A recently promoted police inspector, nicknamed "Il Dottore" ("the Doctor", an Italian honorific) kills his mistress, and then covers up his involvement in the crime. He insinuates himself into the investigation, planting clues to steer his subordinate officers toward a series of other suspects, including the woman's gay husband and a student leftist radical. He then exonerates the other suspects and leads the investigators toward himself to prove that he is "above suspicion" and can get away with anything, even while being investigated. His personal neurosis caused by his extreme position of power, and his firm beliefs in the role of authority, eventually drive him to try to accuse himself with every possible evidence. The only witness of his presence at the victim's apartment, the anarchist Antonio Pace, refuses to accuse him to be able to prove the inherent criminal nature of power ("A criminal leading the repression, it is perfect!"). The Doctor eventually desperately confesses to the crime in front of his superiors, in an effort to not subvert the essence of authority, but they all refuse to believe him, forcing him to recant his confession, with the approval of the police commissioner. The interrogation at his home is revealed to be a dream sequence, and when he wakes up the commissioner and other colleagues actually arrive at his place; however, the outcome of their confrontation is not revealed, and the film ends with a quote by Franz Kafka about the paradoxical nature of power.

Kang In-ho is driving to the fictional city of Mujin, North Jeolla Province to accept a position as the art teacher at Ja-ae Academy, a special needs school for Deaf children. Upon arriving at the academy, In-ho meets with headmaster Lee Gang-seok and his identical twin brother, admin head Lee Gang-bok. He is excited to teach his new students, yet the children are aloof and distant, and avoid running into him as much as possible. In-ho persists in trying to show the kids that he cares. When the students finally open up, In-ho discovers the shocking and ugly truth about the school: the students have been secretly enduring physical and sexual abuse by the teachers and administration. In-ho decides to expose the crimes being committed at the school and collaborates with human rights activist Seo Yoo-jin. However, In-ho and Yoo-jin soon realize the school's headmaster, teachers, staff, and even the police, prosecutors and community combine to cover up the truth. In-ho is fired from his position, but he stays in Mujin to pursue justice for the children. The defense attorney uses " privileges of the former post " and the accused unhesitatingly lie and bribe their way into getting very light sentences. Using their last night of freedom to go out partying, the Lee brothers and Park Bo-hyun (one of the sexually abusive teachers), are laughing with their attorney that the judge was so easy to pay off for a light sentence. As Park leaves the party and walks home, he bumps into Min-su (one of the victims) along the way. Attempting to force the boy to come to his home to be raped once more, Park is shocked when Min-su stabs him in the side with a knife, having fallen into despair from his lost chance to put Park away for good. Park brushes off the stabbing and smacks Min-su to the ground, viciously beating and kicking the boy, proclaiming he will kill him. As he tries to finish Min-su off, Park is overpowered by the boy, who flings both of them onto a nearby railroad track. As an oncoming train barrels toward them, Park screaming in pain, suffering, and despair, losing blood, weakened by the stab wound, is held down by Min-su refusing to let him escape, before they are both killed. Later, at a protest, In-ho and students Yeon-doo and Yoo-ri are seen mourning Min-su's death. A group of protesters and activists fill the street, when police attempt to disperse them. However, since most are deaf-mute, they continue unaware, forcing police use water cannons to disperse them. As the clash plays out, In-ho stands amid the chaos carrying a picture of Min-su, repeatedly chanting, "Everyone! This boy could neither hear nor speak. This child is called Min-su," before he is apprehended by the police. The movie ends with In-ho back in Seoul where he receives an email from Yoo-jin with an update: the appeal to the case was lost but the children's condition has improved.

In 1997, Captain Roberto Nascimento of the Battalion of Special Police Operations (BOPE) leads an operation to secure the Turano neighbourhood before Pope John Paul II 's overnight visit at the Archbishop 's home near the favela. He searches for a successor at the unit in order to switch to a desk job before his pregnant wife Rosane gives birth to his son. Rookie PMERJ officers and best friends André Matias and Neto Gouveia handle menial work as instructed to them by their corrupt seniors: Neto supervises the police auto mechanic shop, whilst Matias is responsible for registering and filing police complaints in a small archive office. André also attends law school, where he begins a relationship with Maria, and meets her friends Roberta and Edu; all three are members of a NGO that operates in an area ruled by drug lord Baiano. Baiano provides marijuana to Matias' friends, who sell it on campus. André also befriends Romerito, a boy who, like himself, suffers from myopia. Neto applies to another department, but his transfer is denied. Disgusted by corruption and led by fellow officer Fábio, Neto and André steal the police's bribe money to fix as many police cars as possible. Their superior, Captain Oliveira, finds out and demotes them to kitchen work as punishment and orders Fábio—who he believes stole from him—to meet drug traffickers at a community funk party in Morro da Babilônia to enquire about payment. Fábio believes this is a set-up to kill him and discreetly warns Neto and André, who rush to a vantage point and, presuming Fabio will be shot by another officer, accidentally fire a sniper rifle, causing a deadly gunfight between the officers and traffickers; as André and Neto attempt to flee the scene, Nascimento and his men arrive and rescue all the officers. After the shootout, André is photographed by the press. André and Neto apply for BOPE, motivated by their honesty and devotion, and eagerness for action. At the NGO office, Baiano confronts Maria and her friends with a newspaper featuring André's picture and threatens to kill them if they bring policemen inside his territory. The BOPE training proves to be gruesome, both as a way to weed out weak candidates, and also to terrorize and force out known corrupt police officers. Many candidates quit — including Fábio (who applied as a way to avoid Oliveira) — but both Neto and André successfully pass; Neto celebrates by getting a BOPE tattoo on his arm. André's relationship with Maria ends and he confronts Edu, ordering him to arrange a meet with Romerito the next day to give him a pair of glasses. Edu reveals André's plan to Baiano, who sets an ambush to kill him. Neto informs André of a job interview at a law firm that will conflict with meeting Romerito, and volunteers to deliver the glasses in his place: this results in Neto being mortally wounded. When Baiano prepares to finish him, he notices his BOPE tattoo and goes into hiding for fear of retaliation, but not before abducting and executing Roberta and Rodriguez as his payback for allowing a BOPE officer into the slum. After Neto's funeral, André, Nascimento and other BOPE officers make daily incursions into Baiano's slum, torturing several dealers into revealing his whereabouts; when one of them reveals Edu tipped Baiano, an enraged Matias storms into a peace walk, beats Edu, and insults Maria and the others. BOPE interrogates several of the locals before finally locating and cornering Baiano; due to Baiano's pleas to not hurt his face for the wake, Nascimento orders André to summarily execute him with a shotgun shot to the face, both as revenge for Neto's death and as a final rite of passage for BOPE. André cocks the gun and the screen fades to white as the shot is heard.

Thirteen years after the events of the first film, BOPE Lieutenant Colonel (formerly Captain) Nascimento is ambushed while leaving a hospital. While his car is sprayed with bullets, his voiceover narrates the events leading to that point. Four years prior, Nascimento arrives at Bangu Penitentiary Complex to quell a riot started by gangleader Beirada. Diogo Fraga, a teacher and human rights activist married to Nascimento's ex-wife Rosane, was sent to negotiate for a peaceful surrender. Fraga is escorted to the place and convinces Beirada to release the hostages, but Nascimento's protégé, Captain André Matias, shoots Beirada against Nascimento's orders, which results in multiple inmate deaths. Nascimento learns that PMERJ commander Formoso plans to dismiss him due to the bad publicity and confronts him in a restaurant, only to be cheered by other diners for his tough line. Rio de Janeiro 's State Secretary for Public Safety Guaracy seizes the opportunity and promotes Nascimento as undersecretary, but transfers Matias back to the PMERJ as a scapegoat. Despite Nascimento's promises to help him, Matias speaks to journalist Clara Vidal about corruption in the government and lack of support to BOPE, leading to a month of jail and his estrangement from Nascimento. Meanwhile, Fraga is elected to Rio's State Assembly. Through his new commanding position, Nascimento is able to expand BOPE's arsenal and personnel, granting it armored vehicles and a helicopter, which enables the force to eliminate entire drug cartels from favelas, in hope it will reduce police corruption. However, the absence of drug dealing as a controlling parallel power in these areas leads corrupt PMERJ Major Rocha and his men to form a police militia, ultimately taking over the community by extorting the inhabitants while also building a political machine, with support from the State Governor, Guaracy and Fortunato, a former television host now elected Representative for Rio. Four years later, Rocha's militia has nearly taken over all of Western Rio. Disguised militiamen steal rifles from a police station in Tanque, one of the last drug dealing strongholds, providing their corrupt allies an excuse to authorize a police operation to expel the drug dealers (consequently clearing the way for the militia to take over). Nascimento listens to phonetaps of dealers and assures Guaracy they are uninvolved; however, corrupt Lieutenant-Colonel Fabio Barbosa claims an informant has implicated them and the raid is authorized. Matias, returned to BOPE by Rocha, occupies the station and ambushes the fleeing dealers, torturing captured drugleader Pepa to learn where the stolen weapons are. As Rocha arrives and inexplicably shoots Pepa, Matias confronts him, but is shot and killed by Rocha's men. Devastated by Matias' death and aware Fraga has been investigating the militia, Nascimento taps his phone. Vidal, also investigating, enters one of Rocha's favelas and finds the Governor's re-election campaign material. She phones Fraga but is caught by Rocha's group, who kill her and her photographer. Nascimento listens to the call, realizes Fraga is now a target, takes the recording and goes after him; as he waits outside Fraga's building, Fraga, Rafael and Rosane arrive and are attacked in a drive-by shooting. Nascimento shoots the assailant, but Rafael is wounded. They take him to the hospital and Nascimento hands the recording to Fraga, whereupon he detains and assaults Guaracy, threatening to kill everyone involved if his son dies. The Assembly opens an investigation into the journalists' disappearances based on the recording delivered by Fraga. However, Nascimento is accused of tapping Fraga's phone to spy on Rosane, forcing his resignation. Believing his militia will be scapegoats, Rocha attempts to ambush him after a visit to Rafael; however, Nascimento, expecting an attack, is aided by BOPE officers. They shoot some of the assailants, but Rocha escapes. Nascimento is called to testify and implicates the Governor, Guaracy, Fortunato and many other individuals, as many of them are murdered to prevent them from testifying. The Governor, however, is re-elected and Guaracy becomes representative for Rio. The final scene shows Nascimento reflecting over the political scenario in Brazil and stating that "as long as the conditions for the system remain, it will remain". He visits Rafael as he slowly wakes from his coma.

Along the U.S.–Mexico border, a time bomb placed inside a vehicle explodes, killing two people. Mexican special prosecutor Miguel Vargas, who is honeymooning in town with his new American wife Susie, takes an interest in the investigation, which is being conducted by veteran police captain Hank Quinlan and his devoted, admiring, fanatically loyal assistant, Pete Menzies. Quinlan is a recovering alcoholic and an anti-Mexican bigot. He injured his leg long ago, and now walks with a prosthetic "game" leg and a cane. He implicates Sanchez, a young Mexican man secretly married to the victim's daughter. During the interrogation at Sanchez's apartment, Menzies finds two sticks of dynamite in a shoe-box in the bathroom. Vargas, who had accidentally knocked over the shoe-box a few minutes earlier and found it empty, accuses Quinlan of planting the dynamite, and begins to suspect that many of his previous convictions were similarly tainted. Quinlan angrily dismisses Vargas's allegation. Vargas learns that Quinlan had recently purchased dynamite and presents proof of this to Adair, the District Attorney, who resists investigating further. "Uncle" Joe Grandi, the acting leader of a crime family Vargas has been investigating, makes common cause with Quinlan against Vargas, and plies Quinlan with bourbon whiskey, causing him to break his sobriety. Grandi orders his family to capture and inject Susie with heroin, and while she is unconscious, he and Quinlan lock her in a hotel room. Quinlan then murders Grandi and leaves the body there with Susie; however, drunk and exhausted, he carelessly also leaves his cane in the room with them. When Susie wakes up and sees the body, she screams for help, and gets arrested on suspicion of the murder, which infuriates Vargas. Searching the room, Menzies finds Quinlan's cane, and realizes that Quinlan is the real killer. Vargas, reviewing Quinlan's past successes, confirms his suspicion that Quinlan has planted evidence in many of the cases. He confronts Menzies, who sadly agrees to work with him to expose Quinlan, by wearing a wire and getting a confession. Quinlan hears an echo from Vargas' recording device, and realizes that Menzies is betraying him. He shoots and mortally wounds Menzies. He then aims his gun at Vargas, but the dying Menzies shoots Quinlan before he can fire. Susie is exonerated and reunited with Vargas. As Quinlan dies, it is revealed that Sanchez has confessed to the original bombing.

Jake Blues, a blues vocalist and petty criminal, is paroled from Joliet Prison after serving three years of a five-year sentence for armed robbery and is picked up by his brother Elwood in a battered former police car. Jake complains that Elwood is driving a police car, and Elwood demonstrates its capabilities by jumping an open drawbridge. They visit the Catholic orphanage where they were raised, and learn from Sister Mary Stigmata that it will be closed unless it pays $5,000 in property taxes. At the suggestion of their friend Curtis, they attend a sermon by the Reverend Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Baptist Church, where Jake has an epiphany: they can reform their band, the Blues Brothers, which disbanded while Jake was in prison, and raise the money to save the orphanage. That night, state troopers attempt to arrest Elwood for driving with a suspended license due to dozens of parking tickets and moving violations. The brothers escape after a car chase through the Dixie Square Mall. As they arrive at the flophouse where Elwood lives, a mysterious woman fires a rocket launcher at them but misses. The next morning, as the police arrive at the flophouse, the same woman detonates a bomb that demolishes the building but leaves Jake and Elwood unharmed, saving them from arrest. Jake and Elwood begin tracking down members of the band. Five of them are performing as Murph and the Magic Tones at a deserted Holiday Inn lounge and quickly rejoin. Their trumpeter Mr. Fabulous turns them down as he is the maître d' at an expensive restaurant but relents when the brothers dine with poor manners and threaten to become regular patrons. On their way to meet the final two members, the brothers find the road through Jackson Park blocked by a neo-Nazi demonstration on a bridge; Elwood runs them off the bridge into the East Lagoon. The neo-Nazis swear revenge. The brothers find Matt "Guitar" Murphy, who now runs a soul food restaurant on Maxwell Street with his wife and "Blue Lou" Marini. Murphy's wife advises him against rejoining the band, to no avail. The group obtains instruments and equipment from Ray's Music Exchange, and Ray, "as usual", takes an IOU. As Jake attempts to book a gig, the mystery woman blows up his phone booth; once again, he is miraculously unhurt. The band stumbles onto a gig at Bob's Country Bunker, a honky-tonk in Kokomo, Indiana, by impersonating the country and western band booked. They win over the rowdy crowd, but run up a bar tab higher than their pay, and infuriate the Good Ole Boys, the band they impersonated. Realizing they need a big show to raise the necessary money, the brothers manage to book the Palace Hotel Ballroom, north of Chicago. They drive around Chicago promoting the concert, alerting the police, the neo-Nazis and the Good Ole Boys of their whereabouts. The ballroom is packed with fans, police officers and the Good Ole Boys. Jake and Elwood perform two songs, then sneak offstage, as the tax deadline rapidly approaches. A record company executive offers them a $10,000 cash advance on a recording contract - more than enough to pay off the orphanage's taxes and the IOU - and tells them how to slip out of the building unnoticed. As they escape through a service tunnel, they are confronted by the mystery woman: Jake's vengeful ex- fiancée. After her volley of M16 rifle bullets leaves them once again miraculously unharmed, Jake offers a series of ridiculous excuses that she rejects. When she looks into his eyes, though, she takes interest in him again and becomes distracted long enough for the brothers to escape in their car. Jake and Elwood race back toward Chicago, with dozens of state and local police and the Good Ole Boys and the Nazis in pursuit. They elude them all with a series of improbable maneuvers, including a miraculous gravity-defying escape from the neo-Nazis. Finally arriving at the Chicago City Hall building, they rush inside, followed by hundreds of law enforcement officers, firefighters and the National Guard. The brothers find the Cook County Assessor's office and successfully pay the tax bill but are arrested by the mob of law officers immediately after. In prison, the band plays " Jailhouse Rock " for the inmates.

Dima Nikitin, a plumber, is a municipal repair-crew chief living in an unnamed Russian town. Determined to improve his family's finances by attending engineering school, he is negatively affected by his cynical community. He lives with his hasty mother, apathetic father, and wife and son. When Nikitin discovers a leaky pipe in a building and goes outside to inspect a related crack in the wall, he notices the entire building is leaning. Determining the building will collapse within the next 24 hours, the compassionate Nikitin attempts to alert authorities: Arriving at a birthday party for Mayor Nina Galaganova, he realizes everyone is too intoxicated to understand the severity as they dismiss the validity of Nikitin's claim with various cynical jokes. They finally become concerned once they realize they will be publicly ruined after the collapse. They begin to criticize each other the corruption they all participate in until they are faced with the difficulty of abruptly trying to relocate the building's 820 residents. Galaganova sends Public Housing Inspector Fedotov and Fire Chief Matyugin to assess the damage with Nikitin. The officials accept that the building will collapse after Nikitin demonstrates the tilt by rolling a bottle off the building's roof. They report their findings to Galaganova and her political entourage who all realize that an evacuation of this scale would cause a financial review and reveal years of administrative corruption. Galaganova and Deputy Mayor Bogachyov decide to pin the expected building collapse on Fedotov and Matyugin. Nikitin, Fedotov, and Matyugin are told by Police Chief Sayapin that arrangements are being made for evacuation. The three men are put into a police van allegedly to meet Galaganova, but instead, they are driven to a remote location on the city outskirts. Fedotov and Matyugin realize that Galaganova wants to eliminate them and use them as scapegoats for the collapse. Fedotov pleads with the policemen to release Nikitin and they reluctantly agree, instructing him to leave the city with his family immediately. Matyugin and Fedotov are executed. As Nikitin attempts to leave town with his family, he realizes no one is evacuating the building. When his wife Masha scolds him for wanting to help the residents, who are "nobodies", he says, "We live like animals and we die like animals because we are nobodies to each other." He tells her to leave and, taking matters into his own hands, goes from door to door urging residents to leave before the building collapses. As the residents all gather outside, they soon become annoyed by the disruption and decide they do not believe him. The final scene shows Nikitin laying in a fetal position after the angry residents all attack and severely beat him.

In the early hours, con artist Juan successfully scams a cashier at a convenience store, and is apprehended by the staff as he attempts the same scam on a different cashier. Fellow con artist Marcos feigns being a police officer and takes Juan away from the store. Marcos requests Juan be his partner for the day, saying his has recently disappeared. Although reluctant, Juan agrees because his father, also a con man, is in jail and requires $70,000 to bribe a judge at his hearing. Later that day, the pair are presented an elaborate and lucrative scheme when Sandler, Marcos' elderly former associate, contacts him to help sell the "Nine Queens", a counterfeit sheet of rare stamps, to Vidal Gandolfo, a wealthy Spanish collector staying at the hotel where Marcos' sister, Valeria, works. Vidal will be deported from Argentina the following day due to corruption charges. Vidal meets with Marcos and Juan. Lacking sufficient time to properly authenticate the stamps, Vidal hires an expert who confirms their validity. Vidal offers $450,000 for the stamps, with the exchange to take place that evening. Outside the hotel, the expert tells Marcos and Juan he knew the stamps were forged and demands a bribe. The fake stamps are then stolen out of Juan and Marcos' hands by thieves on a motorcycle who, unaware of their value, toss them into a river. To salvage the scheme, Marcos and Juan approach Sandler's widowed sister Berta; her deceased husband owned the real stamps. She agrees to sell for $250,000. Marcos says he can put up $200,000 and asks Juan to contribute the remaining $50,000, but Juan becomes suspicious of Marcos since it is the exact amount of money he so far has saved. After visiting his father in jail, he ultimately agrees to the arrangement and the pair buy the real stamps. Marcos and Juan return to the hotel to meet Vidal. After finding out Valeria is Marcos' sister, Vidal says he will now only buy the stamps if he is able to have sex with Valeria. Valeria agrees, and says her price for doing so is for Marcos to confess to their younger brother, Federico, that Marcos cheated both Valeria and Federico out of their family inheritance. After he does so, Valeria spends the night with Vidal. The next morning, Valeria informs them that Vidal paid for the stamps with a certified check. On their way to the bank, an attempted mugging is revealed to be an attempted con by Marcos to cheat Juan out of his share; Juan reveals he hid the check and will hand it to Marcos as they reach the bank. Upon arrival, they see a crowd outside and learn the bank has failed due to fraud by the management, making the check worthless. Juan, looking disillusioned, walks away, while Marcos sticks around to see if he can find a way to still get the money. Juan arrives at a warehouse, where he greets the motorcycle thieves, Vidal, Sandler, Berta, and Valeria, who is Juan's girlfriend – revealing that the real con was to swindle Marcos out of $200,000, as revenge for all the times he cheated his family and his partners. It has been argued that the film draws attention to the endemic nature of corruption in Argentinan society, whilst demonstrating a national "desire to take action against the corrupt and greedy (embodied in Marcos) in the absence of a reliable justice system".

Carrying out his first order, inexperienced hitman Ray shoots a priest during confession, but accidentally kills an altar boy standing in the line of fire. He and his mentor Ken are sent by their boss, Harry, to hide in Bruges, where they are to sightsee and await further instruction. Ken finds the city beautiful and relaxing, while Ray is bored and hates it. They chance upon a film shoot involving a dwarf actor, which amuses Ray. Ray is attracted to Chloë, a local drug dealer moonlighting as a production assistant. He takes her to a restaurant, where he gets into an argument with a Canadian couple over smoking indoors and punches them. Chloë takes Ray to her apartment where they begin to have foreplay, but her ex-boyfriend Eirik appears and threatens Ray with a handgun. Ray effortlessly disarms the small-time criminal and fires the gun, loaded with blanks, in Eirik's face, blinding him in one eye. Chloë admits that she and Eirik rob tourists, but insists she had told Eirik that Ray was not a target. As Chloë drives Eirik to the hospital, Ray pockets the gun and helps himself to a handful of live rounds as well as Chloë's stash of drugs. He and Ken spend a debauched night with the dwarf actor, Jimmy, who takes cocaine and rants about a coming war between blacks and whites. Harry calls Ken and reveals that the trip was an attempt to give Ray a good experience before he dies. He orders Ken to kill Ray, on the principle that killing a child, even accidentally, is unforgivable. With a handgun supplied by Harry's local contact Yuri, Ken tracks Ray to a park and reluctantly prepares to kill him. Ray, however, distraught at his killing of the boy, prepares to kill himself with Eirik's loaded gun. Seeing this, Ken stops Ray, informs him of Harry's order and tells him to leave Bruges to have a fresh start. He gives Ray some money and puts him on a train to another city, while confiscating his gun to prevent a further suicide attempt. Ken phones Harry to tell him the truth, and Harry immediately sets out for Bruges, furious at the insubordination. He picks up a gun and a box of dumdum bullets at Yuri's, and Eirik, Yuri's son, learns of his intention. Meanwhile, police stop Ray's train in the Belgian countryside; they detain Ray for attacking the Canadians and escort him back to Bruges. Chloë bails him out and the two share a drink on the market square beneath the Belfry of Bruges. Meanwhile, Harry spots Ken at a café. As the two have drinks, Harry boasts that if he himself had killed a child, he would have immediately taken his own life. Ken argues that Ray is trying to better himself and deserves a chance at redemption, but Harry is not convinced. Ken suggests they ascend the bell tower for a shootout away from bystanders. At the top, Ken says he accepts whatever punishment Harry intends. A conflicted Harry cannot bring himself to kill Ken, so he shoots him in the leg as punishment for not killing Ray. Eirik crosses the market square and sees Ray and Chloë on a date. He runs up the tower to inform Harry, who is helping Ken down the stairs. Ken tries to disarm Harry, but Harry shoots Ken in the neck before rushing down the tower. Bleeding heavily, Ken drags himself back to the top of the tower and jumps from it to reach Ray first. Ken warns Ray with his dying breath, but his gun is broken during the fall, forcing Ray back to the hotel to retrieve his own. Harry chases Ray to the hotel; Marie, the pregnant owner, refuses Harry entry, even when he draws his gun. To protect the owner and her unborn child, Harry and Ray agree to continue the chase on a nearby canal. Ray jumps onto a passing barge, but loses Eirik's gun. Harry wounds Ray with a shot from a distance. Ray stumbles into the street where Jimmy's film is shooting; Jimmy is costumed as a schoolboy. Harry catches up and repeatedly shoots Ray with the dumdum bullets. One of the bullets hits Jimmy, blowing his head open. Harry mistakenly believes that he has killed a child and, despite protest from Ray, kills himself. As Ray is loaded into an ambulance, he reflects on the nature of hell, speculating that it is an eternity in the city of Bruges, and hopes desperately that he does not die.

The Brewster family of Brooklyn is descended from Mayflower settlers who "scalped the Indians " instead of the other way around, according to Mortimer Brewster. On Halloween day, Mortimer, a theater critic and author who has repeatedly denounced marriage as "an old-fashioned superstition", marries Elaine Harper, his neighbor and a minister's daughter. Before leaving for their Niagara Falls honeymoon, Elaine goes to her father's house to share the news of her marriage, while Mortimer informs his aunts, Abby and Martha, who raised him in the old family home. Mortimer's delusional younger brother, Teddy, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, resides with them. Frequently, while running upstairs, Teddy blows a bugle and yells "Charge!", imitating Roosevelt's 1898 charge up San Juan Hill. Searching for the notes for his next book, Mortimer finds a corpse hidden in the window seat. He assumes in horror that Teddy's delusions have led him to murder. Abby and Martha cheerfully confess to killing Mr. Hoskins, explaining that they minister to lonely old bachelors by ending their "suffering". They post a "Room for Rent" sign to attract a suitable subject for their "charity", then serve a glass of elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide. Including Mr. Hoskins, the aunts have murdered twelve men; the bodies are buried in the cellar by Teddy, who believes they are yellow fever victims at the Panama Canal. Teddy moves Mr. Hoskins from the window seat down to the cellar. To protect his aunts in case the bodies are discovered, Mortimer frantically leaves to file paperwork to have Teddy legally committed to the Happy Dale mental asylum. In Mortimer's absence, his older brother, Jonathan, arrives with his alcoholic accomplice, plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein. Altered by Einstein while drunk, Jonathan's face resembles Boris Karloff 's Frankenstein appearance. Jonathan is a serial killer with a body count of twelve, fleeing from the police, and intending to dispose of his latest murder victim, Mr. Spenalzo. Shortly after Jonathan and Einstein hide Spenalzo's body in the window seat, Mortimer returns; discovering the corpse, he demands that the pair leave. However, the two criminals reveal they have found Mr. Hoskins' body in the cellar. Mortimer rushes out to obtain a second signature for Teddy's commitment papers. Learning his aunts' secret and mocked by Einstein for their equivalent victim tally, Jonathan determines to increase his body count by killing Mortimer. Meanwhile, Mortimer visits Elaine, expressing his reservations about their marriage due to his family's insanity. When Mortimer returns, Einstein offers him a chance to leave, distracting him while Jonathan takes Spenalzo to the cellar. Mortimer decries the stupidity of characters in plays who are aware that they are in a house with killers but fail to realize the danger. Sneaking up from behind, Jonathan ties up and gags Mortimer. While Jonathan and Einstein argue about killing Mortimer, Officer O'Hara arrives in response to complaints from neighbors regarding Teddy's bugle blasts. After Einstein claims that Mortimer is enacting a scene from a play, O'Hara excitedly recites the plot of the play he is writing. Jonathan prepares to kill O'Hara but is knocked out by Einstein. O'Hara's partners arrive looking for the overdue O'Hara; mistaking an imminent arrest, Jonathan discloses the thirteen bodies buried in the cellar. Lieutenant Rooney arrives looking for the errant officers; recognizing Jonathan from "Wanted" posters as an escapee from an Indiana mental asylum, he arrests Jonathan, discounting his claim. When Mr. Witherspoon comes to take Teddy to Happy Dale, Abby and Martha insist on joining him. Einstein flees after signing the aunts' commitment papers. After Mortimer signs the papers as next of kin, the aunts inform him that he is not actually a Brewster; his mother was the family cook and his father was a chef on a steamship. Ecstatic, Mortimer rushes to find Elaine, who is horrified after discovering the corpses in the cellar. Before Elaine can exclaim about the bodies in the presence of others, Mortimer silences her by kissing her and whisking her off on their honeymoon.