him a yokel. To keep Smith busy, Paine suggests he propose a bill. With the help of his secretary, Clarissa Saunders, who was the aide to Smith's predecessor and had been around Washington and politics for years, Smith comes up with a bill to authorize a federal government loan to buy some land in his home state for a national boys' camp, to be paid back by youngsters across America. Donations pour in immediately. However, the proposed campsite is already part of a dam-building graft scheme included in an appropriations bill framed by the Taylor political machine and supported by Senator Paine. Unwilling to crucify the worshipful Smith so that their graft plan will go through, Paine tells Taylor he wants out, but Taylor reminds him that Paine is in power primarily through Taylor's influence. Paine then advises Smith to keep silent about the matter. The following day, when Smith speaks out about the bill in the Senate, the machine in his state — through Paine — accuses Smith of trying to profit from his bill by producing fraudulent evidence that Smith already owns the land in question. Smith is too shocked and angry by Paine's betrayal to defend himself and runs away. Saunders, who looked down on Smith at first, but has come to believe in him, convinces him to launch a filibuster to postpone the appropriations bill and argue his innocence on the Senate floor just before the vote to expel him. With coaching from the gallery by Saunders, Smith deflects several attempts to defeat his filibuster, and talks non-stop for hours, reaffirming the American ideals of freedom and disclosing the dam scheme's true motives. None of the senators are convinced. Constituents try to rally around Smith, but the entrenched opposition is too powerful, and all attempts are crushed. Owing to the influence of Taylor's machine, newspapers and radio stations in Smith's home state, on Taylor's orders, refuse to report what Smith has to say and even distort the facts against the senator. The Boy Rangers' effort to spread the news in support of Smith results in vicious attacks on the children by Taylor's gangsters. Although Smith's efforts appear to be in vain and his stamina is fading, the senators slowly begin to pay attention. Paine has one last card up his sleeve: he brings in bins of letters and telegrams from Smith's home state, purportedly from average people demanding his expulsion. Nearly broken by the news, Smith finds a small ray of hope in a friendly smile from the President of the Senate. Smith vows to press on until people believe him but immediately collapses in a faint. Overcome with the pangs of remorse, Paine leaves the Senate chamber and attempts to shoot himself, but is stopped by onlooking senators. He then bursts back into the Senate chamber, shouting a confession to the whole scheme, proclaiming Smith's innocence, and insisting that he must be expelled from the Senate instead of Smith, to Clarissa's delight.

Remy, a young rat with heightened senses of taste and smell, dreams of becoming a chef like his human idol, the late Auguste Gusteau. Conversely, the rest of his colony, including his older brother Émile and their father, Django, the clan leader, only eat for sustenance and are wary of humans. The rats live in an elderly woman's attic outside Paris, but when the woman discovers them, Remy becomes separated from the others during their hasty evacuation. Encouraged by an imaginary Gusteau, he explores until he finds himself on the roof of Gusteau's namesake restaurant. Remy sees the restaurant's new garbage boy, Alfredo Linguini, struggling to fix a leek soup he ruined. Remy sneaks in and improves the soup; Linguini notices and traps Remy while keeping his presence secret from Skinner, Gusteau's former sous-chef and the restaurant's new owner and head chef. Skinner confronts Linguini about the soup, but it is served by accident and unexpectedly becomes a hit. Colette Tatou, the restaurant's only female chef, persuades Skinner to keep Linguini and support Gusteau's motto, "Anyone can cook." Skinner demands Linguini replicate the soup but spots Remy, ordering Linguini to take him outside and kill him. Alone, Linguini realizes Remy understands him and persuades Remy to assist with cooking. Remy discovers that he can control Linguini's movements like a marionette by pulling on his hair while hiding under his toque. They recreate the soup and continue cooking at the restaurant. Colette begrudgingly trains Linguini but steadily appreciates him heeding her advice. Later, Remy reunites with his clan. After Remy tells Django that he intends to stay at the restaurant, Django shows him a group of exterminated rats to convince him that humans are dangerous, but Remy defies his warnings and leaves. Meanwhile, Skinner is shocked and enraged to discover through a letter from Linguini's late mother that Gusteau is Linguini's father, making him the rightful owner of the restaurant. After Skinner's lawyer verifies that Linguini is Gusteau's son, Skinner hides the evidence in an envelope; Remy steals the envelope and brings it to Linguini, who fires Skinner. The restaurant thrives as Remy's recipes become popular, and Linguini develops a romantic relationship with Colette. Food critic Anton Ego, who negatively reviewed the restaurant shortly before Gusteau's death, announces to Linguini that he will review the restaurant again the following day. After Linguini takes credit for Remy's cooking at a press conference, he and Remy have a falling out. As revenge, Remy leads his clan on a raid of the restaurant's pantries. Linguini arrives to apologize, but upon discovering the raid, he furiously expels Remy and his clan from the restaurant. The next day, Skinner captures Remy, who is quickly freed by Django and Émile. After returning to the restaurant, he and Linguini reconcile, and Linguini reveals Remy and his cooking techniques to his staff, who all immediately quit. Django, impressed by Remy's grit, summons the clan to help him cook while Linguini waits tables. Reminded of Gusteau's motto, Colette returns to help. Skinner and a health inspector attempt to interfere, but the rats tie them up, gag them and lock them in the pantry. Remy prepares confit byaldi, a variation of ratatouille, which evokes in Ego fond memories of his mother's cooking. Astonished and delighted, Ego asks to meet the chef and is stunned when introduced to Remy. The next day, he writes a glowing review, stating that he has come to understand Gusteau's motto and praising Remy without revealing that he is a rat. After Skinner and the health inspector are released and expose the rat infestation, Gusteau's is shut down, costing Ego his job and reputation. Remy, Linguini, and Colette open a bistro called La Ratatouille, which a now-happier Ego invests in and frequents. The rat colony settles into the bistro's attic as their new home.