Three young men arrive at a borstal by prison van: Carlin, who has taken the blame for his brother's theft of scrap metal; Angel for stealing a car; and Davis for escaping from an open institution. Each is allocated a room; Angel and Davis get single rooms, while Carlin is sent to a dormitory. Carlin, having been transferred for assaulting a warden, wants to keep a low profile. He meets and befriends Archer, an eccentric and intellectual inmate serving two years for workplace fraud who is intent upon peacefully inconveniencing the staff as much as possible through nonviolent resistance. Archer tells Carlin how his reputation is already known: Banks, the current "Daddy" (the inmate who controls the wing), is seeking Carlin for a fight to maintain his dominance over the wing. Banks's status appears to have been achieved by petty bullying and intimidation with the aid of his henchmen Richards and Eckersley and the passive assent of the staff. Carlin struggles to settle into the dormitory and, after witnessing the timid and vulnerable Davis hazed and attacked by Banks, is himself viciously beaten and headbutted by Banks in an unprovoked attack. Angel is brutally beaten up by Banks and Richards in his room. Davis is framed for theft of a radio by Eckersley and placed on report. Soon sentenced to arrest, the three newcomers find themselves in solitary confinement. Realising there is no hope of being allowed to serve his term as a borstal trainee in peace, Carlin exacts revenge and establishes dominance. Walking through the association (rec) room, he picks up two snooker balls and puts them in a sock. Using this improvised cosh on Richards, Carlin orders Eckersley to desist from informing, then goes to find Banks. Surprising him in a washroom he gives Banks a severe beating and then tells him who the "Daddy" of the wing now is: one who will 'kill him' if Banks ever interferes with his wellbeing. This ambush required cooperation and information from other inmates, showing how Carlin has soon won both respect and amity. Several days later, Carlin is challenged by an adjacent wing's Daddy whom he viciously beats but allows to continue to manage his wing under Carlin's overall control. Things improve for the inmates under Carlin, with victimisation of younger, weaker prisoners prevented, along with racially motivated violence. He keeps to the same seat at table in the dining hall, to where information and requests are directed, and with his associates such as Archer, Betts, Rhodes and Meakin – a contrast to Banks and his bullies. Carlin's status is recognised by the warders: he requests and gets a single cell in return for agreeing to be a responsible "natural leader" to the housemaster Mr Goodyear. Meanwhile, Meakin's friend Toyne learns through a letter from his in-laws that his wife has died. He becomes severely depressed, his despair being noticed by the warders, who scold him for "moping". Toyne slashes the arteries in his arms. He is transferred to an adult prison where, Meakin is informed by Dougan that he died after a second suicide attempt. Meakin is outraged by this and berates the staff for their negligence before storming out of the meeting. Dougan and Meakin are sent to solitary confinement whilst Carlin is instructed by Mr. Goodyear to keep the inmates under control, but while working alone in a greenhouse, Davis is gang-raped by three opportunistic youths who had requested a smoking break. Their supervising warder Sands sees what happens but reacts with a grin and then ignores the dishevelled state of the semi-undressed trio as they return. That night, a distraught Davis kills himself with a razor blade. While bleeding to death, he presses the button in his cell for help, but is ignored by warden Greaves. Davis's suicide is the last straw for the Borstal inmates. In the dining hall, having collected their food, the inmates sit silently, refusing to eat. Carlin initiates a full-scale riot in the dinner hall. Carlin, Archer and Meakin are later shown being dragged, bleeding and unconscious, into solitary confinement after having been beaten by the wardens. The Borstal's Governor later informs them the damage to the dinner hall will be repaid through lost earnings. The Governor then declares a minute's silent prayer for Davis.

A trio of Wayne County, Michigan, auto workers, two black—32-year-old Ezekiel "Zeke" Brown from Detroit, Michigan, and two-time ex-convict, 35-year-old Sam "Smokey" James from Mississippi, who spent time in Michigan State Prison —and one 33-year-old white, a Polish-American from Hamtramck, Michigan, Jerry Bartowski. The three men are fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and the union brass. Smokey is in debt to a loan shark over a numbers game, Jerry works a second job as a gas station attendant to get by and finds himself unable to pay bills including the orthodontics work that his daughter needs, and Zeke is in trouble with the IRS for tax evasion by filing returns showing fictitious children in order to reduce his family's taxable income. Coupled with the financial hardships on each man's end, the trio hatch a plan to rob a safe at United Auto Workers union headquarters. They commit the caper but find only $600 in petty cash. However, they do come away with a ledger which contains evidence of the union's illegal loan operation and ties to organized crime syndicates in Las Vegas, Chicago and New York. They decide to make an attempt to blackmail the union with the information. Meanwhile, a local loan shark has given Smokey advice on how to crack the safe in exchange for a percentage of the robbed proceeds. He gets busted by the police for his ties in an unrelated crime and attempts to get off or receive a softer conviction in exchange for spilling off the information about the trio's robbery & blackmailing. This information subsequently gets back to the union, and they begin to retaliate strongly by turning the tables on the three friends. Jerry experiences a near miss one evening when a pair of hired thugs show up at his house to attack his wife, but both get intercepted and beaten up by Smokey. The next day at work, a suspicious accident at the plant results in Smokey's death that is investigated as a work accident caused by negligent safety protocols, which Zeke and Jerry realize was a murder coordinated by the union bosses due to the incriminating knowledge they possess against the union. FBI agent John Burrows attempts to coerce Jerry into material witness or cooperating witness on the union's corruption, which would make him an adversary of his co-workers as well as the union bosses. At the same time, corrupt union bosses succeed in coopting Zeke to work for them with promises of upward mobility being promoted to shop steward and increased remuneration. Zeke, happy with his new duties and higher pay, pragmatically prescinds from seeking justice for Smokey's murder, as it would jeopardize his newfound standing within the ranks of the union. Jerry attempts to convince Zeke to take steps to avenge Smokey's death, but Zeke rebukes him, telling Jerry that nothing will bring Smokey back and that they should just move forward. Later that evening, two gunmen, hired by the mob, try to shoot Jerry in a drive-by shooting while traveling through the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel. This evolves into a chase where Jerry ends up crashing his car but is rescued by the police. Disgusted with Zeke's capitulation and terrified after an attempt on his life, Jerry decides to cooperate with the FBI and a United States Congress special Congressional committee that have been investigating the union. In the end, as Jerry enters the plant with federal agents, Zeke confronts him. Once friends, Jerry and Zeke now turn on each other as a heated discussion escalates into them attempting to attack each other, confirming the prescient earlier narrative that union corruption divides workers against one another.

Astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway arrives at the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The film's prologue reveals that she was encouraged to pursue science by her father, who died in her youth. In the film's present, Arroway studies radio emissions from space to detect signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. While in Puerto Rico, Arroway meets Christian philosopher, Palmer Joss. They have a brief romantic encounter, but Arroway does not contact him again. David Drumlin, the President's science advisor, cuts SETI funding, deeming it futile. Arroway is furious and instead pursues and receives financial support from S. R. Hadden, a reclusive billionaire industrialist. Arroway re-locates her team to the Very Large Array (VLA) radio dish observatory in New Mexico. Four years later, Arroway is about to lose access to the VLA satellite dishes. Before being evicted, she discovers a signal containing a sequence of prime numbers originating from the star Vega. Drumlin and the National Security Council, headed by Michael Kitz, arrive and attempt to federalize the facility. Meanwhile, Arroway's team detect a video embedded within the signal: Adolf Hitler 's opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The Hitler transmission was the first to penetrate the Earth's ionosphere and reach Vega. The project is put under federal security and its progress is monitored globally. It is discovered that the signal contains over 63,000 pages of encoded data, though it is undecipherable without a primer. Hadden breaches the government's computer systems and discovers the primer, providing Arroway the means to decode the data. It reveals schematics for what could be a transportation device for a single person. Multiple nations provide funding for the construction at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. An international panel is assembled to select a candidate to travel in the machine. An American is preferred, and Arroway is a leading candidate until Palmer Joss, a panel member, focuses on her atheism during the interviews. The panel selects Drumlin. During the first tests, a fanatical religious terrorist destroys the machine with a suicide bomb, killing Drumlin and several others. Hadden, terminally ill with cancer, is now residing on the Mir space station. He informs Arroway that the US government and Hadden Industries have secretly built a second machine in Hokkaido, Japan. Arroway, the only remaining American candidate, will use it. In Japan, Joss and Arroway are reunited. Joss explains he voted against Arroway because he feared she would not survive the experiment. Equipped with multiple recording devices, Arroway enters a pod which is dropped through the massive machine's counter-rotating rings. She seemingly travels through wormholes and observes a radio array-like structure at Vega, signs of civilization on an alien planet, and a celestial event. Arroway finds herself on a beach similar to her childhood drawing of Pensacola, Florida. An alien assuming her deceased father's appearance approaches. He explains that the aliens detected humans' radio emissions and judged it worthy of a first step into the cosmos. Arroway is soon sent back through the wormhole. Arroway regains consciousness inside the pod. The mission control team reports that the pod fell through the machine into a safety net and that the experiment achieved nothing. Arroway insists she was gone for hours, but her devices recorded only static. A Congressional Committee headed by Kitz speculates the signal and the machine were a hoax perpetrated by Hadden, now deceased. Arroway admits she cannot scientifically prove her experience and requests the committee accept her testimony on faith. Joss tells the press that he believes Arroway's claim, and they leave the hearing together. Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine discuss the confidential information and observe that Arroway's device recorded 18 hours of static. Arroway receives ongoing financial support for the SETI program at the VLA.

William Foster is stuck in Los Angeles traffic on a hot day. After his air conditioning fails, he abandons his car and begins walking, carrying his briefcase. At a convenience store, the Korean owner refuses to give change for a telephone call. Foster becomes agitated over the high prices. The owner grabs a baseball bat and demands that Foster leave. Foster takes the bat and destroys several merchandise displays before paying for a drink and leaving. Later, while resting on a hill, he is harassed by two Mexican gang members, who threaten him with a knife and demand his briefcase. Foster attacks them with the bat and takes their knife. The gang members, now in a car with two associates, find Foster using a payphone. They open fire, killing four bystanders, but not Foster. The driver crashes. Foster picks up a weapon they had, shoots the surviving gang member in the leg, and then leaves with their bag of weapons. Foster encounters a panhandler who harasses him for change. Foster gives him the briefcase, which only contains his lunch. At a fast-food restaurant, Foster attempts to order breakfast, but is told they have switched to the lunch menu. After an argument with the manager, Foster pulls a gun and fires into the ceiling accidentally. After trying to reassure the frightened employees and customers, he orders lunch, but is annoyed when the burger looks nothing like the one pictured. He leaves and tries to place a call from a phone booth, then shoots the booth to pieces after being hassled by someone who was waiting to use the phone. After Foster calls "home" again and states his intention to attend his daughter's birthday party, his ex-wife Beth notifies the police as she has a restraining order against him. Sergeant Martin Prendergast, who is on his last day of duty (having been coaxed into retirement by his wife), insists on investigating the events. Interviews with witnesses lead Prendergast to suspect that the same person is responsible for all of them. Foster's vanity license plate, which read "D-FENS", proves to be an important lead, because Prendergast remembers being in the same traffic jam as Foster. Prendergast and his partner, Detective Sandra Torres, visit Foster's mother, who is surprised to learn that he lost his job. They realize Foster is heading toward his former family's home in Venice and rush to intercept him. Foster passes a bank where a black man is protesting after being rejected for a loan. The man exchanges a glance with Foster and says, "Don't forget me," as police escort him away. Foster stops at a military surplus store to buy boots. The owner, a homophobic Neo-Nazi, diverts Torres when she comes in. After Torres leaves, the owner offers Foster a rocket launcher and congratulates him for the restaurant shooting incident. When Foster expresses distaste for the store owner's bigotry, the man becomes violent and attempts to turn him over to the police, but Foster stabs him then shoots him dead. Foster changes into tactical clothes, takes the rocket launcher, and leaves. Foster encounters a road repair crew who are not working and accuses them of doing unnecessary repairs to justify their budget. He pulls out the rocket launcher but struggles to use it, until a boy explains how it works. Foster accidentally fires the launcher, blowing up the construction site. By the time Foster reaches Beth's house, she has already fled with their daughter. He realizes that they may have gone to the nearby Venice Pier, but Prendergast and Torres arrive before he can pursue them. Foster shoots Torres, injuring her, and flees with Prendergast in pursuit. At the pier, Foster confronts his ex-wife and daughter. Adele is happy to see him, but Beth wants him to leave. Prendergast arrives and distracts Foster long enough for Beth to throw his gun into the ocean. Prendergast aims his gun at Foster and urges him to surrender, acknowledging his complaints about social inequalities but not accepting them as an excuse for his rampage. With nothing left for him, Foster tricks Prendergast into killing him. Having asserted himself, Prendergast decides to hold off retirement.

In September 1940, following a severe trade embargo imposed on a belligerent Japan by the United States a year prior, influential Japanese army figures and politicians push through an alliance with Germany and Italy, despite opposition from the Japanese navy, and prepare for war. The newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, reluctantly plans a pre-emptive strike, believing Japan's best hope of controlling the Pacific Ocean is to quickly annihilate the American Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. Air Staff Officer Minoru Genda is chosen to mastermind the operation, while his old Naval Academy classmate Mitsuo Fuchida is selected to lead the attack. In Washington, U.S. military intelligence has broken the Japanese Purple Code, allowing them to intercept secret Japanese radio transmissions indicating increased Japanese naval activity. U.S. Army Colonel Rufus S. Bratton and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Alwin Kramer monitor the transmissions. At Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel increases defensive naval and air patrols around Hawaii. General Walter Short orders aircraft concentrated on the airfield runways to avoid sabotage by enemy agents, while some planes are dispersed to other airfields on Oahu. Diplomatic tensions escalate as the Japanese ambassador to Washington continues negotiations to stall for time. Bratton and Kramer learn from intercepted radio messages that the Japanese planned to send 14 messages from Tokyo to their embassy in Washington, with orders to destroy their code machines after receiving the final message. Deducing that the Japanese will launch a surprise attack after the messages are delivered, Bratton tries to warn his superiors. However, Chief of Naval Operations Harold R. Stark is indecisive over notifying Hawaii without first alerting President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In contrast, Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall 's order to alert Pearl Harbor of an attack is stymied by poor atmospheric conditions that prevent radio transmission and by a warning telegram not marked urgent. The Japanese fleet launches its aircraft at dawn on December 7, 1941. Two radar operators detect their approach to Hawaii, but the duty officer, Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, dismisses their concerns. Similarly, the claim by the destroyer USS Ward to have sunk a Japanese miniature submarine off the entrance to Pearl Harbor is dismissed as unimportant. The Japanese achieve total surprise, which Commander Fuchida indicates with the code signal "Tora! Tora! Tora!" The damage to the naval base is catastrophic, and casualties are severe. Several battleships are either sunk or heavily damaged; General Short's anti-sabotage precautions allow Japanese aircraft to easily destroy American planes on the ground. In Washington, a stunned Secretary of State Cordell Hull is asked to receive the Japanese ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura. The 14-part message – including a declaration that peace negotiations were at an end – was meant to be forwarded to the Americans thirty minutes before the attack, but the Japanese embassy failed to decode and transcribe it in time. The attack started while the two nations were technically still at peace. The distraught Nomura, helpless to explain the late ultimatum and unaware of the ongoing attack, is rebuffed by Hull. The Japanese fleet commander, Vice-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo, refuses to launch a scheduled third wave of attack aircraft for fear of exposing his fleet to U.S. submarines. General Short and Admiral Kimmel finally receive Marshall's telegram warning of impending danger hours after the attack is over. Aboard his flagship, Admiral Yamamoto informs his staff that their primary target – the American aircraft carriers – were not at Pearl Harbor, having departed days previously. Lamenting that the declaration of war arrived after the attack began, Yamamoto notes that nothing would infuriate the U.S. more and concludes: "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Abandoned by her husband, recovering drug addict Kathy Nicolo, living alone in a small house near the San Francisco Bay Area, ignores eviction notices erroneously sent to her for nonpayment of business taxes. Assuming the misunderstanding was cleared up, she is surprised when Sheriff's Deputy Lester Burdon arrives to forcibly evict her. Telling Kathy that her home is to be auctioned off, Lester feels sympathy for her, helps her move out, and advises her to seek legal assistance to regain her house. Former Imperial Iranian Army colonel Massoud Behrani, who fled his homeland with his family, now lives in the Bay Area working multiple menial jobs. Living beyond his means, he maintains the façade of a respectable businessman so as not to shame his wife Nadereh, son Esmail, and daughter Soraya. He buys Kathy's house for a quarter of its actual value, intending to improve and sell it. Kathy is evicted from the motel she is staying in. With nowhere else to go, she spends the night in her car. Seeing the renovations and how the Behranis have settled in makes her determined to get her house back and she finds an attorney, Connie Walsh, who assures her that because of the county's mistake, they will return Massoud's money and restore the house to her. Massoud, having already spent money on improving the house, is unwilling to accept anything less than the higher value of the property, which the county refuses to pay. Connie advises Kathy that her only option is now to sue the county, though it will take months. Kathy tries to convince Massoud to sell back the house; he too advises her to sue the county and promises to sell her the house back if she comes up with the money, but she retaliates by beginning to harass him and his family in front of potential buyers. Desperate for help, Kathy falls easily into an affair with Lester, who abandons his wife and children and fashions himself as Kathy's protector. Under a pseudonym, Lester threatens to have Massoud and his family deported if he refuses to sell the house back to the county. Aware that Lester was acting on Kathy's behalf, Massoud reports this to Internal Affairs, who severely reprimand Lester, and furiously warns Kathy to leave his family alone. Kathy calls her brother Frank for help, but cannot bring herself to admit that she is homeless. Despondent, Kathy becomes drunk and attempts suicide in the driveway with Lester's sidearm. Massoud finds Kathy drunkenly unable to discharge the gun, and brings her inside. Kathy tries to kill herself again with pills, but Nadereh saves her. As she and her husband carry Kathy to the bedroom, Lester breaks in and sees Kathy unconscious. In a xenophobic rage, Lester locks the Behranis in their own bathroom, refusing to let them out until Massoud agrees to relinquish the house. Massoud offers to sell the house and will give Kathy the money in exchange for her putting the house in his name. Lester takes Massoud to the county office to finalize the transaction. Outside the office, Lester begins to manhandle Massoud and Esmail seizes Lester's gun and aims it at him. Massoud grabs Lester and begins calling for help from nearby police officers, but they misinterpret the situation and shoot Esmail instead of Lester. Massoud is arrested but is released after Lester confesses to his crimes and is detained. Massoud begs God to save his son but Esmail does not survive. Believing they have nothing left to live for and to spare his wife the pain of losing her son, Massoud kills Nadereh by lacing her tea with pills. He then dons his old military uniform, tapes a plastic dust cover over his head, and asphyxiates himself while clutching his wife's hand. Kathy discovers the couple and frantically attempts to resuscitate Massoud but she is too late. As the bodies of Massoud and Nadereh are taken away by paramedics, a policeman asks Kathy if the house is hers. After a long pause, she admits that it is not.

In 1949 Santa Rosa, California, Ed Crane is a quiet barber working in his brother-in-law Frank’s barbershop. His wife Doris, a bookkeeper, struggles with a drinking problem, and their marriage is strained. One day, a customer named Creighton Tolliver tells Ed about an investment opportunity in a new technology called dry cleaning. Tolliver persuades Ed to invest $10,000, but Ed, desperate for money, decides to blackmail Doris's boss, "Big Dave" Brewster, whom he suspects of having an affair with her. Ed anonymously demands money from Brewster, who embezzles funds from his department store to meet the blackmail demands. However, Brewster soon uncovers the scheme and confronts Ed. After Tolliver implicates Ed in the plan, Brewster beats him to death. In a desperate attempt to protect himself, Ed fatally stabs Brewster with a cigar knife in self-defense. Despite this, the police discover discrepancies in the store’s financial records and arrest Doris, suspecting her of both embezzling the money and murdering Brewster. Ed hires Freddy Riedenschneider, a Sacramento defense attorney, who arrives in town and immediately starts living lavishly on the defense fund Doris’s family raised by mortgaging the barbershop. On the day of Doris’s trial, she is found dead, having hanged herself in her jail cell. It is later revealed that Doris was pregnant when she died, though she and Ed had not been intimate for years. Ed’s world unravels further as Frank, now deeply in debt and consumed by grief, turns to alcohol. Amid the chaos, Ed begins spending time with Rachel "Birdy" Abundas, a teenage girl and friend of the family, listening to her play the piano. Ed fantasizes about launching her musical career and becoming her manager, but his dreams are crushed when a music teacher bluntly informs him that Birdy has no talent. On the way home, Birdy makes an overt sexual advance toward Ed, causing him to lose control of his car and crash. Ed wakes up in the hospital to find himself arrested for murder. Tolliver’s body, beaten and found with Ed’s investment contract, leads the police to believe that Ed coerced Doris into embezzling the money and murdered Tolliver when he discovered the scheme. With no resources left, Ed mortgages his house to hire Riedenschneider for his defense. However, during Riedenschneider’s opening statement, Frank attacks Ed in a fit of rage, and the judge declares a mistrial. With his defense in shambles, Ed throws himself at the mercy of the court, but the judge sentences him to death. While awaiting execution on death row, Ed writes his life story to sell to a pulp magazine. One night, he sees a UFO outside the prison, which he walks away from. As Ed is led to the electric chair, he reflects on his life and decisions, finding peace with his past. He regrets nothing and holds hope that, in the afterlife, he and Doris will be free from the imperfections of the mortal world.

Mrs. Brisby, a widowed field mouse, lives in a cinder block with her children on a farm owned by the Fitzgibbons family. She intends to move her family out of the field as plowing time approaches, but her son Timothy has fallen ill, making it impossible for him to travel. Brisby visits Mr. Ages, a friend of her late husband Jonathan, who diagnoses the illness as pneumonia, provides her with medicine, and warns that Timothy must stay inside for at least three weeks to recover. On her way home, Brisby befriends Jeremy, a clumsy but amiable crow, shortly before they narrowly escape the Fitzgibbons' cat, Dragon. The next morning, she discovers that the plowing has begun early. Although her neighbor, Auntie Shrew, helps disable the tractor used for the task, Brisby realizes she needs a better plan. Jeremy then takes her to meet the Great Owl, who at first rejects her, but upon learning she is Jonathan Brisby’s widow, tells her to visit a colony of rats living beneath a rose bush on the farm and seek out Nicodemus, their wise and mystical leader. Brisby enters the rose bush and encounters an aggressive guard rat named Brutus, who chases her away. She is led back in by Ages and is amazed to see the rats' use of electricity and other technology. Brisby meets Justin, the friendly captain of the guard; Jenner, a ruthless and power-hungry member opposed to Nicodemus; and finally Nicodemus himself. From Nicodemus, she learns that many years ago the rats, along with her husband and Ages, were part of a series of experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH for short). The experiments gave them human-like intelligence, enabling them to escape, as well as extending their lifespans. They are unable to live as typical rats would, however, and need human technology to survive, which they can get only by stealing, placing them at great risk of discovery. To avoid being at the mercy of humankind again, the rats have collectively decided to leave the farm and live independently in an area they refer to as Thorn Valley. Nicodemus then gives Brisby a magical amulet that will activate when the wearer is courageous. Meanwhile, Jenner, who wishes for the rats to remain in the rose bush, plots to eliminate Nicodemus. Out of respect for Jonathan, the rats agree to help her move her home. First, they need to drug Dragon so it can be done without interference. Only Brisby can do this, as the rats cannot fit through the hole leading into the house; Jonathan was killed by Dragon in a previous attempt, while Ages broke his leg in another. That night, she puts the drug into Dragon's dish, but the Fitzgibbons' son catches her. While trapped in a birdcage, she overhears a telephone conversation between the Fitzgibbonses' patriarch and the staff of NIMH and learns that the institute intends to exterminate the rats in the morning. Brisby then escapes from the cage and runs off to warn them. As a thunderstorm approaches, the rats begin moving the Brisby home, with the children and Auntie Shrew inside, using a rope and pulley system. Jenner sabotages the assembly, causing it to fall apart and crush Nicodemus to death. Brisby soon arrives to warn the rats about NIMH's arrival, but Jenner attacks her and attempts to steal the amulet as his reluctant accomplice, Sullivan, alerts Justin, who comes to Brisby's aid. Jenner mortally wounds Sullivan and engages Justin in a sword fight, but is killed by a knife in the back from the dying Sullivan. The Brisby home begins to sink into the muddy ground and Brisby and the rats are unable to raise it. All appears lost until Brisby's will to save her family suddenly gives power to the amulet, which she uses to lift the house and move it to safety. The next day, the rats, with Justin as their new leader, have departed for Thorn Valley as Timothy begins to recover, while Jeremy meets and falls in love with an equally clumsy female crow.

David Gale is a former professor on death row in Texas. With only a few days until his execution, his lawyer negotiates a half-million-dollar fee to tell his story to Bitsey Bloom, a journalist from a major news network. She has a reputation for keeping secrets and protecting her sources. He tells her his story, revealed through a series of flashbacks. In 1994, Gale is a successful intellectual and the head of the philosophy department at the fictional University of Austin (not to be confused with the present day and then non-existent University of Austin). He is an active member of DeathWatch, an advocacy group campaigning against capital punishment. At a graduation party, he encounters Berlin, a graduate student who has been expelled from the school. When Gale gets drunk, she seduces him, and they have rough sex. She then falsely accuses Gale of rape. The next day, he loses a televised debate with the Governor of Texas when he is unable to name any innocent people executed during the governor's term. Gale is arrested, but the charge is dropped when Berlin disappears. However, his marriage, career, and reputation are all destroyed. Gale struggles with alcoholism after his wife Sharon takes their son with her to Spain and disallows contact. Constance Harraway, a fellow DeathWatch activist, is a close friend of Gale who consoles him after his life falls apart. However, Harraway is discovered raped and murdered, suffocated by a plastic bag taped over her head. An autopsy reveals Gale's semen in her body and that she had been forced to swallow the key to the handcuffs, a Securitate torture technique which Gale previously wrote about. The physical evidence at the crime scene points to Gale, who is convicted of rape and murder and is sentenced to death. In the present, Bloom investigates the case between her visits with Gale. Gale maintains his innocence, claiming he and Harraway had consensual sex the night before her murder. Bloom comes to believe that the apparent evidence against Gale does not add up. She is tailed several times in her car by Dusty Wright, an alleged one-time lover and colleague of Harraway, whom she suspects was the real killer. Wright slips evidence to Bloom that suggests Gale has been framed, implying that the actual murderer videotaped the crime. Bloom pursues this lead until she finds a tape revealing that Harraway, who was suffering from terminal leukemia, had committed an elaborate suicide made to look like murder. Wright is seen on the videotape, acting as her accomplice, implying that they framed Gale as part of a plan to discredit the death penalty by conspiring to execute an innocent person, and subsequently releasing evidence of the actual circumstances. Once Bloom and her aide find this evidence, only hours remain until Gale's scheduled execution. She tries to give the tape to the authorities in time to stop the execution. She arrives at the Huntsville Unit just as the warden announces that the execution has been carried out. The tape is subsequently released, causing an uproar over the execution of an innocent man. Later, Wright receives the money that Bloom's magazine agreed to pay for the interview and delivers it to Sharon, along with a postcard from Berlin confessing that the rape accusation that derailed Gale's life and career was false. Sharon looks distraught, knowing Gale told the truth and that she effectively stole their child away from him. Later, a videotape labeled "Off the Record" is delivered to Bloom. This tape shows Harraway's suicide and Gale deliberately leaving his fingerprints on the plastic bag in the process. He then looks at the camera and ends the recording, leaving Bloom stunned with the truth that the couple deliberately sacrificed themselves to discredit capital punishment.

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.

Frank Towns is the pilot of a cargo plane flying from Jaghbub to Benghazi in Libya; Lew Moran is the navigator. Passengers include Capt. Harris and Sgt. Watson of the British Army; French physician Dr. Renaud, German aeronautical engineer Heinrich Dorfmann, and oil company accountant Standish. There are also several oil workers, including Trucker Cobb, a foreman suffering from mental fatigue; Ratbags Crow, a cocky Scot; Carlos and his pet monkey; and Gabriele. A sandstorm disables the engines, forcing Towns to crash-land in the Sahara. As the aircraft comes to a stop, two workers are killed and Gabriele's leg is severely injured. The radio is unusable, and they are too far off course to be found by searchers. Aboard the plane is a large quantity of pitted dates, but only enough water for 10 to 15 days if rationed. Captain Harris sets out to find an oasis. When Sgt. Watson feigns an injury to stay behind, Carlos volunteers, leaving his pet monkey with Bellamy. Harris and Towns refuse to allow the mentally-unstable Cobb to go along, but Cobb defiantly follows anyway and dies of exposure. Days later, Harris returns to the crash site alone and barely alive. Sgt. Watson discovers and ignores him, although others find him later. Dorfmann proposes a radical idea to build a new aircraft from the wreckage. The C-82 has twin booms extending rearwards from each engine and connected by the horizontal stabilizer. Dorfmann wants to attach the outer sections of both wings to the left engine and boom, discarding the center fuselage and both inner wing sections. The men will ride atop the wings. Towns and Moran believe that he is either joking or delusional. The argument is complicated by a personality clash between Towns, a proud traditionalist aviator who flew for the Allied Forces during the Second World War, and Dorfmann, a young, arrogant German engineer. Moran struggles to maintain the peace. Towns initially resists Dorfmann's plan, and is incensed when he learns that it anticipates Gabriele's death before the plane is ready to fly. Renaud sways his opinion, saying activity and hope will help sustain the men's morale. Dorfmann supervises the reconstruction, while Towns remains skeptical. The mortally-injured Gabriele dies by suicide, depressing the men; they consider abandoning construction of the new plane. Dorfmann, caught exceeding his water ration, justifies it, saying that only he has been working continuously. He promises to not do it again, but demands everyone work equally hard from then on. Standish dubs the aircraft " Phoenix ", after the mythical bird that is reborn from its own ashes. When a band of Arabs and Berbers camp nearby, Harris and Renaud leave to make contact, while the others remain hidden with the aircraft. The two men are found murdered the next day. In a dramatic clash that begins in a quiet moment, Captain Towns and Moran are stunned to learn details about Dorfmann's career as an airplane designer. Dorfmann readily tells them that he works for a model airplane company designing radio controlled model airplanes. When asked if he ever worked on the "real thing", Dorfmann calmly tells them no and proudly shows Captain Towns the biggest airplane he ever worked on in his company's sales catalog, which has less than a 2m meter wingspan. When Towns and Moran incredulously question how a toy designer believes he can design a real airplane and make it fly, Dorfmann suddenly becomes angry hearing the word "toy" and vehemently exclaims that toy airplanes and the model airplanes he designs are not the same thing. Dorfmann goes on to bitterly explain that the aerodynamic principles of model airplanes are the same as "the real thing", and in fact many model planes require more exacting designs than full-size aircraft because they don't have the advantage of a pilot flying them. With water and time running out, and having no other choice but to die of dehyration or die trying to fly the cobbled together airplane, Towns and Moran forge ahead without telling the others about Dorfmann's credentials even though they suspect Dorfmann is crazy. Phoenix is completed. Only seven starter cartridges are available to ignite the engine. The first four startup attempts are unsuccessful. Over Dorfmann's objections, Towns fires the fifth cartridge with the ignition off to clear the engine's cylinders. The next startup attempt is successful. The men pull Phoenix to a hilltop, and climb onto the wings. When Towns guns the engine, Phoenix slides down the hill and over a lake bed before taking off. After successfully landing at an oasis with a manned oil rig, the men celebrate, and Towns and Dorfmann are reconciled.