In New York City, award-winning male model Derek Zoolander is at a low point; he is ousted as the top male fashion model by rising star Hansel McDonald, his roommates and colleagues Brint, Rufus and Meekus are killed in a "freak gasoline-fight accident". He decides to retire from modeling, ands attempts to reconnect with his southern New Jersey working-class relatives but the family rejects him. Meanwhile, fashion mogul Jacobim Mugatu and Derek's agent Maury Ballstein are charged by the fashion industry with finding a model who can be brainwashed into assassinating the new progressive-leaning Prime Minister of Malaysia, whose policies will prohibit them from retaining cheap child labor in the country. Upon seeing Derek's confusing behaviour at the awards ceremony, Mugatu hires Derek, whom he had never worked with, to star in the next runway show for his brainwashing plan. It involves Derek being conditioned to attempt the assassination when the song " Relax " by Frankie Goes to Hollywood is played. Zoolander agrees to work with Mugatu and soon faces off in a runway walk-off with Hansel only to be humiliated. Journalist Matilda Jeffries, feeling responsible for Derek's downfall as she wrote a scathing Time article about him, becomes suspicious of Mugatu's offer. She informs Derek of her concerns, but he ignores her. After receiving info through calls from former hand model J.P. Prewett, who keeps his hand preserved in a glass container, Matilda and Derek meet him in a cemetery. Prewett reveals that the fashion industry has been behind several of history's political assassinations, including Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and the brainwashed models are soon killed after they have completed their task. Prewett revealed that he was selected to assassinate Jimmy Carter, but was able to resist as hand models had different mindsets from regular models. Mugatu's cronies attack the group, forcing Derek and Matilda to flee. They go to Hansel's home, the last place they believe Mugatu will think to look. Derek, Hansel and Matilda bond, the two male models resolving their differences while partaking of Hansel's collection of narcotics and participating in an orgy with Matilda and others. Derek and Hansel break into Maury's office to find evidence of the assassination plot, but they cannot operate his computer to find them. Matilda is given information on Mugatu, learning his birth name was Jacob Moogberg, a washed-up 1980s musician who switched to the fashion industry. Derek goes to the runway and Mugatu's DJ plays a remix version of "Relax". This activates Derek's mental programming, only for it to stop after Hansel breaks into the DJ booth and shuts off the turntable. After Hansel smashes the computer on the floor much to Matilda's dismay (since he took her saying the incriminating files were "in the computer" literally), a guilt-ridden Maury admits to the conspiracy. Mugatu then attempts to kill the Prime Minister himself by throwing a shuriken at him, but Derek stops it by unleashing his ultimate model look, "Magnum". In Derek's rural hometown, his father Larry watches the event on television and proudly acknowledges Derek as his son while Mugatu is arrested for his crimes and swears vengeance on Derek. A few years later, Derek, Hansel and Maury start "The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too". Derek and Matilda have a son named Derek Zoolander Jr.

Brantley Foster is a recent graduate of college who has moved to New York City, where he has accepted an entry-level job as a financier. Upon arriving, he discovers that the company for which he is supposed to work has been taken over by a rival corporation. As a result, Brantley is laid off before even starting work. After several interviews for other jobs, he is unsuccessful due to over- or underqualification, or having no experience. Brantley ends up working in the mailroom of the Pemrose Corporation, directed by his "uncle" Howard Prescott, a distant relative he has never met. Pemrose was founded by Howard's father-in-law. Howard achieved the presidency by marrying his boss's daughter, Vera Pemrose. Brantley meets Vera by driving her home in a company limo at his employer's request. She persuades him to stay for a swim and seduces him. Seeing Howard arrive, Brantley and Vera realize that she is his aunt by marriage. She had seduced him out of revenge against her husband for having an affair with a woman at the office. Brantley changes as fast as he can and narrowly escapes the mansion without being spotted by Howard. After inspecting company reports, Brantley realizes that Howard and most of his fellow "suits" (executives) are making pointless or damaging decisions. He notices an empty office in the building due to one of Howard's frequent firings. Using his access to the mailroom and his understanding of the company, he creates and assumes the identity of Carlton Whitfield, a new executive. While handling two jobs (switching between casual apparel and business suits in the elevator), Brantley sparks romantic interest from Christy Wills, a fellow financial wizard who recently graduated from Harvard. Howard, unbeknownst to Brantley, is having an affair with Christy. When Howard asks her to spy on Carlton Whitfield, whom he suspects is a corporate spy for Donald Davenport, she falls in love with "Whitfield", not knowing he is actually Brantley. The Pemrose Corporation is preparing for its impending hostile takeover. If Davenport Corporation absorbs Pemrose in this merger, all workers will get fired, but Howard and his aide Art Thomas will retain their jobs as a favor for cutting money from areas to ease the takeover. Howard believes the company should cut every area, but that would ruin the company and make Davenport begin his hostile takeover. Brantley pitches the idea with Christy to expand the business to prevent the takeover. Later, at a corporate party at Howard and Vera's home, Vera introduces Brantley to three of New York's top financiers to whom he discusses his ideas about the company. Brantley's double identity is discovered when he, Christy, Vera and Howard end up in the same bedroom after the party. Brantley and Christy end their blossoming relationship. He gets fired from his job as Whitfield, as does Christy for refusing to continue her affair with Howard. Vera is divorcing Howard, since she found out about his affair with Christy and his plan to propose to her. While both Christy and Brantley are moving out of their offices, they end up in the same elevator and reconcile, conceiving a revenge plan together with Vera. They raise enough cash, bonds, and stocks to take control of the Pemrose Corporation and, with the help of the financiers from the party, proceed with a hostile takeover bid of Davenport's corporation. Vera, already hating Howard for his inept business practices which were driving her father's empire into the ground, tells the board that she now controls the majority of the voting stock. She promptly replaces him with Brantley, with Jean (Carlton's secretary), Christy and Melrose (Brantley's mailroom colleague) at his side to prevent the takeover and keep everyone's jobs safe. While security guards escort Howard and Art from the Pemrose Building, Brantley and Christy start planning their future together, personal as well as professional.

A case study demonstrates how individuals with lower IQ scores and incomes reproduce at greater rates than the more affluent and intelligent, reducing future humanity's average intelligence. In 2005, US Army librarian Joe Bauers is selected for a government suspended animation experiment as the most average individual in the armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a prostitute, Rita, by dismissing charges against her and paying off her pimp, Upgrayedd. A scandal involving the officer overseeing the initiative and Upgrayedd forces the closure of the military base under which Joe and Rita were placed in hibernation, suspending the project indefinitely. Over the next five hundred years, average intelligence decreases. As a result, infrastructure deteriorates, low comedy and vulgarity define culture, and consumerism is left unfettered. Five hundred years later, a garbage avalanche disturbs Joe and Rita's hibernation chambers. Joe awakens in Frito Pendejo's apartment in previously occupied DC. Asking for help, he is laughed at by the residents, who speak a mixture of "hillbilly, Valley Girl, inner-city slang, and various grunts." He enters a hospital, believing the army administered hallucinogenic drugs to him. Joe realizes the year upon reading a magazine and his hospital bill, but he is arrested at Carl's Jr. for not having a bar code tattoo and being unable to pay his bill. Joe is sent to trial; Frito represents him but alleges that he destroyed his apartment. The judge perceives Joe’s accent to have a homosexual demeanor, finding him guilty and sentencing him to prison. Rita resumes her job as a prostitute. Joe is sent to a correctional facility, where a faulty ID machine registers his name as "Not Sure" and takes a simplified aptitude test. He escapes from prison after deceiving a guard by saying he had served his sentence and was scheduled for release. Joe visits Frito, who agrees to guide him to a time machine —located within a large Costco store—after Joe promises to create a savings account in Frito's name when he returns to the 21st century, earning him billions in compound interest. Rita, Joe, and Frito enter the store, but Joe is arrested after his bar code is scanned. He is taken to the White House and appointed secretary of the interior by President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho due to extraordinary performance on the aptitude test. In an address, Camacho states that Joe will resolve unfruitful crop yields, dust storms, and a stagnant economy, among other issues, within a week or face imprisonment. Joe and Rita visit a crop field. Frito gives him a useless map to the time machine. Joe discovers that the country's crops are being watered with Brawndo, a sports drink whose parent company owns the FDA, the HHS, and the FCC; the concentration of electrolytes in Brawndo has destroyed natural topsoil, causing dust storms. Despite opposition to his plan in the form of circular reasoning from the Cabinet, Joe convinces Camacho to use water instead of Brawndo in irrigation. Consequently, Brawndo stocks severely depreciate, leaving half the country's citizens unemployed and Brawndo filing for bankruptcy, inciting riots as immediate improvement to the crops did not materialize. At the Extreme Court, Joe is sentenced to public execution in a monster truck demolition derby against undefeated rehabilitation officer Beef Supreme. Rita and Frito discover that Joe's reintroduction of water to the soil allowed crops to grow. Rita pays a cameraman to broadcast the crops on the stadium's Jumbotron, prompting Camacho to grant Joe a presidential pardon. After discovering that the time machine is just an amusement ride, Joe becomes president and marries Rita, with whom he has "the three smartest kids in the world". Frito is appointed as the vice-president, and with 8 wives, he ultimately begets "32 of the dumbest children to ever walk on Earth". The narrator states that while Joe did not single-handedly save mankind, he did set in motion the chain of events that eventually undid humanity's "dumbing-down".

Paul Giamatti is an actor who becomes so impassioned with the characters and roles that he plays that he has trouble disassociating himself from the character after the scene is done. As a result, his mind and spirit are a tangled mass of emotions that he seems to have trouble separating from his own feelings. As he struggles to play Uncle Vanya, he reads an article in The New Yorker regarding "Soul Storage," a procedural clinic that physically removes one's soul from his body. While hesitant at first to go through with such a procedure, being unsure how it would affect him, Paul decides to go ahead. On visiting the clinic he discovers that most souls come out as gray matter or clouds. He decides to go ahead, declining the offer to look at his soul as it happens. He is distressed to discover that his soul comes out looking just like a chickpea. He has it stored in the clinic and returns to his life with 5% of his soul remaining. He is told this is like residue, enough to leave him with some emotional reaction, like affection for his loved ones and hobbies but not very deep or complex feeling to new things. He at first feels more relaxed, however his life begins to fall apart; he has trouble associating with or making love to his wife Claire despite wanting to. Lacking in emotional intelligence in new situations, he is easily bored and says insensitive things, such as telling a friend to just "pull the plug" on her comatose mother, and his acting for the Chekhov play lacks believability. Not wanting his soul back just yet, he instead obtains the soul of what he is told is a Russian poet, whose memories entice him to be curious about her and her life as well as obtain a curiosity of his own. This Russian soul allows him to play Uncle Vanya excellently, but the experience overwhelms him and he decides to get his own soul back. Paul's world is turned upside down when Nina, a Russian soul mule who transports people's souls to and from Russia, steals Paul's soul for the wife of her boss at the Russian soul-storage operation, who aspires to be an actress. She receives Paul's soul, believing it to be the soul of Al Pacino. Her acting and happiness improve. Nina, the mule who carried Paul's soul and has become curious about him, eventually reveals the whereabouts of his soul, helping him to get it back. As the pair investigate the soul of Olga the poet, which he had 'rented' during this period, they learn that she committed suicide after not being able to get it back after selling it. Paul and Nina get his soul back, and after looking into it through the use of special goggles to reassociate himself to it, he returns to New York a happier man. Nina's soul is found, but Paul is told that it is unrecoverable due to the residues of souls that she has carried.

During the Civil War, Judah P. Benjamin, CSA Secretary of State and chief advisor to Jefferson Davis, successfully convinces France and Britain to aid the CSA militarily by framing the issue as one of "states' rights", not slavery. The combined troops defeat the Union at Gettysburg, and Ulysses S. Grant surrenders to Robert E. Lee in 1865. Abraham Lincoln attempts to flee the country with the help of Harriet Tubman, who disguises him in blackface, but the two are arrested by CSA troops in Michigan. Tubman is executed, while Lincoln is convicted of war crimes, imprisoned, and eventually exiled to Canada, where he stays until his death in 1905. The CSA annexes the North, Dixie becomes the nation's national anthem, and northern cities are burned and pillaged. Lee becomes remorseful when seeing the atrocities and advocates for emancipation, but Virginia congressman and wealthy slaveowner John Ambrose Fauntroy successfully campaigns for the continuation of slavery. The Davis Plan, which is overseen by Fauntroy and quickly revives the institution of slavery in the former Union, levies an income tax on all non-slaveowning northerners. Slave status is legally extended to all individuals of mixed-race descent per the one-drop rule. William Lloyd Garrison convinces 20,000 abolitionists to flee for Canada, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Wendell Phillips, and Susan B. Anthony, who will help lead Canada toward women's suffrage in 1912. After a slave murders two white children and runs away, doctor Samuel A. Cartwright uses his theory of drapetomania to encourage torture for potential runaway slaves. Fauntroy receives the Democratic presidential nomination in 1880, but suffers a stroke and dies two years later. Nevertheless, his family will become such a powerful influence in CSA politics that many will consider them royalty. In response to a gaunt period known as the "American Holocaust", Garrison and Frederick Douglass form the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement for Chattel People), which smuggles hundreds of slaves into Canada. The CSA demands Canada return all 'property', but Douglass's rhetoric sways Parliament into refusing, though many Confederates still demand reparations to this day. Native Americans are crushed in the 30-year Plains Indian Wars and their children sent to boarding schools; meanwhile, Congress in the 1890s legalizes the enslavement of Asian immigrants and bans all religions not based in Christianity (Catholicism will fall under Christianity after 'much debate'). Davis, close to death, strongly opposes the act because of Sec. Benjamin and his pleas convince young congressman Fauntroy II to add a clause allowing a small number of Jews to stay on the 'reservation' of Long Island. Literature of the time aims to reconcile and romanticize relations between the North and South by minimizing the desire to preserve slavery and the suffering of the enslaved in favor of the 'heroism' of both sides' white soldiers and the quest for the states' freedom. Seeking a 'tropical empire', the CSA conquers the Caribbean in 1900, then Mexico. The former reinstates a slave-based plantation economy, while the latter institutes apartheid. The CSA then exposes existing divisions within South America to conquer the entire continent, marking its bloodiest event since the Civil War. ' Manifest destiny ' becomes associated with a God-given right to dominate the entire world, not just the American West. By 1929, the entire Western Hemisphere, except Canada (and potentially Alaska), is under CSA rule, with the captured territories now named Mexican America, Southern America, and the Confederate Islands. The Great Depression cripples the Confederate economy and sends the nation into isolationism until Fauntroy II, now a senator, revives the slave trade with African nations, though it is implied these nations only participate on the basis that the CSA will now otherwise leave them alone. Meanwhile, the CSA builds friendly relations with Adolf Hitler, who invites the nation to collaborate with him to implement the Final Solution, though Secretary of State Fauntroy III tries to convince Hitler to enslave the Jews instead. While Hitler declines, he nonetheless becomes a good friend of the Fauntroy family. While the CSA remains neutral regarding World War II's European Theatre, they are the ones who bomb Japan on December 7, 1941, not the other way round, as they deem its empire a threat to CSA territorial expansion. The casualty rate of the Pacific War is so high that the enslaved are recruited to fight, starting with enslaved Japanese-Americans in the west and later extending to African-Americans under the promise of freedom. The 129th Fighting Bucks are assigned to the war's most dangerous missions and fight valiantly, but once the CSA declares victory, they are returned to their owners. The CSA enjoys a peaceful postwar boom until the John Brown Underground, a splinter group of the NAACP, wages 'a war against slavery' by attacking major cities across the CSA. The CSA demands that all JBU members be extradited, which Canada refuses. The events spur a nationwide paranoia against abolitionism and the construction of the Cotton Curtain, a wall against the Canadian border. When the JBU supposedly assassinates Fauntroy IV, the CSA launches an airstrike on Canada. The Summit Nations institutes a global embargo on the CSA to prevent further aggression against Canada (only South Africa remains an ally), causing the economy to contract and nationwide support of slavery to dip to less than 30%. As a result, Republican John F. Kennedy defeats Democrat Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, becoming the first president from the North since the CSA's founding. He promises a progressive new frontier for the CSA likely to include emancipation and women's suffrage, but is too distracted with international affairs, notably a cold war with Canada and the Vietnam War (which is deemed an 'expansion effort'), to enact many of these reforms. Meanwhile, Black Canadians prosper, and Canada becomes a hotbed of Black-inspired literature, music, and art, with talents like Elvis Presley and James Baldwin residing there rather than being censored and arrested in the CSA, whose culture has evolved little beyond 'government-inspired propaganda'. Canada also outperforms the CSA in the Olympic Games thanks to Black athletes. As close as social reform may seem, JFK's assassination shatters all progress, and violent slave rebellions flare up in L.A. and Newark. The Family Values Initiative of the 1980s and early 1990s, sponsored by Ronald Reagan 's Commerce Secretary Fauntroy V, attempts to steer the nation's moral track back toward trust in slavery, patriarchy, and heterosexuality, and modernizes the institution of slavery with innovations such as online slave shopping, which popularizes slave ownership amongst younger generations and generates $500,000,000 for the CSA annually. Fauntroy uses the momentum to launch a bid for the 2002 Democratic presidential nomination and invites BBS interviewers to boost his public image. However, the reporters are secretly given instructions to a rendezvous organized by JBU leader "Big Sam". There, the reporters are met by Horace, whose family has been enslaved by the Fauntroys for generations. He reveals on tape that Fauntroy I had an affair with Horace's great-great-grandmother, and that Fauntroy V is a descendant of the affair, making him mixed. The tape is published, and Fauntroy denies the accusations, claiming, " my great-granddaddy did not have sexual relations with that woman ", but declines to submit to a DNA test. The allegations cost Fauntroy the election, and he commits suicide on December 12, 2002. A mandatory DNA test is ordered and released days later; the results prove negative.

In Paris, Eddie Vuibert (Richard Anconina) is an unemployed man in financial difficulty. A rich Jewish cloth manufacturer takes Eddie into his corporation out of pity because he mistakenly believes him to be Jewish as well. Eddie rapidly integrates in the Parisian Jewish textile community and rises as a sales manager. He continues his masquerade of pretending to be Ashkenazi Jew in order to woo his boss's daughter (played by Amira Casar).

Sam Makin is a tough Brooklyn, New York City street cop and Vietnam-era Marine Corps veteran. He is unwillingly recruited as an assassin for a secret United States organization, CURE. The recruitment is through a bizarre method: his death is faked and he is given a new face and a new name. Rechristened "Remo Williams" (after the name and location of the manufacturer of the bedpan in Makin's hospital room), his face is surgically altered and he is trained to be a human killing machine by his aged, derisive and impassive Korean martial arts master Chiun. Though Remo's training is extremely rushed by Chiun's standards, Remo learns seemingly impossible skills such as dodging bullets and running on water and wet concrete. Chiun teaches Remo a Korean martial art named Sinanju (the "Sun Source" of all martial arts). Remo's instruction is interrupted when he is sent by CURE to investigate a corrupt weapons procurement program within the U.S. Army.

Billy Madison is a dimwitted, immature, and spoiled 27-year-old heir to Madison Hotels, a Fortune 500 company founded by his father, Brian Madison. Rather than preparing to take over the family business, Billy spends his days partying with friends and causing chaos on the estate. After he embarrasses his father during an important dinner meeting, Brian, who is retiring soon, decides to hand control of the company to his conniving vice president, Eric Gordon. When Billy pleads for another chance, Brian reveals that he bribed teachers to help Billy pass school. The two strike a deal: Billy must complete grades 1 through 12, spending two weeks on each grade, to prove he is capable of running the company. Billy returns to elementary school, where he gradually earns the respect of his classmates and third grade teacher, Veronica Vaughn, especially after standing up for a fellow student. Billy's rapid academic progress alarms Eric, who learns elementary school principal Max Anderson was once the professional wrestler called "the Revolting Blob", who accidentally killed an opponent in the ring. He uses this knowledge to blackmail Max into falsely claiming that Billy bribed him. As a result, Brian cancels the agreement and reinstates Eric as his successor. Discouraged, Billy drops out, but Veronica and his former classmates convince him to return. Max later confesses the truth, and Brian allows Billy to resume the challenge. When Eric objects, Billy proposes an academic decathlon to settle the matter. After a series of competitive events, Billy takes a narrow lead. In the final round—a Jeopardy! -style quiz—Eric selects "reflections of society in literature" for Billy's final category. Billy fumbles his answer but selects " business ethics " for Eric's final category. Unable to respond, Eric suffers a breakdown, pulls a gun on Billy, and is stopped by Max, who dons his Revolting Blob costume. Eric then attempts to harm Veronica but is shot by Danny McGrath, a former classmate Billy once bullied and later apologized to. At graduation, Billy announces that he will not take over Madison Hotels, but instead, he entrusts the company to loyal operations manager Carl Alphonse. Billy expresses his desire to go to college and pursue a teaching career, while a defeated and injured Eric watches in frustration.

John Hancock is an alcoholic, reckless superhuman imbued with flight, invulnerability, and super-strength. Acting as a haphazard and unrefined superhero in Los Angeles, he is shunned, ridiculed and hated by the public for his drunken and careless crime fighting acts and rude and unpleasant disposition. Hancock rescues Ray Embrey, a community-minded but struggling public relations specialist, from an oncoming train, but also accidentally derails it in the process. In gratitude, Ray offers to help improve Hancock's public image and hopes that he will be the spokesperson for his charitable brand, "All Heart". Hancock meets Ray's family, his son Aaron, and his wife Mary, who is suspicious of him. Ray encourages Hancock to issue a public apology and surrender himself to local authorities, hoping that it will build public confidence in Hancock and create demand for him to return. Hancock reluctantly agrees and is placed in prison where he easily fends off attacks from other inmates but struggles to connect with his support groups for alcohol abuse and anger management. Ray visits frequently, encouraging Hancock to be patient, and later Ray's family visits as well, bringing him homemade spaghetti with meatballs. The crime rate in Los Angeles rises and Hancock is eventually released to help. Sporting a new leather super suit, he successfully rescues a wounded police officer during a bank robbery shootout and hostage situation orchestrated by Red Parker, ending when Hancock prevents Parker from using a ' dead man's switch ' by slicing off his hand and turning both over to the police. The public applauds Hancock as a hero and the officers praise him for ending the crisis without loss of life. Hancock has dinner with Ray and Mary and reveals that he is an amnesiac and immortal, having woken up in a hospital 80 years ago with no memory of his identity. Ray tells Hancock that Mary is Aaron's stepmother and that his biological mother had died in childbirth. Carrying a drunk Ray home, Hancock kisses Mary, who kisses him back but then throws him through the wall, revealing that she also has superpowers. The next day, Hancock and Mary speak in private. She explains that ancient cultures called them gods or angels (and now superheroes) and that there were more like them in the past; however, their peers inevitably bonded in pairs as soulmates, lose their powers in the process, live human lives and eventually die. When Mary refuses to answer questions about their connection, the two begin a brawl that moves through L.A. During the fight, Mary reveals that they were together for three thousand years and are the last of their kind, but the two stop fighting when they reach Ray, who confronts them about the secrecy. Hancock leaves and stops a store robbery, but he is shot and finds that a bullet has hurt him. While receiving hospital treatment, Mary explains that the closer they are, the more mortal they become, and they will lose their powers unless they stay apart. The last time Hancock and Mary were together was eighty years ago when Hancock was attacked and she fled so that his powers would return. Parker escapes prison with several inmates and attacks the hospital to get revenge. Mary is caught in the crossfire and injured. Hancock manages to use some of his fading strength to fight and kill the convicts but is injured when Parker shoots him. Ray saves him by cutting off Parker's other hand with a fire axe before killing him. Hancock throws himself out of the hospital, trying to increase his distance from Mary so they can both recover, before flying off. A month later, Ray and his family receive a call from Hancock (who is now in New York City), revealing that he has imprinted the Moon's surface with Ray's "All Heart" marketing logo. In a mid-credits scene, Hancock confronts a criminal holding a woman at gunpoint and demanding that he help him escape from the police. Hancock shows restraint when dealing with the criminal but does smile when the gunman insults him indicating that the felon is about to have a bad day.

Trolls are small, colorful, perpetually happy creatures who like to sing, dance and hug all day. They are discovered by the Bergens, large, hideous and miserable creatures who believe they can only feel happy by consuming a Troll. The Bergens imprison the Trolls in a caged tree, and eat them once a year on a special occasion called "Trollstice". On the year that Bergen Prince Gristle, son of King Gristle Sr., is due to eat his first Troll, the chef in charge of the ceremony discovers that the Trolls, under the leadership of King Peppy, have managed to escape. King Gristle banishes Chef from Bergen Town, and she vows to find the Trolls, secretly plotting to overthrow the monarchy as revenge. That night, Gristle asks his father what will make him happy now that they can't celebrate Trollstice without the trolls. However, he stupidly and wrongly claims to his face that there is no other way, and any chance for happiness has been irretrievably lost. This pushed his son's into a long-term depression. Twenty years later, Peppy's daughter Princess Poppy organizes a gigantic party to celebrate the anniversary of their escape. A serious, gray Troll named Branch warns that this could expose their home, but everyone ignores him. However, his forebodings are justified; Chef notices the party fireworks, follows them to Troll Village, and kidnaps Poppy's friends, including her Boyfriend and minister, a " zen " Troll named Creek. While the rest of the Trolls take refuge in Branch's survival bunker despite his objections, Poppy sets off alone to rescue her friends. She gets herself into several potentially deadly situations and is finally rescued by Branch, who thinks her quest is hopeless and only followed her to escape his crowded bunker. After encountering further challenges, Poppy and Branch meet a mischievous Cloud Guy, who leads them to Bergen Town. The pair sneak into the castle of the new King, Gristle Jr. They witness Chef apparently feeding Creek to King Gristle, but Poppy still holds out hope that Creek is alive. They find the other captives being guarded by a young scullery maid named Bridget; after learning that Bridget is secretly in love with Gristle, Poppy and the Trolls agree to help her get a date with him in exchange for her help in ascertaining whether or not Creek is still alive. When Branch refuses to sing along with the others in the ensuing musical number, he and Poppy argue, and he reveals that, as a child, his loud singing inadvertently led Chef to his home, and she took away his grandmother Rosiepuff and ate her up. Branch's bitterness and grief caused his colors to fade into gray, and he swore never to sing again. The Trolls use their powers to disguise Bridget as "Lady Glittersparkles", and she and Gristle go on a date at a roller rink / arcade restaurant. During the date, Poppy spots Creek being held captive inside a jewel on Gristle's mantle. Afterwards, the Trolls leave Bridget and go to rescue Creek, but are all captured by Chef when Creek sells them out in exchange for his own life being spared. Creek steals a horrified Poppy's cowbell and uses it to lure the rest of the Trolls out of hiding. They are rounded up by the Bergens, and imprisoned in a large cooking pot. Blaming herself for the situation and realizing Branch was right the whole time, Poppy becomes embittered, and her colors turn to gray. Saddened, the other Trolls lose their colors as well. Branch, however, overcomes his fear by singing "True Colours" to cheer Poppy up, revealing that he was in love with her; this successfully brings back both of their colors, and those of the other Trolls. Bridget, grateful to the Trolls for helping her, secretly releases them from the pot while Chef is not looking. Poppy refuses to let Bridget be punished for their escape, so she and the Trolls return to Bergen Town, reveal Bridget's true identity to the Bergens, and explain that she and Gristle are happily in love with each other. This shows the rest of the Bergens that they can find happiness within themselves without eating the Trolls, and the two sides celebrate together in song, ending their feud. Chef refuses to accept the peace, so she and Creek are sent rolling out of Bergen Town on a flaming serving cart, while King Peppy crowns Poppy the queen of the Trolls. Meanwhile, the flaming cart rolls to a stop atop what appears to be a hill. Chef tries to eat Creek, but the "hill" reveals itself to be a huge monster, which eats them both.

Former student radical Moses Wine now works as a private investigator. He is contacted by Lila, an ex-girlfriend from his college days, who is working in the election campaign for Miles Hawthorne, a politician who is running to be Governor of California. Lila takes Moses to meet Hawthorne's campaign coordinator Sam Sebastian, who is concerned about a fake campaign flyer supposedly showing former Berkeley radical Howard Eppis together with Hawthorne and endorsing him. Knowing that Moses was a former contemporary of Eppis, Sam hires him to find out if Eppis is behind it. Eppis was one of a notorious group of radicals known as the California Four and has been in hiding for years. Moses sets about trying to track him down by contacting some of his old associates. He is given the name of Oscar Procari Jr, the son of a businessman and a supporter of Eppis, who proves elusive. Meanwhile, Moses and Lila visit the printing company and trace the order for the flyers to an electronics store owned by a Korean man, Harold Pak Chung, who disappears after Moses tracks him to a casino. Moses then finds Lila murdered in her apartment. Later he meets with Sam, who seems more concerned about the publicity and the effect it will have on Hawthorne's campaign. Rather than be fired, Moses quits. Moses encounters a woman named Alora and discovers she is the niece of another of the California Four, Luis Vasquez, who says that her uncle met Lila on the night she died and has now disappeared. Procari's father contacts Moses and they meet. Procari says that he hasn't seen his son in years and blames Eppis for turning his son away from him. Procari offers to pay Moses to find his son, but Moses declines. Meanwhile, Sam re-hires Moses as Eppis has contacted him threatening a series of bombings but that the police think it is a hoax. Sam gives him a typewritten note with an address, which Moses visits and discovers Eppis now living a comfortable suburban lifestyle and no longer a radical. Moses is followed to the address by two hitmen, who burst in and try to kill them, but leave when Moses triggers an alarm. The hitmen try to kill Moses again at his office, but Alora and her associates ambush them. They interrogate the hitmen and find they were hired by Pak Chung and that they killed Lila when they kidnapped Vasquez, but don't know where he is being held. Moses calls the police to warn them about the bombings. Pak Chung has rigged a van with explosives and drives it by remote control while Luis Vasquez is unconscious at the wheel. Moses finds Pak Chung near one of the target sites and kills him before he can carry out the bombing. A tape recording is found nearby supposedly by Eppis claiming responsibility for the bombing. Later Sam reveals himself as Oscar Procari and that his father was behind Pak Chung and the attempt to fix the election by implicating Hawthorne with Eppis.

Bernard Lawrence is an American journalist stationed in Paris. A playboy, he has devised an ingenious system for juggling three girlfriends: he dates flight attendants who are assigned to international routes on non-intersecting flight schedules so that only one is in the country at any given time. He has their routes detailed with such precision that he can drop off his British United Airways girlfriend for her outgoing flight and pick up his inbound Lufthansa girlfriend on the same trip to the airport, while his Air France girlfriend is in a holding pattern elsewhere. With help from his long-suffering housekeeper Bertha, who swaps the appropriate photos and food in and out of the apartment to match the incoming girlfriend, Lawrence keeps the women unaware of each other's presence in the apartment. They regard Lawrence's flat as their "home" during their Paris layovers. Bernard is so happy with his life in Paris that he intends to turn down an imminent promotion that would require him to move to New York City. But his life is turned upside down when his girlfriends' airlines begin putting new, state-of-the-art jet aircraft into service. These faster airplanes change all of the existing route schedules and allow flight attendants to spend more time in Paris. Most alarming for Bernard, his three girlfriends will now all be in Paris at the same time. Robert Reed, a fellow journalist and an old acquaintance, complicates Bernard's life even further when he arrives in town and is unable to find a hotel room. He insists on staying in Bernard's apartment for a few days. When he sees Bernard's living situation, he schemes to take over Bernard's apartment, girls, housekeeper and job while manipulating Bernard into taking the new job in New York.