The film spans 30 years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles. The story opens with the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 and depicts a young Latino couple, Esperanza and Pedro Santana, being racially targeted by sailors. Pedro is beaten alongside other Latin-Americans, while Esperanza is gang-raped by the sailors. Years later, in 1959, the Santana family's teenaged son, Montoya, forms a street gang called La Primera along with his friends J.D. and Mundo. The three friends soon find themselves committing crimes and are therefore arrested. In juvenile hall, Santana murders a fellow inmate who raped him. As a result, his sentence is extended, and he is moved to Folsom State Prison after he turns 18. Years later, Santana has become the leader of a powerful prison gang, La Eme. Upon his release from prison in 1977, he tries to relate his life experiences to the society that has changed so much since he was incarcerated. La Eme has become a feared criminal organization beyond Folsom, selling drugs and committing murder. Santana begins a romantic relationship with a woman named Julie, but she becomes repulsed by his violent tendencies and by La Eme's negative influence on their community. After a drug lord refuses to give control of distribution to La Eme, La Eme retaliates by brutally raping and murdering the drug lord's son in prison. In response, the drug lord targets Santana's community by distributing pure heroin to local users. The pure heroin causes mass overdoses, and one of the overdose victims is Julie's brother. Santana visits his mother's grave, where his father reveals that he always resented Montoya because he might have been the son of his mother's rapist. Santana starts to see the error of his ways. Before he can take action, however, he is sent back to Folsom for drug possession. When J.D. visits, Santana tells him that he is no longer interested in leading La Eme. However, following a precedent set by Santana himself earlier in the film, his men—including Mundo—murder him to show the other prison gangs that La Eme is not weak and will not tolerate departures from its ranks. Santana is fatally stabbed and thrown off a balcony to his death. Julie receives a letter from Santana thanking her for opening his eyes. The letter contains his necklace of St. Dismas. Julie gives the necklace to Santana's teen brother Paulito, who then inducts a young boy into the street gang, La Primera by having him commit a drive-by shooting.

In 1969, student hackers and long-time friends Martin Brice and Cosmo use their skills to reallocate money from causes they consider evil to underfunded ones that help the world. When Martin steps out to get pizza, the police arrive and arrest Cosmo, forcing Martin into hiding. Decades later in San Francisco, Martin, now living under the alias Martin Bishop, leads a penetration testing security team that includes former CIA operative Donald Crease, technician and conspiracy theorist Darren "Mother" Roskow, hacking prodigy Carl Arbogast, and blind phone phreaker Irwin "Whistler" Emery. NSA agents approach Martin and reveal they know his true identity. They offer to clear his record if he recovers a Russian-funded black box device, codenamed Setec Astronomy, from mathematician Gunter Janek. With help from ex-girlfriend Liz, Martin and his team steal the device, only to discover it is a codebreaker capable of penetrating even the most secure networks. Realizing that "Setec Astronomy" is an anagram of "too many secrets", Crease locks everyone in the office until it can be handed over to the NSA. The next day, Martin delivers the box to the agents but flees after learning Janek was murdered the night before. The team realizes the box was actually funded by the NSA and that the supposed agents are impostors. Martin's friend Gregor, a Russian consulate spy, identifies one as a former NSA agent now working for a crime syndicate. Men posing as FBI agents arrive, kill Gregor with Martin's gun to frame him, and abduct Martin. He awakens in an unknown location, where the impostors are revealed to be working for Cosmo. Released early from prison for his hacking skills, Cosmo was recruited by the syndicate to manage its illicit finances. He wants the box to complete what he and Martin began in 1969: erasing financial and ownership records to make the rich and poor equals. He invites Martin to join him, but Martin rejects the plan as too extreme. In retaliation, Cosmo uses the box to access FBI systems, exposing Martin's identities and branding him a fugitive once more. Martin and his team contact NSA operations director Bernard Abbott, who agrees to help if they can recover the box. Using sounds Martin recalls from his abduction, Whistler pinpoints Cosmo's office inside the PlayTronics toy company. While researching the building's security, the team identifies employee Werner Brandes and manipulates a dating service to pair him with Liz. During their date, she steals his access codes, allowing Martin to infiltrate PlayTronics. Brandes grows suspicious and takes Liz to his office, where Cosmo realizes her link to Martin. He locks down the facility and takes her hostage. Martin surrenders and hands over the box, but again rejects Cosmo's plea to join him. The group escapes and exits the building, only to be confronted by Cosmo again. Unable to kill his old friend, Cosmo lets Martin and the team leave, only to discover Martin has given him an empty box. Back at their office, Martin's team is confronted by Abbott and his agents. Martin realizes the box could be used by the NSA to infiltrate U.S. systems such as the FBI and the White House. To secure their silence, Abbott agrees to their demands: clearing Martin's record, funding a vacation for Crease and his wife, buying Mother a Winnebago, and giving Carl the phone number of an attractive NSA agent. After the agents depart, Martin reveals the box is useless; he has removed its core component. A news report announces the sudden bankruptcy of the Republican National Committee and the simultaneous receipt of large anonymous donations to Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the United Negro College Fund.

Nils Dickman is a snow plow driver in the fictional town of Tyos, Norway, just elected citizen of the year. His life, however, is shattered by the death of his son Ingvar, found dead by overdose of heroin. The police do not investigate but Dickman is sure that his son wasn't a drug user. When he is about to kill himself he learns from Finn, his son's friend, that Ingvar was mistakenly killed by a gang of drug dealers who actually intended to kill Finn; Nils begins to hunt for his son's murderers. He finds Jappe, one of the killers, and kills him after extracting the name of his accomplice, Ronaldo. Ronaldo tells Nils the name of the drug carrier, Strike, before being killed too. After killing Strike, concealing the bodies of the three gangsters and destroying 15 kilos of cocaine, Nils goes in search of the boss of the gang. He contacts his brother Egil, a former criminal now going straight. Egil advises him to hire a hitman to assassinate the powerful chief of criminals, the vegan gangster nicknamed Greven (The Count). Nils hires the Danish-Japanese hitman Kineseren (The Chinaman). Greven, who has lost three men and a lot of money, blames his competitors, a Serbian mafia family, with whom there has always been a territorial agreement. He sends his henchmen to kidnap one of the gang. The man reveals nothing and Greven kills him, unaware that he is the son of the Serbians' chief, the fearsome Papa. Kineseren asks Greven for a payoff and tells him that he has been hired by a man called Dickman. Greven assumes this is ex-criminal Egil, and goes to him for explanations. Egil understands the situation and allows himself to be executed to save Nils. After multiple complications, there is a gunfight at Nils's workplace in which all the gangsters are killed except Nils and Papa, who drive away together, both satisfied for having their sons avenged.

Fritz Knobel (a fictionalized version of real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. He sells a portrait of Eva Braun and one volume of what he alleges to be Hitler's diaries (but which he actually wrote himself) to factory owner Karl Lenz. Lenz shows off the diary to his guests during a "birthday party for the Führer ", among whom is sleazy journalist Hermann Willié. Willié works for the magazine "HH Press"; the letters HH are a licence plate abbreviation for Hamburg where the real-life Stern magazine is located, but are also the common abbreviation for " Heil Hitler " among neo-Nazis. Knobel, in need of material to produce more diaries, turns to his own life for inspiration; after he meets Martha and she becomes his lover (he is already married to Biggi), Martha becomes the inspiration for the diary version of Eva Braun. Rumors about the diaries cause a major Nazi craze in high society, allowing former Nazi officials to flaunt their old ranks (e.g. Obergruppenführer). Willié becomes even more obsessed, buying Hermann Göring 's old yacht Carin II and starting an affair with his (fictional) grandniece Freya von Hepp, who is based on Hermann Göring's daughter Edda Göring. Towards the end, the plot has developed its own dynamics, putting more and more pressure on Knobel to deliver the remaining volumes while in constant fear that his forgery will be discovered. The volumes are convincing enough to fool the enthusiastic journalists, who are willing to overlook some oddities, especially a false monogram "FH" instead of "AH" on one of the volumes. They invent alternative facts to explain away the discrepancy (the term " Führerhauptquartier " instead of "Adolf Hitler" for instance). Later, Knobel manages to manipulate a forensic graphoanalysis to his advantage, but it seems only a matter of time until the truth is discovered. The constant fear, and the struggle against developing a too-close identification with the person he is writing about, eventually make Knobel collapse. Biggi and Martha take charge of the situation, forcing him to pull himself out of the forgery business just in time, while (similar to the end of World War II) the Nazi-enthusiasts fall – more or less hard according to their personal level of belief.

Joe, Al, and Willie are three senior citizens who share a small apartment in Queens, New York City. Their days are spent on a park bench, and Joe is desperate to break the monotony. One day Joe suggests that they go on a "stick-up". They have no experience as criminals, but after some reluctance, the two others agree. Al surreptitiously borrows three pistols from the gun collection of his nephew Pete, who lives with his wife Kathy and two children Colleen and Kevin a few miles away. The trio, disguised with novelty glasses, pulls off the heist, netting $35,000. The excitement is too much for Willie, who soon suffers a fatal heart attack. Joe and Al give $25,000 to Pete and his family, claiming it is the proceeds from Willie's life insurance policy. They decide to splurge the remaining $10,000 on a trip to Las Vegas. Al and Joe win over $70,000 playing craps, but the trip, which they make right after Willie's funeral, exhausts Al and he dies in his sleep. Joe informs Pete that his uncle has died, then tells him about the bank heist and the Las Vegas adventure. He gives Pete the remaining bank loot and the Vegas winnings and tells him to store the cash in his safe deposit box and never tell anyone about it. The next day, on his way to Al's funeral, Joe is arrested. He confesses to the robbery but refuses to say what happened to the money. Pete visits Joe in prison and suggests giving back at least the stolen portion of the money in the hope of a lighter sentence. Joe explains that he is an old man with no family and, now, no friends, and is resigned to his fate. He tells Pete to enjoy his "inheritance", but while heading back to his cell, cheekily suggests that he plans to break out.

Stuart Shepard is an arrogant and dishonest New York City publicist who has been planning an affair with a client, Pamela McFadden, behind the back of his wife Kelly. While in Times Square, Stuart uses a public phone booth to contact Pamela, allowing him to avoid detection by Kelly. During the call, he is interrupted by a pizza delivery man who attempts to deliver a free pizza to him, but Stuart aggressively turns him away. As soon as Stuart completes his call, the phone rings. Stuart answers; a man on the other end, who knows his name, warns him not to leave the booth, threatening to tell Kelly about Pam. The caller tells Stuart that he has tested two previous individuals who have committed crimes (pedophilia and corporate corruption) using the same process, giving each a chance to reveal the truth to those they wronged. In both cases, they refused and were killed. Stuart must confess his feelings to both Kelly and Pam to avoid the same fate. To demonstrate the threat, the caller fires a suppressed sniper rifle with pinpoint accuracy. The caller then contacts Pam and connects her to Stuart, who admits he is married. The booth is approached by three prostitutes demanding to use the phone, but Stuart refuses to leave, without revealing his dilemma. Leon, a pimp, breaks the glass side of the booth, grabs Stuart and pummels him while the prostitutes cheer. The caller offers to "make him stop" and in Stuart's confusion, he inadvertently asks for this; the caller shoots Leon dead. The prostitutes immediately blame Stuart, accusing him of having a gun, as the police and news crews converge on the location. NYPD Captain Ed Ramey seals off the area and negotiates to make Stuart leave the booth, but he refuses. Stuart tells the caller that there is no way they can incriminate him, but the caller draws his attention to a handgun planted on the roof of the phone booth. As Kelly and Pam both arrive on the scene, the caller demands that Stuart tell Kelly the truth, which he does. The caller then orders Stuart to choose between Kelly and Pam, and the woman he does not choose will be shot. Stuart secretly uses his cell phone to call Kelly, allowing her to overhear his conversation with the caller; she quietly informs Ramey of this. Meanwhile, Stuart continues to confess to everyone that his whole life is a lie, to make himself look better than he really is. Stuart's confession provides sufficient distraction to allow the police to trace the payphone call to a nearby building. Stuart warns the caller that the police are on the way, and the caller replies that if he is caught, he will kill Kelly. Desperate, Stuart grabs the handgun and leaves the booth, begging for the sniper to kill him instead. The police fire upon Stuart, while a SWAT team breaks into the room that the caller was tracked to, only to find a rifle and a man's corpse. Stuart regains consciousness; the police had fired only rubber bullets, stunning but not harming him. Stuart and Kelly happily reconcile. As the police bring down the body, Stuart identifies it as the pizza delivery man from earlier. Stuart gets medical treatment at a local ambulance. After getting a shot from a paramedic, he starts losing consciousness. The real caller passes by, warning Stuart that if his newfound honesty does not last, he will return, before disappearing into the crowd, while the pay phone rings again.

Gambler Nathan Detroit seeks to organize an unlicensed craps game, but the police, led by Lieutenant Brannigan, are "putting on the heat." Nathan's usual locations are turning him away due to Brannigan's intimidating pressure. The Biltmore garage will allow Nathan to hold a game, but the owner requires a $1,000 security deposit, which Nathan does not have. Adding to his problems, Nathan's fiancée, Miss Adelaide, a nightclub singer, wants to get married after being engaged for fourteen years. She also wants him to go straight, but his only talent is organizing illegal gambling. Nathan spots an old acquaintance, Sky Masterson, a gambler willing to bet on virtually anything and for high amounts. To win the $1,000 security deposit, Nathan bets Sky that he cannot take a girl of Nathan's choosing to dinner in Havana, Cuba. Nathan then nominates Sergeant Sarah Brown, a sister at the Save a Soul Mission, which opposes gambling. Sky pretends to be a repentant gambler to meet Sarah. Sky proposes a bargain: He will recruit a dozen sinners into the Mission for her Thursday-night meeting if she will have dinner with him in Havana. With General Matilda Cartwright threatening to close the Mission's Broadway branch due to low attendance, Sarah agrees to the date. Meanwhile, confident that he will win the bet, Nathan gathers all the gamblers, including a visitor that Harry the Horse has invited: Big Jule, a mobster. When Lieutenant Brannigan appears, Benny Southstreet claims they are celebrating Nathan marrying Adelaide. Nathan is shocked, but is forced to play along. Later, he realizes he has lost his bet and must marry Adelaide. Over the course of their stay in Cuba, Sky and Sarah begin to fall in love. They return to Broadway at dawn and meet the Save a Soul Mission band, which has been parading all night on Sky's advice. Police sirens are heard, and the gamblers, led by Nathan Detroit, flee out through the back room of the empty Mission where they were holding a craps game. The police arrive too late to make any arrests, but Lieutenant Brannigan finds Sarah and the other Save a Soul members being absent unlikely to be a coincidence and suspects Sky. Sarah is equally suspicious that Sky had something to do with the crap game at the Mission, and takes her leave of him, refusing to accept his denials. Sky still has to make good on his arrangement with Sarah to provide sinners to the Mission. Sarah would rather forget the whole thing, but Uncle Arvide Abernathy warns Sky that "If you don't make that marker good, I'm going to buzz it all over town you're a welcher." Nathan has continued the crap game in a sewer. With his revolver visible in its shoulder holster, Big Jule, who has lost all his money, forces Nathan to play against him while he cheats, cleaning Nathan out. Sky enters, knocks Big Jule down, and removes his pistol. Sky, who has been stung and devastated by Sarah's rejection, lies to Nathan that he lost the bet about taking her to Havana and pays Nathan the $1,000. Nathan tells Big Jule he now has money to play him again, but Harry the Horse says that Big Jule cannot play without cheating because "he cannot make a pass to save his soul." Sky overhears this, and the phrasing inspires him to make a bet: He will roll the dice, and if he loses, he will give all the other gamblers $1,000 each; if he wins, they are all to attend a prayer meeting at the Mission. The Mission is near closing when the gamblers arrive, filling the room; Sky won the bet. They confess their sins, though with little repentance. Nicely-Nicely Johnson however, recalling a dream he had the night before, seems to have an authentic connection to the Mission's aim, and this satisfies everyone. When Nathan tells Sarah that Sky lost the Cuba bet, which she knows he won, she hurries off to make up with him. There is eventually a double wedding in Times Square, with Sky marrying Sarah, and Nathan marrying Adelaide, while Nicely plays bass drum in the Mission's marching band.

Class Action Park chronicles the life of penny stockbroker Eugene Mulvihill, who is described as having become rich from pump-and-dump schemes. It outlines his path to opening Vernon Township, New Jersey 's Action Park in 1978. He envisioned it as a park with "no rules". The park was funded by fraudster Robert E. Brennan, who had gotten his start working for Mulvill at Mayflower Securities, eventually becoming its president, and gaining a reputation as the "Penny Stock King." Mayflower was later suspended by the Securities and Exchange Commission for what The New York Times called "selling its customers worthless securities in a bankrupt electronics company." After being effectively kicked off Wall Street, Mulvihill purchased two ski resorts, Great Gorge and Vernon Valley in Vernon Township, an "idyllic", 68,000-square mile area of over 20,000 people whose open terrain had attracted investors such as Hugh Hefner, who chosen the town as the location of a Playboy Club in the early 1970s, where entertainers such as Tony Bennett and Wayne Newton performed. After New Jersey legalized casino gambling in 1976, investors thought Vernon could become another Orlando, Florida or Las Vegas. Because of New Jersey's short winters, Mulvihill became a pioneer in artificial snow-making, constructing one machine out of a jet engine, before deciding to build water rides to exploit the warm summers. Former Action Park guests and employees recall the park's more dangerous rides, such as the Cannonball Loop, the SuperSpeed Waterfalls, the Alpine Slides, and the Tarzan Swings, as well as the park's general atmosphere and culture, which reflected the culture of the 1980s and that of New Jersey as a " Wild West " where such a park was able to exist. The film mentions land dispute Mulvihill had with the state of New Jersey, which ended after the state got tired of dealing with him. The last third of the film chronicles the deaths that occurred there, the first of which was that of George Larsson Jr., which happened as he rode the Alpine Slide in 1980, but which was covered up by the park in order to conceal it from New Jersey authorities. Action Park maintained that no coverup was necessary because Larsson was not a member of the public, but an employee who rode the slide at night during a rain shower, but in fact, this was untrue. The suggestion that Mulvihill corrupted Vernon Township officials during Action Park's existence is also mentioned. After his chief source of money, Brennan, was convicted of money laundering and bankruptcy fraud, and sentenced to nearly a decade in prison, and concerns over safety became more ingrained in the public's consciousness, the park's parent company was forced into bankruptcy, making the park's 1996 Summer season its last. The Vancouver-based corporation IntraWest purchased the park, stripped out of most of its attractions, and renamed it Mountain Creek Water Park, which without Mulvilhill's vision, became, according to the film, "a generic, regional water park." Mulvihill died in October 2012, which George Larsson Jr.'s mother Esther says was the one time she and her husband George celebrated someone's death, saying that Mulvihill "deserved to be gone," as he "did not care about any of the riders any of the people." By contrast, Vernon newspaper editor Jessi Paladini, who became close to Mulvihill in the final four or five years of his life, remembers both the good and bad aspects of his personality. Insisting that she neither glorifies him nor extolls him as a "good, decent, honorable man," Paladini says that she did see a generous, benevolent side to him. Journalist Seth Porges says of Mulvihill, "It's so easy to romanticize him, because he does what a lot of people wish they coud do. A lot people wish they could ignore the law. A lot of people wish they could ignore rules. Gene actually did that." Former guests of the park reflect on Action Park as a whole. Financial journalist Mary Pilon observes that the park's vision continues to live on in schemes such as those surrounding the Fyre Festival and Theranos. Another former park guest, writer/comedian Chris Gethard, disputes this analogy, saying that Fyre Festival gave guests "a cheese sandwich", whereas "Gene gave you everything he fucking promised you." Writer/actress Alison Becker, another former guest of the park, says, "Even though I was scared to do those rides, I fucking did 'em. There's also a part of me that's like, 'If you can't do 'em, fucking get out of Jersey." Former park security director Jim DeSaye says Acion Park was "an 80s movie that was real life, and it's something that will never happen again." In the film's final minutes, it details that in May 2010, two years before his death, Gene Mulvill led a group of investors to take back the park and restore its previous name, in a bid to capitalize on nostalgia. This included plans for an updated version of the Cannonball Loop ride, but which was never built. By 2018, the park, now again called Mountain Creek, was acquired by Vernon native Joe Hession, who had been an Action Park employee in his teens. In the final shot before the closing credits, Esther Larsson is seen visiting George's grave with his younger brother Brian.

High school student Brendan Frye discovers a note directing him to a pay phone, where he receives a call from his ex-girlfriend Emily Kostich, begging him for help. She mentions a "bad brick", "the Pin", and "Tug" before abruptly hanging up, apparently afraid of a passing black Ford Mustang, from which a distinctively-branded cigarette is thrown. Unable to locate Emily, Brendan enlists his friend Brain for help. An encounter with another ex-girlfriend, Kara, leads him to a party held by flirtatious upper-class girl Laura Dannon and her boyfriend, Brad Bramish. Laura points Brendan to Dode, Emily's drug-addicted new boyfriend, who arranges a meeting with Emily. Emily dismisses the phone call as a mistake and tells Brendan to let her go. Brendan steals her notepad and finds a note that leads him to her dead body in a tunnel the following morning where he is beaten by an unidentified assailant. Brendan decides to investigate her murder, hiding the body deeper within the tunnel to avoid police involvement. With help from Brain, Brendan realizes that "the Pin" refers to a local kingpin. Brendan picks a fight with Brad, hoping to attract the Pin's attention. Later, a man wearing a beanie attacks Brendan. Later Brendan sees the black Mustang in a parking lot and is attacked by the beanie-wearing thug as he demands to meet the Pin instead of fighting back. The man, revealed as Tug, the Pin's main enforcer, takes Brendan to the Pin's house. Laura reveals that she was at the Pin's house as well and drives Brendan back to school. She explains that Emily stole a "brick" of heroin after being rejected by the Pin's operation. Laura offers to help Brendan, but he distrusts her. The next day, the Pin hires Brendan. Dode calls Brendan and says he saw Brendan hide Emily's body and believes Brendan killed Emily. Brendan meets the Pin, who suspects that Tug is planning to betray him. At the Pin's house, Tug tells Brendan that the Pin had bought ten bricks of heroin and eight were sold off wholesale, the ninth was stolen and returned contaminated, and the final brick remains to be sold. The Pin reveals that Tug was also romantically involved with Emily. Brendan intercepts Dode on the way to the meeting and discovers Emily was pregnant when she died; Dode believes the baby was his. Brendan arrives at the meeting to find Dode demanding money to reveal who killed Emily. Tug goes berserk and shoots Dode in the head, then threatens the Pin, who walks away as Brendan faints. Brendan awakens in Tug's bedroom, and Tug tells him they are at war with the Pin. Brendan arranges a meeting between the two and waits in Tug's bedroom. Laura comforts him as he grieves for Emily, and he recognizes her cigarette as the same brand that was dropped from the Mustang during the call with Emily. At the meeting, chaos erupts when it is discovered that the tenth brick is missing. Tug beats the Pin to death while Brendan flees, escaping just as police arrive. As he goes, he passes the open trunk of Tug's car, where he has placed Emily's body to ensure that police blame her murder on Tug. The next day, Brendan meets Laura at the school. She reveals that Tug died after a shootout with the police. Brendan explains that he knows Laura set Emily up to take the fall for Laura's theft of the ninth brick, then manipulated Emily into meeting Tug, who panicked and killed her after she told him he was the father of her unborn child. Brendan has written a note to the school administration stating that the tenth brick is in Laura's locker. Laura vindictively tells Brendan that Emily did not want to keep the baby because she did not love the father, and that Emily was three months pregnant when she died, meaning the unborn child was his. The movie ends with Brendan and Brain on the football field watching Laura walk away.