In 1970, Nicholas Garrigan graduates from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. With dull prospects at home, he decides to seek adventure abroad by working at a missionary clinic in Uganda run by David Merrit and his wife, Sarah. After Garrigan arrives in Uganda, General Idi Amin overthrows President Milton Obote in a coup d'état. Amin gives a well-received speech, but Sarah is pessimistic. Garrigan is called to a car accident involving Amin and treats Amin's hand. During the incident, Garrigan takes a gun and shoots a mortally wounded cow when no-one else is willing to perform euthanasia. Initially hostile to Garrigan, Amin warms up to him after discovering he is Scottish due to his xenophilia for the Scots. Delighted by Garrigan's initiative, Amin exchanges clothing with him and subsequently invites Garrigan to serve as his personal physician and lead efforts to modernise the Ugandan healthcare system. While working for Amin, Garrigan becomes a trusted confidant and is entrusted with a wider range of duties, including matters of state. Despite being dismayed by acts of government repression, Garrigan accepts Amin's explanation that cracking down on political opposition will bring lasting peace to Uganda. Garrigan eventually learns that Amin has ostracized the youngest of his three wives, Kay, because she has given birth to an epileptic son, Mackenzie. When treating Mackenzie, Garrigan and Kay start to form a relationship. Eventually, Garrigan becomes disillusioned by Amin as he witnesses increasing amounts of paranoia, murders and xenophobia. He attempts to announce his intention to return home, but is rebuffed by Amin. While at a party, after doing his best to evade a go-go dancer who is assigned to become his lover, he and Kay have sex; and she says he must find a way to leave Uganda. Amin secretly replaces Garrigan's British passport with a Ugandan one to prevent him from escaping, which leads Garrigan to seek help from Stone, the local Foreign Office representative. Garrigan is told by Stone he will be secretly transported out of Uganda if he assassinates Amin, which Garrigan refuses. In 1972, Amin orders the expulsion of Asians from Uganda over Garrigan's protests. This creates a labor shortage that tanks Uganda's economy. Kay informs Garrigan that she has become pregnant with his child. Aware that Amin will murder her for infidelity if he discovers this, she begs Garrigan for a secret abortion. Delayed by Amin's command that he attend a press conference with Western journalists, Garrigan fails to meet Kay at the appointed time. Kay concludes she has been abandoned and seeks out a primitive abortion in a nearby village, where she is apprehended by Amin's forces. Garrigan finds her dismembered corpse on an autopsy table. Distraught, he decides to kill Amin. A hijacked aircraft is flown to Entebbe Airport by pro- Palestinian hijackers seeking asylum. Amin, sensing a major publicity opportunity, rushes to the scene, taking Garrigan along. At the airport, one of Amin's bodyguards discovers Garrigan's plot to poison Amin under the ruse of giving him pills for a headache. Garrigan is beaten by Amin's henchmen before Amin arrives and discloses he is aware of the relationship with Kay. As punishment, Garrigan's chest is pierced with meat hooks before he is hanged by his skin. Amin arranges a plane for the release of non- Israeli passengers, and the torturers leave Garrigan unconscious on the floor while they relax in another room. Garrigan's medical colleague, Dr. Junju, takes advantage of the opportunity to rescue him. He urges Garrigan to tell the world the truth about Amin's regime, asserting that the world will believe Garrigan because he is white. Junju gives Garrigan his own jacket, enabling him to mingle unnoticed with the crowd of freed hostages and board the plane. When the torturers discover Garrigan's absence, Junju is killed for aiding in the escape. The Entebbe incident irreparably ruins Amin's reputation in the international community, and in 1979 he decides to invade Tanzania, which counterattacks and captures Kampala, overthrowing him. He lives the rest of his life in exile in Saudi Arabia until his death in 2003.

The film portrays a wide-ranging conversation among three characters: Sonia, a Norwegian physicist who abandoned a lucrative career after discovering that elements of her work were being applied to weapons development, Jack, an American politician attempting to make sense of his recent defeat as a presidential candidate, and Tom, a poet, Jack's close friend, and a disillusioned former political speechwriter, while they wander around Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy. The film introduces systems theory and systems thinking, along with insights into modern physical theories such as quantum mechanics and particle physics. Political and social problems, and alternative solutions, are a focus of the film. However, the specific problems and solutions are not the primary concern; rather, different perspectives are presented through which these problems can be viewed and considered. Sonia Hoffman's perspective is referred to as the holistic, or systems theory, perspective. Thomas Harriman, the poet, recites the poem "Enigmas" by Pablo Neruda (based on the translation by Robert Bly) at the end of the movie, concluding the core discussion.

In the early 1980s, Ukrainian-American restaurateur Yuri Orlov witnesses a gunfight amongst the Russian mafia in his area of Brighton Beach. The incident inspires him to begin trafficking arms for personal profit. Through a contact at his father's synagogue, he acquires an Uzi and makes his first sale, eventually convincing his reluctant younger brother Vitaly to become his partner in crime. The two brothers get their big break with the Lebanese Civil War following the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. As he prospers financially, Yuri increasingly witnesses his activities directly enabling atrocities and war crimes, and is relentlessly pursued by Jack Valentine of Interpol; Valentine represents a unique and persistent threat to Yuri's business because he has a particularly strong moral compass and cannot be bribed or coerced into backing down. Meanwhile, an arms deal with a Colombian drug lord ends with the brothers being forcefully paid off with a large shipment of cocaine, to which Vitaly soon develops a severe addiction. Yuri checks him into a rehabilitation center and continues building his empire in his absence. He uses his profits to seduce and marry a supermodel named Ava Fontaine. She later gives birth to their son Nikolai. Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yuri flies to Ukraine and meets his uncle Dmitri, a Soviet general who is overseeing the distribution of the assets of the Soviet Armed Forces. As he illegally supplies Yuri and rebuffs his competition, Dmitri is killed in a car bombing orchestrated by rival arms dealer Simeon Weisz. Yuri then expands his empire to Africa and starts doing business with Liberian dictator André Baptiste. As a "gift" to honor their alliance, Baptiste captures Weisz and offers Yuri a chance to execute him; Yuri refuses, but Baptiste puts the gun into his hand and pulls the trigger. Yuri is disturbed by Baptiste's appetite for bloodshed, including his use of child soldiers, but remains undeterred from selling weapons and ammunition to him. Valentine tells Ava that her husband is an arms trafficker, prompting her to confront him. In response, Yuri starts trading timber and oil, but quickly becomes frustrated with the lower profits of legitimate work. In 2000, he returns to crime after Baptiste visits him in person and offers him the largest payday of his career: a stash of blood diamonds. Suspicious of his behavior, Ava tails Yuri, unaware that Interpol is tracking her, and discovers the shipping container that holds his arms-dealing office. Yuri takes Vitaly to Africa to help him during a deal with a Sierra Leonean militia, which is allied with Baptiste and is preparing to destroy a refugee camp. There, Vitaly watches as a woman and a child are hacked to death by Baptiste's fighters, and subsequently pleads with Yuri to cancel the sale. Yuri refuses, stating that the sale's impact on the refugees is not their concern and that Baptiste's men would kill them if they called off the deal. Unable to quell his distress, Vitaly steals a pair of grenades and destroys a truck full of weapons, also killing Baptiste's son, before he is gunned down by the Sierra Leonean militants. Yuri is spared and receives half of the diamonds in exchange for the remaining truckload. He pays a Liberian doctor to remove the bullets from Vitaly's body and forge a death certificate, but a missed bullet is found by U.S. customs officials, who promptly arrest Yuri. Ava takes Nikolai and leaves Yuri, while his family disowns him. Valentine detains Yuri in anticipation of his trial and conviction, but Yuri, while dejected, is unfazed. He tells Valentine that a high-ranking military officer will soon knock on the door and insist on his release. He explains that while he is a criminal, he sometimes serves the interests of the U.S. government by covertly arming the enemies of its enemies. Valentine hears a knock at the door, looks at Yuri for a moment, and rebukes him. Yuri is released and returns to the illegal arms trade. The film concludes with a statement that the world's largest arms suppliers—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France—are also the Permanent Five of the United Nations Security Council.

In the first section of the film, the cast and crew of a low-budget zombie film called True Fear are shooting at an abandoned water filtration plant. Director Higurashi, desperate for film success due to mounting debts and frustrated at the actors' work, arranges for a blood pentagram to be painted to revive real zombies per the plant's haunted past. The cameraman turns into a zombie and bites assistant director Kasahara, turning him into one as well. Actress Chinatsu, actor Ko, and makeup artist Nao lock the zombies out of the plant. Higurashi insists they continue filming using the real zombies. The sound engineer rushes out of the plant and is infected. Higurashi brings the zombified sound engineer back in for more footage, throwing him at the actors. Nao decapitates the zombified sound engineer and is splattered with zombie blood. Chinatsu, Ko, and Nao attempt to escape, but Higurashi facilitates an attack by zombified Kasahara while he films. Chinatsu is confronted by the zombies and saved by Ko. They reunite with Nao, who suspects that Chinatsu is infected. Nao attempts to kill Chinatsu and chases her, dispatching the zombies in the process. Chinatsu escapes to a roof, with Nao and Ko following. Offscreen, Ko kills Nao with an axe to save Chinatsu. Chinatsu thinks she is infected and runs away to a building with a pentagram painted on the outside wall. An unidentified zombie approaches Chinatsu and leaves. Chinatsu also exits the building, finding an axe before seeing Ko wandering on the roof. She approaches Ko to find that he has been zombified. Chinatsu confronts zombified Ko in a scene similar to the start of the film, and after being briefly interrupted by a mysteriously revived Nao, Chinatsu decapitates zombified Ko. Higurashi berates Chinatsu for going off script. Chinatsu kills Higurashi, and she ends the first section by standing on the blood pentagram in a trance-like state. The second section of the film is a flashback involving the personal lives of the fictional cast and crew of a production called One Cut of the Dead, a film-within-the-film of the same title (thus making True Fear a film-within-the-film within another film-within-the-film). Takayuki Higurashi, director of a TV drama starring alcoholic actor Manabu Hosoda, is approached by network executives to direct a low-budget zombie film in one take to launch the new Zombie Channel. He is initially reluctant, but accepts in hopes of reconnecting with his daughter Mao, a horror movie fanatic. Actors cast for One Cut of the Dead include idol Aika Matsumoto as Chinatsu, cynical actor Kazuaki Kamiya as Ko, Shunsuke Yamagoe as the sound engineer, and Hosoda as the cameraman. The One Cut of the Dead movie-within-the-movie is also revealed to be a live show, so no reshoots or delays are possible. The third section of the film depicts the chaotic shooting of One Cut of the Dead from behind the scenes. The actors cast as director and makeup artist could not make filming, forcing Takayuki and his wife Harumi to step in to fill their respective roles. During the shooting, Takayuki overacts his first scene by physically accosting Matsumoto. Hosoda passes out drunk and later vomits. Yamagoe's diarrhea leads to his character leaving the plant off-script. Dealing with these forces Takayuki and the other actors to start to improvise and make small talk. The main cameraman suffers a back injury and has to be replaced. Harumi goes off-script and attacks various real cast and crew during the scene of Nao chasing Chinatsu, forcing Takayuki to choke her out and later forcibly remove her from interrupting the ending scene between Chinatsu and Ko after she abruptly wakes up. The zombie who did not attack Chinatsu turns out to be a crew member giving instructions. The camera crane accidentally gets broken, forcing the real cast and crew to form a human pyramid in order to mimic a crane shot for the final shot, with Mao having to hold the camera standing atop Takayuki's shoulders. The faux-crane shot is successful, and the real cast and crew are elated at the successful filming. The final credits are shown over footage of the real-life filming by the One Cut of the Dead crew, including the faux-crane shot being taken from the top of a stepladder.

Finbar McBride, a quiet, unmarried man with dwarfism, deeply loves railroads and leads a solitary existence. He works in a Hoboken, New Jersey model train hobby shop owned by his elderly and similarly taciturn friend, Henry. He keeps to himself and is uncomfortable when people react to his size. When Henry dies, Fin learns that the hobby shop is to be closed and that Henry has bequeathed him a rural property with an abandoned train depot on it. He moves into the old building hoping for a life of solitude but becomes reluctantly enmeshed in the lives of his neighbors. Cuban American Joe Oramas operates his father's roadside snack truck while the elder man recovers from an illness, and artist Olivia Harris is trying to cope with the sudden death of her young son two years earlier and its ramifications on her marriage to David, from whom she is separated. Olivia's initial and second meetings with Fin involve her dangerously distracted driving. Cleo is a young girl who shares Fin's interest in trains and wants him to talk to her class about them. Emily, the local librarian, is a young woman dismayed to discover she is pregnant by her ne'er-do-well boyfriend. Joe, relentlessly upbeat and talkative, cracks Fin's reserve. The two take daily walks along the tracks, and after Olivia gives Fin a movie camera, Joe drives alongside a passing train so that Fin can film it. Joe and Fin sleep at Olivia's house after watching the footage and the next morning, meet a flustered, unannounced David. The trio's tentative friendship is threatened when Olivia descends into a deep depression and disappears. While Fin waits for Joe at a bar, Emily seeks solace in Fin, who realizes human interaction may not be wholly unpleasant. However, when Joe fails to show up and Fin tries to protect Emily from her boyfriend at a bar he pushes Fin aside, causing Fin to lapse back into his asocial behavior. The next day, Joe comes by to apologize, but a frustrated Fin tells him that he just wants to be left alone. Hurt, Joe takes his truck and leaves the train site. Soon after, Emily comes to apologize for the trouble earlier, and after she and Fin share a kiss, she spends the night with Fin after asking if she can "just sleep" there. Cleo asks Fin if Olivia is coming back; he replies that he doesn't know. Keeping an eye on Olivia's house, he sees her arguing on the phone with David and goes onto her porch. Olivia angrily tells him to leave. Fin spends the night drinking and, collapsing on the track, gets passed over by a train, unharmed but for his pocket watch. Fin walks to Olivia's home only to find she has attempted suicide. Olivia reveals that David is having another baby with a different woman. Fin tidies up Olivia's home while she recuperates in the hospital and reconciles with Joe. Fin finds the courage to talk to the schoolchildren about trains. Olivia, Joe, and Fin share a meal at Olivia's house, their conversation filled with some small talk and reconciliation. Olivia and Joe tease Fin about Emily, suggesting he see her again.

The documentary uses genuine footage and audio recorded at the time of the accident on the divers' voice communications equipment and helmet cameras, supplemented with interviews of several of the individuals involved, as well as some reconstructed footage, to tell the story of the accident. Chris Lemons, along with his colleagues Duncan Allcock and David Yuasa, were carrying out repairs 100 metres (330 ft) below the surface of the North Sea, supported by the support vessel Bibby Topaz. The vessel's dynamic positioning system, supplied by Kongsberg Maritime, failed. This caused the vessel to drift in rough seas, dragging the divers away from the area they were working and eventually snapping the umbilical tether that provided Lemons with heliox breathing gas, as well as hot water to heat his suit, power for his light, and a communications link to the bell and surface. He was left with only five minutes supply of breathable gas contained in the emergency gas supply cylinders he carried on his back. For reasons that are unclear to Lemons and his colleagues, but attributed in part to the cold water and having been breathing a gas mix with a high partial pressure of oxygen, Lemons survived for around 30 minutes while he was located by a remotely operated underwater vehicle and then by Yuasa, who was able to pull him back onboard the diving bell.

The Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball have difficulty fielding competitive teams due to low revenue and owners who are reluctant to spend money. General manager Billy Beane drafts and develops cheap, young, and talented players, but the Athletics lose the 2001 American League Division Series (ALDS) to the New York Yankees, baseball's richest and most successful team. For the 2002 season, Beane is given a paltry $41 million budget. Through free agency, three richer teams poach three of Beane's best players: Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen. Adding insult to injury, Giambi joins the Yankees. Beane is skeptical about traditional baseball scouting methods after the New York Mets drafted him in the first round of the 1980 draft —prompting Beane to decline a Stanford scholarship—only for Beane to have an unimpressive playing career. Beane tries to trade for the Cleveland Indians ' Karim García, but Cleveland refuses on the advice of team advisor Peter Brand, a Yale economics graduate who privately complains to Beane that Cleveland rarely takes his advice, and expresses a belief that baseball teams focus too much on individual players to have success. Intrigued, Beane asks whether Brand would have drafted him in 1980. After Brand reluctantly admits that he would not have drafted Beane until the ninth round, Beane hires Brand. Beane and Brand study sabermetrics, an unconventional scouting philosophy. Unable to afford more talented, expensive players, Beane and Brand focus on maximizing the team's on-base percentage (OBP) and compromise on skills like base stealing, defense, and batting average. They acquire undervalued players like aging David Justice, injured catcher Scott Hatteberg, and submariner Chad Bradford. Beane fires head scout Grady Fuson, who refuses to abandon his traditional scouting methods. A poor start to the season prompts the media and the team to question Beane's philosophy. Manager Art Howe, who is angling for a contract extension, disregards Brand's advice to put the players with the best OBP at the top of the batting order. Howe resists playing Hatteberg at first base, so Beane forces Hatteberg into the lineup by trading away Howe's favored first baseman Carlos Peña. Although Jeremy Giambi has good on-base skills, Beane decides that Giambi lacks the intangible qualities to succeed and trades him as well. Beane persuades team owner Stephen Schott to trust in the plan. With Cleveland performing poorly, Beane devises a trade for the Indians' star reliever Ricardo Rincón. The Athletics' performance improves, placing them on the verge of an AL -record-breaking 20th consecutive win. Although Beane rarely attends games, his daughter Casey persuades him to attend the next game against the Kansas City Royals. Oakland leads 11–0 when Beane arrives, but the Royals mount a furious comeback and tie the game. Hatteberg hits a walk-off home run to the Oakland fans' delight. Despite the celebration, Beane tells Brand he will not be satisfied until they have changed baseball by winning the World Series. The Athletics are the 2002 American League West champions but lose to the Minnesota Twins in the first round of division playoffs. A media analyst asserts that the Athletics lost because they lacked intangible qualities that cannot be measured with statistics. Later, Boston Red Sox owner John W. Henry offers Beane the largest contract for a general manager in history to take over the Red Sox organization. Beane discloses Henry's offer to Brand and says that their strategy failed. Brand shows Beane a video of batter Jeremy Brown, who hits a home run, but does not realize it. Sensing the meaning of the video and what Brand is trying to say, Beane thanks Brand. Beane drives while listening to a burned CD of Casey singing " The Show ", prompting him to cry. An epilogue reveals that Beane turned down the $12.5 million offer by the Red Sox, who used sabermetrics to win the 2004 World Series, while Beane has yet to win a World Series.

The film begins in 19th-century Saint Petersburg, and examines the life of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a middle-aged Russian nobleman. Slothful and seemingly unhappy, Oblomov spends much of the beginning of the film sleeping and being attended to by his servant, Zakhar. In an attempt to get him more active, Andrei Ivanovich Stoltz, a Russian / German businessman and close friend, frequently takes Oblomov along with him to social events. Oblomov is introduced to a cultured woman named Olga, a friend of Stoltz. When Stoltz leaves the country, Olga is left with the task of civilizing and culturing Oblomov while he lives nearby. Olga and Oblomov eventually fall in love, but upon Stoltz's return, Oblomov moves back into town, eventually severing ties with Olga. Stoltz and Olga eventually marry, and Oblomov subsequently marries the woman with whom he was living, Agafya Matveyevna Psehnitsyna. The two have a son, and although Agafya has two children from a previous relationship, Oblomov treats them both as if they were his own. Oblomov is satisfied with his life, although it "lack the poetic and those bright rays which he imagined were to be found."

Anna Sasaki is a 12-year-old girl with low self-esteem living in Sapporo with her foster parents, Yoriko and her husband. One day, Anna suffers an asthma attack at school. At the doctor's recommendation to send Anna to a place where the air is clean, Yoriko decides to have her spend summer break with Yoriko's relatives, Setsu and Kiyomasa Oiwa, who live in a rural seaside town located between Kushiro and Nemuro. Anna investigates an abandoned mansion across a salt marsh. She recognizes it, but the tide ensnares her and keeps her there until Toichi, an elderly fisherman, finds her. Anna sees a blonde-haired girl in the mansion. On the night of the Tanabata festival, she meets the girl, Marnie. The two agree to keep their meetings secret. Marnie invites Anna to a party at the mansion, where she sees Marnie dancing with a boy named Kazuhiko. Anna sketches Marnie while there. Anna meets Hisako, an older woman who paints. Hisako comments that Anna's sketches look like Marnie, whom she knew when she was young. A family moves into the mansion. During the move-in, Anna meets a girl named Sayaka, who gives her Marnie's diary that had been hidden in a drawer. Anna tells Marnie she found documents showing her foster parents are paid to care for her. She assumes that they only pretend to love her for the money and says she cannot forgive her biological family for leaving her behind and dying. Marnie shares how her parents are always traveling abroad, and how she is left behind with her cruel nanny. The maids bully her and threaten to lock her in the silo near the mansion. Anna leads Marnie to the silo to confront the latter's fear of it. Marnie conquers her fear, but begins referring to Anna as Kazuhiko. As a storm hits, Anna dreams of Marnie leaving and wakes up to discover her gone. Sayaka finds the missing pages from Marnie's diary, which include passages about Kazuhiko and the silo. She and her brother find Anna unconscious with a high fever. They bring her back to the Oiwas, where Anna confronts Marnie, intending not to forgive her for leaving her in the silo. Marnie says she is sorry for leaving her and she cannot see Anna anymore. Before they part, Anna tells Marnie that she loves her and forgives her. When Anna recovers, Hisako reveals Marnie's story: Marnie married Kazuhiko and had a daughter named Emily. Kazuhiko died from a sudden illness and Marnie committed herself to a sanatorium to cope with her loss. With no other family to care for her, Emily was sent to a boarding school. Marnie recovered, but as a preteen, Emily was resentful for her mother abandoning her. In her adulthood, Emily ran away from home to get married and had a daughter herself, but she and her husband were killed in a car accident when their daughter was just a baby. Marnie raised her granddaughter, who was placed in foster care after her death. At the end of the summer, Yoriko arrives to take Anna home and is delighted to see Anna with her new friends, Hisako, Toichi, and Sayaka. She gives Anna a photograph of the mansion and says it belonged to Anna's grandmother. When Anna sees Marnie's name written on the back, she realizes that she is Emily's daughter and Marnie's granddaughter, and knew so much of Marnie's story because she had heard it as a baby. This revelation brings closure to her identity. Yoriko tells Anna about the government payments but reassures her they have always loved her. For the first time, Anna calls Yoriko her mother. Anna says goodbye to her new friends and promises to visit again next summer. While driving away, she sees Marnie at the mansion window, waving goodbye to her.