Set in 2067, the narrator tells how the world is a happier place, as meat eating (" carnism ") is banned and veganism prevails. Young people express their disbelief on how people could have ever killed and eaten animals. Yasmine Vondenburgen, a psychotherapist, holds support sessions for former carnists to lift the guilt of carnism. In one session, Davina breaks down after naming Edam as a cheese she once ate. The film goes back to 1944, to the establishment of The Vegan Society, and rationing of meat due to war, which ends in 1954. Fanny Cradock promotes carnism in theatre and TV. In the 1970s and 1980s, US food companies disguise meat as toys children would like to eat, using figures like Ronald McDonald to attract them. Intensive farming leads to BSE crisis and foot-and-mouth disease. From 2004, many diseases grow due to consumption of processed meats. The film then returns to 2067, with young people using new VR technology to experience eating meat. They stop after a while, unable to process it. Going back to 2017, the film shows how celebrity chefs like Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall promote carnism instead of veganism. It shows the rise in veganism, helped by people like JME, who inspires Troye King Jones. King Jones then writes a book and makes feature films on veganism. Maude Polikoff, former erotic dancer, reveals she left the career as milk and dairy were used in a sexualised way, in spite of being unethically obtained. Vondenburgen explains how the hierarchy of the British monarchy led to humans believing they should be above animals. The UN urges people to cut down on meat, due to climate change. This is ignored, and the UK faces floods. Lindsay Graber, a victim of these, explains climate change due to meat on TV. Veganism is promoted by TV presenters, but it is ignored, and in 2021 the UK faces a Super Swine Flu, killing many. Intensive farming is banned to prevent a re-occurrence, but this hikes up costs of meat, and many people are confused over what to eat. In 2023, this Era of Confusion is broken by a new celebrity chef Freddy Jayashankar, who re-introduces a plant based Eastern cuisine. It is revealed that King Jones and Jayashankar are in a relationship. Later, a film, Dorothy is Still Dorothy, is broadcast by the BBC featuring Dorothy, a woman with Alzheimer's who forgets that eating a chicken is normal, much to the annoyance of her son Jeff. In 2024, a musical featuring Amelie dressed as a cow is made, which exposes the horrors of the dairy industry. Albania wins the Eurovision Song Contest by a vegan song. Meanwhile, Graham Watkins speaks out against veganism, harassing vegans on streets and in restaurants. A TV show, Mike's Meat House, mocking veganism is started, but cancelled after four episodes. Graber returns to TV to explain harsh environmental effects of beef, and suggesting a ban on it, which is not accepted by the British, leading to riots. King Jones appears for an interview on Newsnight. Shortly after that, he is murdered and cannibalised, allegedly by a member of the Great British Meat League. This sparks a revolution, with major food companies including McDonald's and KFC turning vegan, and 75% of UK at least vegetarian; yet there is a reluctance for criminalising carnism. Watkins, with other carnists, states illogical reasons defending carnism. All such arguments are resolved by the invention of a Thought Translator, allowing animals to communicate freely with humans using the recorded voice of Joanna Lumley. The unethical practices of the egg industry are explained. In 2035, the Bill of Animal Rights is finally passed, criminalising carnism. The animals who were victims of the industry are sent to recovery centres. Coming back to 2067, the Clifton Abattoir is now a museum to explain the horrific dairy industry of the past. The young and old apologise to each other. The film ends with the support group successfully naming the fish they had once eaten.

The story begins in 1994. An outstanding student, Shen Chia-yi, is popular among her teachers and classmates. Ko Ching-teng, a mischievous and poor student, claims that he has no interest in her, despite being her classmate since junior high school. When Chia-yi forgets her textbook, Ching-teng gives her his, pretending that he is the one who forgot, and is punished by the teacher. Touched, Chia-yi prepares practice exams for him to encourage him to get better grades, and they grow closer, with Ching-teng's grades gradually improving. Chia-yi stands up for Ching-teng against a teacher and is punished, earning Ching-teng's and his friends' respect. On graduation, Ching-teng enrolls at the National Chiao Tung University. Chia-Yi, who was ill during examinations and performed poorly, only manages to enter the National Taipei University of Education with her mediocre test results. Depressed and upset, she is consoled by Ching-teng, who calls her long-distance almost every night from his university. During the winter holiday season that year, the two go on their first "date", during which Ching-teng asks Chia-yi if she likes him. However, fearing she would say no, he decides that he would rather not hear her answer. Ching-teng later organizes a fight night and invites Chia-yi to watch, hoping to impress her with his strength, but instead she finds it childish and disturbing. This upsets Ching-teng, sparking a quarrel that causes the two to stop speaking. During the years after their split, Ching-teng has no contact with Chia-yi. He qualifies for a graduate research course at Tunghai University, where he begins writing stories online. The two briefly make contact after the 1999 Jiji earthquake, when Ching-teng calls to see if Chia-yi is okay. They both reflect that they were not fated to become a couple. Ching-teng begins writing a web novel inspired by their relationship. Years later, in 2005, Chia-yi calls Ching-teng to tell him that she is getting married. All of their old friends gather at the wedding, reminiscing about their youth and friendships. When they gather to congratulate the bride and groom, the friends demand to kiss the bride, and the groom jokingly responds that they must kiss him the way they would kiss her. Ching-teng surprises everyone by kissing the groom passionately. While doing so, he imagines sharing the kiss with Chia-yi instead, with all of the bittersweet memories of their youth being flashed back.

In a dilapidated apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, food is in short supply and grain is used as currency. On the ground floor is a butcher 's shop, run by the landlord, Clapet, who posts job opportunities in the newspaper to lure victims to the building, whom he murders and butchers as a cheap source of meat to sell to his tenants. Following the murder of the last worker, unemployed circus clown Louison applies for the vacant position. Louison proves to be a superb worker with a spectacular trick knife, and the butcher is reluctant to kill him too quickly. During Louison's routine maintenance, he acquires a package dropped by a mailman. Louison delivers the package to Clapet's daughter, Julie, who says the package contains confections and invites him to join her that evening. Louison and Julie's relationship blossoms into romance. At the same time, several of the tenants fall under Louison's boyish charms, worrying others who are more anxious for their own safety should they require meat. Clapet tells apartment tenant Marcel Tapioca that his rent is late and he must give up his mother-in-law as payment. That evening, Julie begs her father to let Louison go, knowing that Clapet is killing tenants for meat. She goes to her apartment, unwraps a newspaper in her refrigerator and sees an article about the Troglodytes, a group of vegetarian rebels who live underground. Julie descends into the sewers to make contact with the feared Troglodytes, whom she persuades to help rescue Louison. Following the apparent butchering of Tapioca's mother-in-law, the Troglodistes go through the sewer pipes and attempt to capture Louison, but end up mistakenly capturing tenant Mademoiselle Plusse instead. Meanwhile, as Julie and Louison watch television, Clapet ascends to the roof, shaking the television antenna to lure Louison into going up to fix it. Attacking Louison with a cleaver, Clapet's attempt to kill him is foiled by an unexpected electrical explosion in one of the apartments. Clapet, along with some tenants, storms Louison's room in another attempt to murder him. Louison and Julie take refuge in a bathroom and flood it, floor to ceiling, until Clapet opens the door, releasing the flood and washing the attackers away. Mademoiselle Plusse escapes the sewers, finds Louison's boomerang knife, and gives it to Clapet. Clapet throws the knife towards Louison, but inadvertently kills himself. Louison and Julie play music together on the roof of the now peaceful apartment building, and the butcher's shop closed for good.

In 1991, Maksymilian "Max" Paradys and Albert Starski volunteer themselves for the first human hibernation experiment, created by professor Wiktor Kuppelweiser. Instead of being awakened 3 years later in 1994 as planned, they wake in the year 2044, in a post-nuclear world. They think they are in a clinic being taken care of by women; Max becomes attracted to Lamia Reno. After asking for professor Kuppelweiser, they are informed that he "doesn't exist", and that there was a war long ago and that males have long been extinct. The men are under constant surveillance; Lamia informs them their society reproduces without males through parthenogenesis. During a briefing, Max kisses Lamia, for which she knocks him down and threatens both men with euthanasia. However, the kiss causes Lamia's drug-inhibited passions to resurface. She finds the oldest living woman Julia Novack, who tells Lamia that the old world with two sexes should be restored. After several days, Max and Albert are permitted to go out to meet with Her Excellency, the supreme ruler of women. Waiting for her in the bio-sanctuary, they spot a tree with two tiny apples and eat them, having had enough of synthetic food. At the meeting they ask what womankind did to mankind. The women reply the extinction of men is not their fault, but Kuppelweiser's, who, during the war, invented an agent which was supposed to temporarily paralyze male genes, but instead destroyed male genes permanently. Max proposes he and Albert serve as reproducers to restore the male population. However, the women do not wish the old order to return; Her Excellency gestures to the "sacred apple tree " and says it was planted by Arch Mother, and from which, when once in paradise, a male took an apple and seduced a woman with it, by which act paradise was lost. Noticing the missing apples, Her Excellency becomes enraged and demands the men be confined again. Max and Albert escape by damaging the electric power grid, but are ultimately caught. The women provide them to submit themselves for "naturalization" - undergoing a sex reassignment surgery. When they refuse, the ceiling above the room reveals an assembly of women to determine their fate. In a trial, the women blame males for oppression, evil and vices, and praise their new society. They engage in historical revisionism by claiming that scientists such as Copernicus, Einstein and Pincus were women. When Max and Albert are taken away, the assembly votes on whether the men should undergo forced 'naturalization' or be 'liquidated'. Naturalization is passed by one vote. The men escape again, and encounter other women who have never seen a man. They are cornered by the security team and escape down a waste chute. They discover the nest of "decadency" - one of the anarchist, " hippie " women's groups, who do not wish to be part of the oppressive regime, playing loud music, and some engaging in lesbian relations. They mistake Max and Albert for government spies and, in the meantime, the pursuing regime forces attack, and subsequent chaos provides the men with an opportunity to escape. During their escape, the men stumble upon Lamia, who provides them with a way to see the outside - a periscope - and reveals that they live deep underground in expanded old mines. The periscope shows a dark, rocky landscape above ground, and sensors indicate high levels of "Kuppelweiser radiation ", a side effect of the M bomb. However, it transpires that Lamia's "help" was a ruse to capture the men and force them into surgery. Lamia is congratulated by Tekla and Emma Dax, but they also inform her that their section will now be in charge of the males, which devastates Lamia. In the hands of Tekla, the fate of the males is to be different. Their organs will be extracted for transplantation, and their remains will be tested as a food source due to a protein shortage. The chief surgeon, Dr Yanda, an old lady, is revealed to be Max's daughter, who now delights in taking revenge for his abandonment of his wife and child in favor of hibernation for profit. Lamia sabotages the surgery and helps the men escape as revenge for Tekla and Dax taking the men and her research. In the periscope room Lamia tells the guards she will blast the whole block if they do not give her the code activating a capsule reaching the surface, while Max and Albert find and change into protective suits. The guards claim that only Her Excellency knows the password required; enraged, Max shouts "kurwa mać!" (a popular Polish profanity as versatile as " fuck " in English, lit. " mother's a whore"), and the capsule is activated. Exploring the barren surface, Max bumps against an invisible barrier and is unable to go further. He cuts the fabric of the barrier, revealing a dazzling light. They all go through the hole and find themselves on a beach, the periscope area surrounded by a small tent-like structure with the barren landscape panorama painted on the inside of the canvas. They reach a forest, but the suits are running out of oxygen. Max points skyward to a flying stork and declares "if it can live, it means we can live too". After removing the suits, they come across a villa with food. While eating in the garden, they are found by Emma; armed with a harpoon, she demands their surrender, but she faints from lack of oxygen. Albert performs CPR on her. When she regains consciousness, Emma begins to fight with Albert; on the TV they see an official government broadcast of events, stating that Lamia and Emma are dead and including an interview with "naturalized" Max and Albert, who claim to be feeling well. Emma is shocked, unable to understand such lies and all the strange environment "with too much air". Max goes with Lamia to a bedroom and tries to explain to her what mating is, while Albert tries his luck with Emma. In the living room, Her Excellency emerges from the elevator hidden within a closet to feed her caged birds. When she opens the wardrobe, she is attacked by Max who was hiding inside. Her Excellency's breasts and hair are stripped, revealing that 'she' is a male in disguise. 'Her' Excellency tells the men that after the war, when the League of Women took power, the few boys remaining were naturalized into girls, but he was hidden by his mother. Growing up in a female disguise, he joined the League and was eventually elected 'Her Excellency'. He was too afraid of women to form a relationship with any and, by revealing himself, to try to restore the old order. The government has been exaggerating the radiation level to keep the inhabitants easier to control; likewise, the inhabitants are medicated to remove sexual desire. The three make a deal: Max and Albert will not compromise 'Her' Excellency's true identity, but they will stay in his home with Lamia and Emma. Later, Max and Albert, disguised as laboratory workers, add male gametes to flasks in the incubation centre. Months later, a nurse, routinely wrapping newborns in blankets, is horrified to see a penis.

Griffin Mill is a Hollywood studio executive dating story editor Bonnie Sherow. He hears story pitches from screenwriters and decides which have the potential to be made into films, green-lighting only twelve out of 50,000 submissions every year. His job is threatened when up-and-coming exec Larry Levy begins working at the studio. Mill has also been receiving death threat postcards, assumed to be from a screenwriter whose pitch he rejected. Mill surmises that the disgruntled writer is David Kahane, and Kahane's girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir tells him that Kahane is at the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena, at a screening of The Bicycle Thief. Mill pretends to recognize Kahane in the lobby and offers him a scriptwriting deal, hoping this will stop the threats. The two go to a nearby bar where Kahane gets intoxicated and rebuffs Mill's offer, calling him a liar and continuing to goad him about his job security at the studio. In the bar's parking lot, the two men fight. Mill goes too far and drowns Kahane in a shallow pool of water while screaming, "Keep it to yourself!" Mill then stages the crime to make it look like a botched robbery. The next day, after Mill is late for and distracted at a meeting, studio security chief Walter Stuckel confronts him about the murder and says that the police know that he was the last one to see Kahane alive. At the end of their conversation Mill receives a fax from his stalker. Thus, Mill has killed the wrong man, and the stalker apparently knows this. Mill attends Kahane's funeral and gets into conversation with Gudmundsdottir. Detectives Avery and DeLongpre suspect Mill is guilty of murder. Mill receives a postcard from the stalker suggesting that they meet at a hotel bar. While Mill is waiting, he is cornered by two screenwriters, Tom Oakley and Andy Sivella, who pitch Habeas Corpus, a legal drama featuring no major stars and with a depressing ending. Because Mill is not alone, his stalker does not appear. After leaving the bar, Mill receives a fax in his car, advising him to look under his raincoat. He discovers a live rattlesnake in a box and, terrified, bludgeons it with his umbrella. Mill tells Gudmundsdottir that his near-death experience made him realize he has feelings for her. Apprehensive that Levy continues encroaching on his job, Mill invites the two writers to pitch Habeas Corpus to him, convincing Levy that the movie will be an Oscar contender. Mill's plan is to let Levy shepherd the film through production and have it flop. Mill will step in at the last moment, suggesting some changes to salvage the film's box office, letting him reclaim his position at the studio. Having persuaded Sherow to leave for New York on studio business, Mill takes Gudmundsdottir to a Hollywood awards banquet and their relationship blossoms. After Sherow confronts Mill about his relationship with Gudmundsdottir, Mill coldly severs their relationship in front of two writers. Mill takes Gudmundsdottir to an isolated Desert Hot Springs resort and spa. In the middle of Mill and Gudmundsdottir making love, Mill confesses his role in Kahane's murder, and Gudmundsdottir responds by saying she loves him. Mill's attorney informs him that studio head Joel Levison has been fired, and that the Pasadena police want Mill to participate in a lineup. An eyewitness has come forward, but she fails to identify Mill. One year later, studio power players are watching the end of Habeas Corpus with a new, tacked-on, upbeat ending and famous actors in the lead roles. Mill's plan to save the movie has worked and he is head of the studio. Gudmundsdottir is now Mill's wife and pregnant with his child. Sherow objects to the film's new ending and is fired by Levy. Mill rebuffs her when she appeals her termination to him. Mill receives a pitch over the phone from Levy and a man who reveals himself as the postcard writer. The man pitches an idea about a studio executive who kills a writer and gets away with murder. Recognizing the pitch as blackmail, Mill gives the writer a deal, if he can guarantee an ending in which the executive lives happily with the writer's widow. The writer's title for the film is The Player.

Brothers Randolph and Mortimer Duke own a commodities brokerage firm, Duke & Duke Commodity Brokers, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They witness an encounter between their managing director—the well-mannered and educated Louis Winthorpe III, engaged to the Dukes' grandniece Penelope Witherspoon—and poor black street hustler Billy Ray Valentine. Valentine is arrested at Winthorpe's insistence after the latter assumes he is being robbed. Holding opposing views on the issue of nature versus nurture, the Dukes make a wager and agree to conduct an experiment to observe the results of switching the lives of Valentine and Winthorpe, two people in contrasting social strata. Winthorpe is framed as a thief, drug dealer, and philanderer by Clarence Beeks, a man on the Dukes' payroll. He is fired from Duke & Duke, his bank accounts are frozen, he is denied entry to his Duke-owned home, and is ostracized by Penelope and his friends. Winthorpe is befriended by Ophelia, a prostitute who helps him in exchange for a financial reward once he is exonerated to secure her own retirement. The Dukes post bail for Valentine, install him in Winthorpe's former job, and grant him use of Winthorpe's home, including the service of his butler Coleman. Valentine becomes well versed in the business, using his street smarts to achieve success, and begins to act in a well-mannered way. During the firm's Christmas party, Winthorpe plants drugs in Valentine's desk, attempting to frame him, and brandishes a gun to escape. Later, the Dukes discuss their experiment and settle their wager for $1. They plot to return Valentine to the streets, but have no intention of taking back Winthorpe. Valentine overhears the conversation and seeks out Winthorpe, who has attempted suicide by overdosing. Valentine, Ophelia and Coleman nurse him back to health and inform him of the experiment. Watching a television news broadcast, they learn that Beeks is transporting a secret United States Department of Agriculture report on orange crop forecasts. Remembering large payments made to Beeks by the Dukes, Winthorpe and Valentine decide to foil the brothers' plan to obtain the report early and use it to corner the market on frozen concentrated orange juice. On New Year's Eve, the four board Beeks's train in disguise, intending to switch the original report with a forgery that predicts low orange crop yields. Beeks uncovers their scheme and attempts to kill them, but is knocked unconscious by a gorilla being transported on the train. The four dress him in a gorilla suit and cage him with the real gorilla. They deliver the forged report to the Dukes in Beeks's place and collect the payment intended for him. After sharing a kiss with Ophelia, Winthorpe travels to New York City with Valentine, pooling the money with the life savings of Ophelia and Coleman to carry out their plan. On the commodities trading floor, the Dukes invest heavily in buying frozen concentrated orange juice futures contracts, legally committing themselves to purchase the commodity at a later date. Other traders follow their lead, driving the price up; Valentine and Winthorpe naked-short-sell juice futures contracts at the inflated price. Following the broadcast of the actual crop report and its prediction of a normal harvest, the price of juice futures plummets. As the traders frantically sell their futures, Valentine and Winthorpe buy at the lower price from everyone except the Dukes, fulfilling the contracts they had short-sold earlier and turning an immense profit. After the closing bell, Valentine and Winthorpe explain to the Dukes that they made a wager on whether they could get rich and make the Dukes poor at the same time, and Winthorpe pays Valentine his winnings of $1. When the Dukes prove unable to pay the $394 million required to satisfy their margin call, the exchange manager orders their seats sold and their corporate and personal assets confiscated, effectively bankrupting them. Randolph collapses holding his chest and Mortimer shouts at the others, demanding the floor be reopened in a futile plea to recoup their losses. The now-wealthy Valentine, Winthorpe, Ophelia, and Coleman vacation on a luxurious tropical beach, while Beeks and the gorilla are loaded onto a ship bound for Africa.

The film opens just as construction has been completed on a railway connecting mountainous regions of eastern Bosnia and western Serbia in 1992. Luka, a Serbian engineer, has moved to Bosnia from Belgrade with his mentally unstable wife, Jadranka, and his football-playing son, Miloš, to run a railway station and act as caretaker. Luka is at work preparing the opening of the railway while Miloš attempts to become a professional footballer with the Partizan team. Utterly engrossed in his work and blinded by natural optimism, Luka remains deaf to the increasingly persistent rumblings of war, which has broken out in Croatia and threatens to spread. When the conflict explodes, Miloš is denied his place on the football field when he is enlisted into the Serbian army, and Jadranka disappears on the arm of a Hungarian musician. Eventually, Luka receives news that Miloš has been taken prisoner of war. Luka considers suicide, but a profiteering acquaintance presents him with Sabaha, a Bosnian Muslim whom he has taken hostage. Luka intends to exchange Sabaha for Miloš, but the two fall in love after they are forced to flee deeper into Serb-controlled territory. When a UN-enforced prisoner exchange is finally arranged, Luka and Sabaha try to escape to Serbia at an attempt to cross the Drina river, but Sabaha is wounded by a Bosnian sniper after squatting to urinate behind a tree. Army nurses narrowly manage to save Sabaha's life, and she is exchanged for Miloš, along with other prisoners. Jadranka also returns, and the family is reunited in their old home, but Luka is lovesick. He lies down in front of a train, but when the train stops to avoid running over a mule, it is revealed that Sabaha is on board, and the two ride away on the mule.

Pepe the Frog, a character created by Matt Furie and first featured in a comic on MySpace called Boy's Club, is one of four twentysomething postcollegiate slacker friends who live together. In one installment, Pepe is caught by one of his housemates with his pants around his ankles, urinating. Asked why, he replies, "Feels good man". The image becomes a viral Internet meme and is co-opted by the alt-right. Furie attempts to take Pepe back from the alt-right who have turned him from a cartoon character into a symbol for hate. The film deals with the question of whether Pepe can be redeemed. The coda of the film alludes to Pepe's appropriation by pro-democracy demonstrators during the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests.